X-bit labs

VIA PT880 Preview: Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL Mainboard in Our Lab (page 3)

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 09/09/2003 | 12:14 PM ]

Thus, utilizing ordinary DDR SDRAM chips and the common 184-pin interface, QBM technology allows creating modules of a twice-higher bandwidth. First QBM modules to ship will be based on DDR266 chips and their effective bandwidth (the data-transfer speed) will equal that of DDR533 modules. You should note however that the latency of QBM533 modules is going to be somewhat higher than of DDR533 SDRAM. For example, it will be 4 cycles for QBM533 based on DDR266 chips with CL2. Compare this to overclocker DDR533 SDRAM modules available in the market that can work at CL3. This goes for other timings, too.

VIA PT880 can accept QBM533 SDRAM into the both channels of its memory controller. In this case, the total effective bandwidth of the dual-channel QBM533 memory subsystem will reach a fantastic peak of 8.5GB/s.

Yet another innovation packed into VIA PT880 is the high-speed Ultra V-Link bus for communication between the chipset’s Bridges. This bus provides a bandwidth of 1066MB/s and thus helps all the stuff integrated into the South Bridge to run faster. The South Bridge included into PT880 is the VIA VT8237 chip we already know from the VIA KT600 chipset. Just to remind you, here is the list of its features:

• Two Serial ATA-150 ports;
• Two ATA-133 ports;
• RAID 0, 1, 0+1 support;
• Eight USB 2.0 ports;
• 10/100Mb network controller (MAC);
• Six-channel AC’97 sound.

Overall, VIA PT880 comes fully prepared for a fight with the most advanced chipsets from Intel, i865PE and i875P: