VIA's New Chipsets: PT880, PT894, PT894 Pro

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis

Jan. 31, 2005

Specifications

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Performance

VIA PT880 Pro Performance

VIA has done in-house testing to compare their chipsets to the competition. Of course, these results should be taken with a grain of salt. The chart below shows a PT880 Pro system first with PCI-Express graphics, then AGP graphics, compared to a 925 system with PCI-Express graphics and a 865 system with AGP graphics. More detailed specifications can be found under the graph.

This next chart displays the same systems benchmarked with Comanche, Aquamark 3 and Doom 3.

While this is in-house testing done with drivers that have yet to mature, the PT880 Pro seems to be doing well, managing to keep up with both the 915 and 865 systems.

VIA PT894 Performance

The chart below compares a system using the PT894 chipset with DDR and DDR-II with 915 and 925 systems with DDR and DDR-II.

This next chart displays the same systems benchmarked with Comanche, Aquamark 3 and Doom 3.

The PT894 drivers, like the PT880 Pro, still need some time to mature, but for preliminary testing, the new chipsets look like they are doing quite well. While the PT894 didn't fare so well during the synthetic benchmarking, it recovered nicely in the game benchmarks.

Conclusion

Most motherboard manufacturers are going to be releasing products using VIA's new PT chipsets. These should be showing up in February and will hopefully hit the shelves in March. Motherboards utilizing the PT880 Pro should be out sometime in February while motherboards using the PT894 and 894 Pro chipsets should be out towards the end of February to early March. As for pricing, the PT880 Pro will be priced competitively with the current Intel 865 solutions on the market while the PT894 will be priced to compete with the current Intel 915 boards and the PT894 Pro competing with 915/925 boards. Generally speaking, VIA's entry into the Intel/PCI-Express/DDR2 market is a welcome one, and will hopefully be providing some awesome competition along with lower prices.

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Page 4 of 4

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: VIA's Four-Tier Solution
Page 3: The New Chipsets
Page 4: Performance / Conclusion

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