The Inquirer wrote that VIA will be launching its KT333 chipset for Athlon systems this week, to be more exact on January 17 (which also got confirmed by our own reliable sources). According to The Inquirer, VIA KT333 will:

• Support PC2700 DDR SDRAM;
• Feature VT8223A South Bridge supporting ATA/133 interface;
• Support AGP 8x;
• Have V-Link bus between the Bridges with 533MB/sec bandwidth.

Frankly speaking, this info is pretty strange. If the support of ATA/133 and PC2700 is more or less evident, then such features as AGP 8x and V-Link bus with 533MB/sec bandwidth seems to be a bit too self-confident. According to the data we received before, AGP 8x support and faster V-Link bus will be implemented only in VIA KT333A, which is due a bit later, namely, in the end of Q1 2002. Of course, we would prefer to hope for the better, but VIA seems very unlikely to have changed its plans so drastically. Especially, since VIA sticks very persistently to the “pseudo-new” chipsets strategy lately.
It’s clear that this product is a direct competitor to SiS745, which is also expected to be launched any minute. The mainboards built on these two new chipsets are most likely to start selling almost simultaneously, especially since VIA and SiS have been shipping their chipset samples to the mainboard makers for a long time now, so that many of them have already made the first mainboard samples ready.
Which of the upcoming solutions appears faster is still hard to say. VIA KT333 boasts ATA/133 support, but SiS745 features faster bus between the chipset Bridges. To tell the truth, we assume these differences to be not enough for a final verdict. Anyway, time will cross all t’s.