[ On Thu, October 23, 1997 at 22:39:06 (-0700), Michael L. VanLoon wrote: ]
> Subject: VIA VP2 chipset
>
> Just an FYI...  This might especially be of interest to those wishing
> to minimize their support of Intel.
> 
> I recently bought a new Socket-7 (Pentium) motherboard which uses the
> VIA/Apollo VP2 chipset -- the FIC PA-2007.  It's currently listed as
> the fastest Socket-7 motherboard on Tom's Hardware Page.  I believe
> the VP2 was also at one point known as the AMD 640 PCI chipset, as
> well -- but I may be mistaken on that point.

Any comments on the VP3 and/or the FIC PA-2012?

I've found since that since last fall when this thread was last active
that all of the VIA-based ATX motherboards with at least three DIMM
sockets and with at least 1MB cache are all VP3 boards (which basically
means they're even faster than the VP2 ones and have AGP ports).

If I can find ECC SDRAM DIMMs (though I have not yet even found a
manufacturer that makes them yet), I'll use them, but at the moment it
seems 64MB (x72bit) EDO DIMMs are the best you can find, at least hear
on the open market in Toronto.  If anyone has any comments on the
improved memory bandwidth of SDRAM over EDO with the VP3 I'd be most
interested....

I also plan to use an Adaptec 3940UW and probably an Ultra-DMA IDE drive
for booting (and for archives given that even the 6.4GB versions are
dirt cheap).

(FYI despite the fact that AMD don't admit so on their web pages, the
AMD 640 PCI chipset is supposedly licensed from VIA, though I've yet to
find a motherboard using it that supports more than 512KB of L2 cache,
so maybe AMD crippled it a bit -- I've not yet looked at the data sheets
to confirm though, so don't take my word on this.  Maybe it's just the
short-sighted motherboard makers....)

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734			VE3TCP			robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets Of The Weird <woods@weird.com>