User manual VIA PLE133T BROCHURE

[. . . ] As a modular solution, both the North Bridge and South Bridge of the VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T are completely pin compatible with current products, such as the VT8233C South Bridge with integrated 3Com® Ethernet, and the VIA Apollo P4X266 North Bridge. V -MAP maximizes flexibility when designing a platform around the VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T chipset. This enables OEMs and SIs to save costs and speed up time to market by offering systems covering a full spectrum of system price points based on a single motherboard platform. High-Speed V-Link Hub Architecture: The VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T makes use of VIA's V-Link Hub Architecture, which provides a dedicated 266MB/s bus between the north and south bridge. [. . . ] High-Speed V-Link Hub Architecture: The VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T makes use of VIA's V-Link Hub Architecture, which provides a dedicated 266MB/s bus between the north and south bridge. Less advanced chipsets use the 132MB/s PCI bus as a link, which must be shared with all PCI peripherals. 400MHz Quad-pumped Front Side Bus Support: The VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T features a quad-pumped 400MHz Front Side Bus. Delivering up to 3. 2GB/s of bandwidth, the 400MHz Front Side Bus fully complements the high performance DDR memory subsystem and V-Link Bus. Optional External AGP Port: Providing up to 1GB/s in graphics bandwidth with external AGP4X technology, this feature offers OEMs and System Integrators flexibility in building systems to different configurations and allows for future upgrades. Additionally, it does not sacrifice AGP 2X compatibility like less advanced chipsets, allowing competitively priced graphics products to be integrated into Intel® Pentium® 4 processor-based Value PC systems. · · · This white paper describes the features of the VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T chipset as well as the combination of performance and cost efficiency that enables next generation computing for mainstream and value desktops, workstations, and servers based on the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor. Intel® Pentium® 4: Slow Uptake In The Corporate Market The Intel® Pentium® 4 processor has been positioned as the next mainstream PC platform for every segment of the marketplace. Migration from the existing standard, the Intel® Pentium® III, has been slow though, particularly in cost sensitive segments like the corporate and education markets. This reasons for this have been the high cost and perceived unreliability of RDRAM memory and the absence of integrated graphics platforms, making an Intel Pentium 4 processor system an expensive option for risk averse customers operating large networks. Page 3 10/30/01 VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T Chipset White Paper Integrated graphics chipsets enable OEMs and System Integrators to save cost by eliminating the requirement for an external graphics card. This makes them popular platforms for large corporate, government and education networks where the main functions are running are business productivity and data intensive applications where high quality 3D performance is not a priority. The Intel® Pentium® III combined with an integrated chipset like the Intel 815 or VIA ProSavage PM133 has become the de facto standard for this significant section of the PC marketplace. Integrated Graphics for the Intel® Pentium® 4 The VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T with the S3 Graphics ProSavage8TM core integrated into the North Bridge enables a mainstream upgrade to the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor platform by offering a combination of performance and value unmatched by existing chipset platforms . With such flexible memory support, the VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T gives OEMs and SIs maximum scalability to allow the construction of a full spectrum of high-performance and low-cost systems from mainstream consumer and commercial desktops to high-end workstations. Page 6 10/30/01 VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T Chipset White Paper VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T South Bridge The VIA ProSavageDDR PLE133T is capable of interfacing to any VIA V -Link South Bridge, including the VT8233, VT8233C and VT8233A, as well as future South Bridge designs. The VT8233 and VT8233C are highly integrated network-ready South Bridges that feature two high-speed ATA-100 IDE controllers (4 IDE devices total), six USB ports, 6 PCI slots, Low Pin Count (LPC) interface, and an I/O Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) and Advanced Power Management (APM) are also integrated into all VT8233 family products. The VT8233C adds an integrated 3Com® Ethernet MAC controller, providing high quality and ultra reliable 10/100 Mbps network support. All VIA V-Link South Bridges feature high quality, 6 channel AC/97 2. 2 sound support, as well as an MC/97 software modem interface. These features, along with 10/100 Ethernet and HomePNA support, can be harnessed through the use of an ACR (advanced communication riser) slot, or can be integrated directly onto the system board. The enhanced IDE controllers on the VT8233 and VT8233C support all Ultra-DMA 33/66/100 devices including as CD-ROMS, DVD-ROMs, and hard disk drives. ATA100 is the fastest IDE standard currently available on the market, and allows each separate IDE controller on the VT8233 and VT8233C to burst up to 100MB/s, for a total of 200MB/s of bandwidth. Each controller also supports up to two devices, for a total of four ATA-100 capable drives. In addition, with the introduction of the VT8233A South Bridge in Q4 2001, VIA will be first to support the new Ultra ATA-133 interface standard offering 33% more bandwidth per controller between hard drive and CPU, offering even more performance for data intensive applications like business productivity software. [. . . ] Each controller also supports up to two devices, for a total of four ATA-100 capable drives. In addition, with the introduction of the VT8233A South Bridge in Q4 2001, VIA will be first to support the new Ultra ATA-133 interface standard offering 33% more bandwidth per controller between hard drive and CPU, offering even more performance for data intensive applications like business productivity software. The three USB hubs offering a combined 36 Mbps of bandwidth on the VT8233 family provide additional flexibility by allowing the user to add up to six USB devices to the system, such as keyboards, mice, drives, digital cameras, scanners, speakers, modems, joysticks, and MP3 players. VIA V-Link Architecture VIA has developed V -Link technology to remove the PCI bus as the bottleneck in inter-chip communication. [. . . ]