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VIA PT Series: VIA PCI Express for Intel

 by Wesley Fink on January 31, 2005 12:01 PM EST
25 Comments | Add A Comment
25 Comments

PT894 & PT894 PRO

The 894 chipset family is aimed at the computer enthusiast.

While it supports PCI Express graphics only either regular DDR or DDR2 or both can be combined with the 894 and 894 Pro chipsets. The memory choice is up to the manufacturer. The only memory choice for the high-end 925x/xe chipsets is DDR2, and VIA believes many users would like the opportunity for 925x level performance using DDR memory.

The 894 provides a single x16 PCI Express graphics slot with 18 lanes on the 894 chipset. It can be combined with the 8237 southbridge for lower cost, or the new 8251 southbridge, which can provide 2 more PCIe lanes for a total of 20.

The Pro version increases the northbridge PCI Express lanes to 20 - all dedicated to PCIe Graphics in an x16/x4 configuration. The 894 Pro would be normally combined with the new 8251 southbridge, which adds 2 more PCIe lanes, bringing the total PCIe lanes in this configuration to 22.

The 894 and 894 Pro differ only in the graphics capability, with the Pro version able to run two PCI Express cards driving up to 4 monitors. This is not the same as the SLI solution provided by the nVidia chipset for the AMD Athlon 64. SLI combines the capabilities of 2 PCIe cards in alternate frame rendering, while the VIA Intel solution merely supports two PCIe video cards running at the same time - one, a full x16 and the other, x4. VIA calls this feature "Video GFX".

The emphasis in Video GFX is multi-monitor support, which can be useful in many different system configurations.
  • PCI Express x16 Lane for primary graphics display
    • Games
    • Advanced Rendering
  • PCI Express x4 Connection for secondary displays
    • Toolbars
    • Monitoring
    • Information
The ability to run 3 or 4 monitors off two PCI Express cards gives the user tremendous flexibility in creating a 3 or 4 multi-monitor display.

PT880 PRO: The VIA 8251 South Bridge
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  • indianguy - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link

    I may be wrong about hard disk bottleneck but these north bridges wont make it big anyway . Nforce 5 for intel pentium 4 for is about to be released soon and it wont be a paper launch like this one. It will kick ass of all other pentium chipsets. See the case of KT890 and nforce 4. Via made so much noise about being first for AMD cpu , but never made it while nforce 4 is everywhere.

    At the same time , i should also say that these north bridges made great choice for people upgrading old computers like socket 478 , williamette and northwood . I still have one old pentium 3 with via cle 266 chipset in biostar motherboard, where Via gave a new lease of life to my old pentium 3. But apart from that i wont use or reccomend anyone buying Via.

  • Cygni - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link

    little to now = little to no

  • Cygni - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link

    I dont agree at all that hard disc performance is whats holding back PC performance. Maybe for read/write heavy apps... but for gaming and general use, HD is hardly the problem, imho. Users these days have gobs of RAM which keeps frequent disc access way down.

    And theres lots of evidence that HD's arent the bottleneck in gaming. Moving from an ATA 133 drive to a SATA 150 drive barely gives any boost at all. Even moving from ATA 100 to SATA 150 shows little boost at all. Same with using Raptors, little to now increase in FPS. Loading times? Yup. Install times? Deffinitly... but overall performance? I just cant agree.

  • indianguy - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link

    This is just a paper launch. Hard disc performance is the main bottleneck nowadays in PC performance. Anyone buying motherboard today without NCQ and sata 2 will be very foolish. Until the 8251 (or 8239) southbridge from via comes , these northbridges wont do any good. Better buy a nforce 4 with sata 2 and sata 2 capable drive from hitachi rather than waste money in these obsolete south bridges and ultra v interconnects from via. By the time 8251 south bridge is actually released by via , next gen of 945/955 chipsets with sata 2/ncq will actually be released by intel making these chipsets only sold by no name mothorboard makers who sell only on price not features . Via makes big noise with no actual performace or product availability . No wonder its running knee deep in losses all these years .

  • Wesley Fink - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link

    #19 - We carried the overclocking as far as we could with the somewhat limited options available on the Reference board. The overclocking results are at the bottom of page 6.

  • Googer - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

    #18 we all know the odd are in favor of AMD winning that battle. 10-1.

  • Azsen - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

    Have you tried to overclock these boards, see what they are capable of?

  • Dualboy24 - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

    Well I hope this will help push the 775 boards into a reasonable price range with the support for AGP and PCI-E. This may increase the number of buyers for this platform... but right now I assume most enthusiasts are goinng AMD for the performance and the charts on the review do show why.

    Looking forward to the next big clash of the titans.... Dual Cores anyone?

  • Regs - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

    Wow would I love to see this for the AMD CPU's as well. It will dramatically help PCI-Express melt in to the market.

  • Cygni - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

    Impressive stuff from VIA. Should do wonders for their marketshare in the P4 market, im thinking. VIA is already doing quite well in S939 with the K8T800Pro, but its going to lose some when NF4 hits in force.
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