Ook Thresh's FiringSquad heeft eens gekeken wat voor performance de VIA ProSavage PM133 chipset laat zien in vergelijking met Intel's i815E. In deze review van het Soyo SY-7VMA PM133 bordje wordt tot de conclusie gekomen dat in vrijwel elke real-world benchmark het verschil zeer minimaal is. Het is echter niet te verwachten dat de PM133 veel gebruikt zal worden in performance systemen, zijn plaats zal grotendeels in het low-end segment zijn. Desalniettemin een goede oplossing voor een goedkoop tweede (internet)systeempje:
With ProSavage PM133, VIA's got a real performer on their hands. As we saw in our integrated video tests, the PM133 chipset is clearly faster than 815 in 2D and 3D tests. In tests based on real world applications (Content Creation Winstone 2000 and Business Winstone 99) 815 is slightly faster than PM133, further complicating the final decision.
We wouldn't be surprised to see several tier one system manufacturers award contracts to PM133-based motherboards. After all, the chipset offers very similar levels of performance at a lower cost. Just think, throughout this year VIA has slowly taken market share away from Intel without an integrated chipset solution. Now that they have one, it's very possible that system vendors will gradually adopt it in their budget systems.
For the rest of us, PM133 boards could be employed as secondary CD-burn systems, dedicated "work" boxes or as a budget box to build for the relatives. Will it replace the Apollo Pro133A chipset among the high-end users? Probably not, the added cost of the integrated video most likely will turn many people off, and we still haven't seen a high-end 6 PCI/0 ISA solution (with a plethora of bus speeds) hit the streets.