Albatron unveiled today its new mainboard based on an ALi core-logic for Intel Pentium 4 processors, dubbed ALi M1683. This is the first actual design win for ALi in the field of chipsets for the past couple of years, as no mainboard powered by an ALi core-logic made it into the market in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Surprisingly, Albatron brands its new mainboards as PX848 Like and PX848 Like Pro, using the PX848 model family number already comprised by Albatron’s i848P-based platforms. Customers should keep their eyes open, as even though ALi M1683 has quite some similarities with i848P, it works with different drivers and may offer different performance.

ALi M1683 North Bridge supports Intel Celeron, Intel Pentium 4 or Intel Pentium M CPUs with 400, 533 and 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, as well as different types of single-channel memory, including PC2100, PC2700, PC3200 and even PC133. In general, the core logic from ALi competes with Intel’s 848P, VIA’s PT800 or SiS648FX and is aimed on a cost-effective products for price-conscious markets.

Specifications of the Albatron PX848 Like and PX848 Like Pro are as follows:

• Supports Socket 478 Pentium 4/Celeron processors with 400/533/800MHz FSB with 3.20GHz clock-speed and above;
• Can take advantage of the CPUs with the Hyper-Threading technology enabled;
• ALi M1683 North Bridge with ALi M1563 I/O controller;  
• 3 DIMM slots for up to 2GB of PC2100, PC2700 or PC3200 DDR SDRAM memory;
• 5 PCI and 1 AGP 8x slot;
• 2-channel ATA-33/66/100/133 integrated controller;
• 6 USB 2.0 ports;
• 10/100Mb/s Ethernet adapter from 3Com (for Pro version);
• 6-channel audio solution with SPDIF support;
• Adjustable CPU frequency by 1MHz increment, adjustable Vcore, Vagp, Vmemory for overclocking, Watch Dog Timer (auto-reset system when it can not handle overclock configurations), AGP protection);
• ATX Form Factor.

Actual availability timeframe or pricing of the products have not been declared so far.

Unfortunately, it is hard to make predications about Albatron PX848 Like-series availability. As for the pricing, I would expect the parts to be cheaper compared to Intel-based products and may be even cheaper than comparable devices powered by SiS or VIA, as ALi core-logic sets have historically been quite inexpensive.