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Integrated Graphics for Low-Cost Systems
VIA also announced two chipset with integrated graphics. Currently, the PM133 (VT8605) is available for Intel based systems. This one is a simple Apollo Pro 133A that has been enhanced by the 3D-graphics of S3's Savage 4. The KM133 (VT8365) is based on the KT133 and comes with the same graphics logic.
Both chipsets will be finally getting DDR support, but a release date is not known so far.
DDR Competition from AMD and ALi
AMD and the Acer Laboratories (ALi) are also working on chipsets with support for the new memory. AMD is of course not working on a chipset for Intel processors but on a product for Duron or Athlon CPUs. Gigabyte showed the first working AMD-760 motherboard sample in June at Computex. The chipset will be released very soon.
Two products will be released by ALi this fall as well: The ALiMAGiK-1 for Athlon and Duron processors and the Aladdin Pro 5 for Celeron or Pentium III platforms. Each will come with DDR-support.
VIA's Common Problem: Average Memory Performance
Even two years after the initial release of Intel's 440BX chipset, the latest SDRAM chipset of VIA is not able to reach BX-performance. Both the i815 and the 440BX chipset are clearly superior regarding memory performance. At 133 MHz FSB, Intel's BX is overclocked but still the fastest chipset with PC133 SDRAM support.
In theory the memory transfer rate of DDR-SDRAM is about twice as fast as traditional SDRAM. We expect an overall system performance increase of up to 20% as long as all other hardware remains unchanged. This would give DDR-systems a rather scary edge over Intel's Rambus-solutions i820 and i840.