VIA Hardware has put up VIA Apollo PX266 Preview. We have already heard quite a lot about this chipset designed to support Intel Pentium 4, however, now there appeared some new cool details about it. Here is a quote from the article:

The PX266 consists of the VT8653 northbridge and VT8233 southbridge. Also, the VPX PCI controller can be included, which provides an interface for 64-Bit PCI devices. This interfaces through the 233 southbridge, which can be configured with either a 8 bit/266MB/s V-Link bus, or a 16Bit /533MB/s V-Link bus.
The 233 southbridge is VIA’s standard DDR/V-Link southbridge, with support for ACR, 6 USB ports, ATA100, and integrated 10/100 LAN. Later, a new southbridge compatible with the full range of VIA DDR northbridges will hit the market with an integrated USB2.0 controller. This southbridge will go by the model number VT8235.

Also VIA Hardware reports that PX266 will support both: Willamette and Northwood Pentium 4 processors, and 133MHz FSB, which means that it will support 533MHz Quad-pumped bus. This bus is very likely to be implemented in Northwood core. Px266 may be used not only in single-processor systems but also in dual-processor ones based on two Northwood. So, VIA Apollo PX266 promises to be one of the most functional chipsets for Pentium 4. As we have already told you, this chipset will first be announced at CeBIT and the first mainboard based on it are expected to hit the streets only in Q4 2001.
VIA is going to also make an integrated solution based on PX266. It will be called PM266 and will be the first chipset to feature a new Paramount graphics core. Here is a quote from VIA Hardware stating some Paramount specs:

• Single pixel, trilinear, dual texture, single cycle 3D pipeline
• 150MHz+ Engine Clock
• 64-bit DDR memory Interface
• Improved Motion Video Architecture
• DuoView+ Capability
• Advanced LCD Panel Support
• Integrated TV-out solution
• Advanced Power Management

I think that if you are interested in the tendencies of the chipset market especially those connected with Pentium 4, then you shouldn’t miss this preview.