Op AnandTech is vandaag een uitgebreide test verschenen van de VIA KT266 chipset. De KT266 chipset is de eerste chipset van VIA met DDR ondersteuning voor het Socket A platform. Daarnaast is het de eerste Socket A chipset van VIA met een snelle V-Link bus tussen de north- en southbridge.
Uit de benchmarks op AnandTech blijkt dat de performance van deze chipset slechts matig is vergeleken met de AMD760 chipset. Hoewel de chipset in veel gevallen sneller is dan de ALi MAGik1 DDR chipset moet hij in praktisch elke benchmark de AMD760 chipset voor laten gaan. Moederborden gebaseerd op de KT266 chipset zullen waarschijnlijk wel een stukje goedkoper worden dan moederborden gebaseerd op de AMD760 chipset, maar dat voordeel weegt volgens Anand niet op tegen het nadeel. Voorlopig kan hij je dus geen KT266 moederbord aanbevelen, hoewel dat natuurlijk nog wel kan veranderen in de loop van de tijd als de chipset volwassener wordt:
From the perspective of the true enthusiast, the AMD 760 is still and will probably continue to be the highest performing Socket-A chipset platform for a decent amount of time. You shouldn't be too worried about a lack of support for the chipset, especially since the 760MP is just around the corner and will also require much of the same driver support that the current 760 does meaning that there is very little chance of AMD pulling support on the product.
From the motherboard manufacturer's perspective, the AMD 760 is still too expensive of a part to base a large portion of your motherboards on, making the KT266 perfect. We would rather see boards use the KT266 than the ALi MAGiK1, not so much because of the small performance differences that do exist when both are running using PC2100 DDR SDRAM and the 133MHz FSB, but because of what happens when you take the FSB down to 100MHz. The fact of the matter is that the KT266 is quite attractive to motherboard manufacturers, because it is cheaper than the AMD 760, offers performance that is slower than the AMD 760 but not by as great of a degree as the MAGiK1 and it is from a company that has been developing a pretty good track record in recent times.
The KT266 is still a maturing platform, if you plan on becoming an early DDR adopter we'd strongly suggest against going with the KT266 now and sticking with the AMD 760. As you can see, the KT266 is currently not able to really even outperform the KT133A most of the time, but as we mentioned in our Socket-A Chipset Comparison, these chipsets and the motherboards they are used on do mature over time.
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