VIA Hardware heeft een review klaarliggen van het DFI CM35 Micro-ATX moederbord gebaseerd op VIA's PM133 chipset met integrated S3 Savege4 graphics. Het plankje werd vergeleken met een i815E bord die vanwege superieure memory performance een wat betere business performance behaalde. De PM133 kon echter erg goed meekomen in de 3DMark en Quake testen, helemaal als beide ingebakken graphics cores werden gebruikt. Bedrijven zullen daar echter weinig rekening mee houden voor hun office PC's. Wat wel sterk mee zal spelen is de prijs; PM133 moederborden zullen namelijk 30 tot 40 dollar goedkoper zijn dan i815E modellen:
The VIA PM133 chipset will certainly be welcomed into the market by OEMs and system builders. Builders now have another option when building an integrated system. VIA was certainly smart to gobble up S3 graphics. VIA is already claiming 60% of the chipset market share. Imagine what a full blown PM133/KM133 launch would do to that percentage? 80% maybe? Many retail OEM computers right now are powered by a VIA chipset, with the addition of the PM133 we are bound to see even more. The KM133 chipset should be on the market soon as well. Paired with a feisty Duron, the KM133/Duron combo would make one nice inexpensive setup.
All is not peachy for the PM133. The PM133 still loses to the Intel i815 in memory and business performance. A huge percentage of SMA (shared memory architecture) or integrated setups, are businesses. Many business are looking for good performing and inexpensive computers to do word processing and e-mailing on, and do not care about 3D performance.
The PM133 does come at a much better price, than the Intel i815. PM133 boards are expected to sell between $30-$40 cheaper, compared to an Intel i815 board. That price difference may not sound like much, but when your comparing computers for the under $800 market, $30-$40 can make a world of difference.
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