Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
VIA Chipsets
VIA Technologies produced a number of chipsets for Pentium 4 processors in its P4X, P4M, PT8 and
PM8 series, as well as South Bridge chips (VT series). The PT8 and PM series also supported Intel's
Core 2 processors. Although VIA Technologies still lists a wide range of chipsets on its website
(
www.via.com.tw
)
, the website states: “*Note: VIA no longer sells some or all of these chipsets.”
For a comparison of VIA Technologies' chipsets for Pentium 4, see “VIA Chipsets,” in Chapter 4,
“Motherboards and Buses,” of
Upgrading and Repairing PCs,
19
th
Edition, found in its entirety on
the DVD packaged with this topic.
NVIDIA Chipsets for Intel Processors
Although NVIDIA is not licensed to produce chipsets for the Intel i-series Core processors, it offered
a wide variety of chipsets for Intel processors from the Pentium 4 through the Core 2 Extreme series
until withdrawing from the business in 2010. The final offerings included the nForce 600 and nForce
700i series, and the GeForce 7 and GeForce 9000 series with integrated video.
The 600i series included support for Gigabit Ethernet, DDR2 memory, PCIe 1.x, SATA and PATA
drives with RAID support, and HD audio. Some models also included support for two-way SLI.
The 700i series included support for Gigabit Ethernet, two or three-way SLI, SATA and PATA
drives with RAID support, and PCIe version 2.0. DDR2 or DDR3 memory was supported, depending
upon the specific chipset in use.
The GeForce 9000 series included support for DDR2 or DDR3 memory, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA
3Gbps, HD Audio, and DirectX 10 graphics.
The GeForce 7 series was based on the nForce 600 series and supports DDR2 memory, DirectX 9.0
Shader model 3 graphics, PCIe x16 and x1, HD Audio, and RAID. Most models supported Gigabit
Ethernet.
Chipsets for AMD Processors
AMD took a gamble with its Athlon family of processors. With these processors, AMD decided for
the first time to create a chip that was Intel compatible with regard to software but not directly
hardware or pin compatible. Whereas the K6 series would plug into the same Socket 7 that Intel
designed for the Pentium processor line, the AMD Athlon and Duron would not be pin compatible
with the Pentium II/III and Celeron chips. This also meant that AMD could not take advantage of the
previously existing chipsets and motherboards when the Athlon and Duron were introduced; instead,
AMD would have to either create its own chipsets and motherboards or find other companies that
would.
The gamble has paid off. AMD bootstrapped the market by introducing its own chipset, referred to as
the AMD-750 chipset (code-named Irongate). The AMD 750 chipset consists of the 751 system
controller (North Bridge) and the 756 peripheral bus controller (South Bridge). AMD followed with
the AMD-760 chipset for the Athlon/Duron processors, which was the first major chipset on the
market supporting DDR SDRAM for memory. It consisted of two chips—the AMD-761 system bus
controller (North Bridge) and the AMD-766 peripheral bus controller (South Bridge). Similarly,
AMD established a new standard chipset architecture for its line of 64-bit processors—the Athlon 64
and Opteron—by developing the AMD-8000 chipset. AMD's pioneering efforts inspired other
companies, such as VIA Technologies, NVIDIA, SiS, and ATI (now part of AMD) to develop
