VIA KT333 Put To The Test: 18 Motherboards Compared

Dilemma Of The VIA KT333: Still No USB 2.0 Support

To get to the point: all 18 motherboards in the test bed were indeed equipped with the VIA KT333 chipset, but the USB 2.0 function has not yet been integrated in the Southbridge of the chipset. In practical terms, this means that pins of the Northbridge and the Southbridge of its predecessor, VIA KT266A, are compatible to the KT333, so a new board layout is not required. However, in order to enable USB 2.0 functionality, an additional chip must be placed on the board, since the latest VIA Southbridge, the VT8233A, does not offer this feature yet. In any case, this modification involves a completely new motherboard design. Numerous manufacturers represented in this comparison have adapted the design in order to make room for the USB 2.0 chips or other features such as RAID, network, FireWire or sound functionality.

Comparison: VIA KT333 Vs. KT266A

Essentially, VIA had just made the big step from KT266 to KT266A: through the introduction and optimization of the memory interface, this chipset gained significantly in performance. This fact was proved in our previous test DDR333 For Athlon: VIA KT333 vs. KT266A . For the VIA KT333, this means that only the memory clock was increased from 133 MHz to 166 MHz for DDR333. An Ultra DMA/133 feature was added, for which Maxtor is the only one to offer hard disks that correspond to this transfer protocol. Currently, there are disks with a data capacity of 160 GB and an ATA/133 interface. The mechanics are the same, so the well-known Ultra DMA 66 cable with 80 pins (an increased number of grounded pins) can continue to be used.

The table above lists all of the chipsets that are currently available for the AMD platform (Socket 462) with DDR SDRAM support. Older chipsets with SDRAM support (such as the VIA KT133A) are not included here, because boards with these chips haven't been produced for a while now, or are no longer available on the market.