ECS P4VXMS VIA P4X266 is out

[Kingofcomputer]

just saw it, $87+4.
quite cheap.
so now the price of P4 1.5 + ECS P4X266 is close to Athlon 1.4 + ECS SIS735.

 

[serialb]

Interesting. BTW, did they come up with a solution for the lawsuits? I thought the P4X266 board aren't supposed to be sold before the whole mess is over.

serialb

 

[WetWilly]

That ECS board is a SDR SDRAM board, not DDR, i.e. comparable to the i845. As for the lawsuits, I believe VIA has agreed to indemnify any of its customers who get sued by Intel. I haven't seen Intel get any injunctions yet.

so now the price of P4 1.5 + ECS P4X266 is close to Athlon 1.4 + ECS SIS735.

Depends on your definition of "close". Going on PriceWatch, cheapest P4+ECS=$211; cheapest Athlon 1.4+ECS=$158. The P4 combo costs 1/3 more than the AMD combo. Heck, the P4 combo costs about what a Athlon XP 1500 (1.33MHz)+ECS combo costs, and the Athlon XP isn't even technically out yet. Considering that an Athlon 1.4 can beat a P4 2.0 at a lot of stuff, I'd definitely take the AMD over the P4 1.5.

Now if it was a P4 2.0GHz for $126 that'd be another story. I'd even consider springing for RDRAM at that price.

 

[Buz2b]

SIS does have a DDR P4 board either out or coming out. Intel has licensed them for this so there will be no lawsuits. This was covered on Tech TV either last evening or the one before, I can't remember which. They had a guy from "Hard OCP" on there showing different motheboards. The SIS P4 DDR board was one of them he showed. It used DDR333 (which he called PC2700) though, which might up the cost a bit.

EDIT: I just found the show notes for last evenings show. Here's what they said: (Quote) The SiS 645. This P4 chipset houses the power of DDR RAM, but not just any DDR Ram. It sports the power of 333-MHz DDR, which will be out on the market soon. There will also be integrated versions of this board that deliver 5.1 sound and video. It should be available in the US in 60 days or so. We are in the process of testing this board now and we'll have a write up on HardOCP next week. (End quote)

Hmmm....."integrated versions of this board that deliver 5.1 sound and video", perhaps an Intel answer to nForce? Won't have the same video level of video of the nForce, but who knows? I'm not a big fan of integration but it does serve a purpose in some situations.

 

[WetWilly]

I don't know about the increased cost of PC2700/DDR 333 thing. Crucial's PC2100 didn't cost much (if any) more than the PC1600, and for that matter it seems like a fair amount of Crucial PC2100 will hit 166MHz; the catch is finding a board that'll let you do it, like the Epox 8K7A. SiS had the DDR 333 running on the SiS 735 - I'd guess they used a different clock generator to keep PCI and AGP clocs within specs. They might have also "slipped" and made the memory voltage a tad higher.

[Edit]
Saw Buz' edit. Kind of curious how VIA Hardware says the SiS 645 has problems, eh?

The 961 southbridge is supposed to have 5.1 sound integrated; I believe the VIA VT8233 has it as well, it's just that no one uses it. It's not at the nForce's MCP level, though.
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