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Forget KT333A, it's the KT400A that's coming...

B

bpt8056

Senior member
Tom's Hardware Guide has lured some information at Cebit:

Most of the motherboard manufacturers talked quietly about the new VIA chipset, the KT400A. It's clear that VIA will not be launching a new "A" version to follow the introduction of the KT333 chipset DDR333 For Athlon: VIA KT333 vs. KT266A. Instead, within the next few weeks, VIA will be coming out with the VIA KT400A, which is supposed to be the first chipset for AMD Athlon that supports a memory clock of up to 200 MHz (DDR400).

Link
 
That's nice and all, but the spec for PC2700 memory hasn't even been agreed upon yet, much less for a DDR400 board.
 


<< That's nice and all, but the spec for PC2700 memory hasn't even been agreed upon yet, much less for a DDR400 board. >>

Agreed, plus DDR400 will in all likelyhood never hit the market. This is VIA not wanting to be left behind everyone else who's launching DDR400 supporting chipsets.
 
Whats the point of the Kt400a? It will most likely not even give a 10% improvement over the kt266a. Unless you have an unlocked XP (which few people do) I really don't see the advantage of the kt333 or kt400a.

What we really need is AMD to release an XP with a 166mhz or 200mhz FSB. The very earliest I think we'll see these is with Clawhammer which is still a year away.
 
According to the JEDEC newsletter, the PC2700 specs has already been agreed on. While DDR400, which will be the first of DDRII will be sampled this year, it will not reach volume production until early 2003 (that may change).

You're right that it will not benefit Athlons much at all unless there is an increase in FSB, thus bandwidth. I simply made this thread for people who are waiting to buy the KT333A, which will never come out. It doesn't matter what you or I think about the chipset, there are far too many people out there that like to see a higher number on any type of specifications. Ask AMD.
 


<< According to the JEDEC newsletter, the PC2700 specs has already been agreed on. >>



That's good to hear. Do you know if the memory that has been on the market prior to this will be compliant?
 
Yes as far as performance is concerned, the new VIA chipsets probably will not do much. However what I am hoping for (a big hope) is that it will include Serial ATA since I will only upgrade once Serial ATA is out.
 


<<
That's good to hear. Do you know if the memory that has been on the market prior to this will be compliant? >>



That's a good question. I'll see what I can find.
 


<< According to the JEDEC newsletter, the PC2700 specs has already been agreed on. While DDR400, which will be the first of DDRII will be sampled this year, it will not reach volume production until early 2003 (that may change).
>>

Yes, but keep in mind that the "DDR400 support" that KT400A has, won't support DDR-II that runs at 200MHz. Just keep that in mind🙂
 
Do you have proof of that? VIA hasn't even released the specifications of their KT400 chipset yet.

EDIT: Just read that DDR II is backward compatible with DDR I. JEDEC wanted DDRII to be an evolutionary product, rather than revolutionary.
 


<< That's a good question. I'll see what I can find. >>



Thanks. I went through this with some Mac systems. Apple released a motherboard firmware upgrade that did stricter checks of the EEPROM in the DIMM and caused about 50% of people's systems to fail because of "bad" ram that didn't meet JEDEC spec. Fortunately it was something easily reprogrammed in the EEPROM of the memory.

It was a mess though and I'd hate to go through it all over again.
 


<< Thanks. I went through this with some Mac systems. Apple released a motherboard firmware upgrade that did stricter checks of the EEPROM in the DIMM and caused about 50% of people's systems to fail because of "bad" ram that didn't meet JEDEC spec. Fortunately it was something easily reprogrammed in the EEPROM of the memory.

It was a mess though and I'd hate to go through it all over again. >>



Hey, I rmember that! My G3 worked fine but I was paranoid as hell after reading so many horror stories! Ah well, that G3 266 was the last Mac I ever got (turned to the "dark side" I guess they would say, oh well...)
 


<<
Hey, I rmember that! My G3 worked fine but I was paranoid as hell after reading so many horror stories! Ah well, that G3 266 was the last Mac I ever got (turned to the "dark side" I guess they would say, oh well...) >>



🙂 Yeah, it was another nail in the Apple coffin for me as well. It's not that these things don't happen on the PC, but on the Mac Apple tries to keep it so closed and secret that it makes it really hard to fix these things. They would deny that they changed anything and would delete threads from their support forums where people complained.
 
Here's what I found out so far....

Most (possibly all) of the PC2700 memory modules have not yet been confirmed to meet JEDEC standards. Most of them are still pending upon approval from the DDR Validation Program. Micron is the only one that I could find that meets the JEDEC standards, but I do not think their memory modules are on the market yet.

This kind of information was difficult to find as many of the charts I found were not updated or had little information about PC2700. My suggestion is to wait a month or so until there are confirmations that they conform with JEDEC standards. But the question is, do we really need PC2700 anyway? Not really.
 
Thanks.

Edit: BTW, just out of curiosity, if DDR400 is DDR II what would it be called in PCxxxx scheme? PC3200 or PC6400? I'm confused with the data prefetch/burst of 4. Is that the same as 4 bytes/clock cycle? So 8x2x200=3200 or 8x4x200=6400?
 


<< Thanks.

Edit: BTW, just out of curiosity, if DDR400 is DDR II what would it be called in PCxxxx scheme? PC3200 or PC6400? I'm confused with the data prefetch/burst of 4. Is that the same as 4 bytes/clock cycle? So 8x2x200=3200 or 8x4x200=6400? >>



DDR400 will be called PC3200 (3.2 GB/sec.). You can get this number by 8 x 4 x 100 = 3200. DDRII specs states that DRAM core will run at a speed of 1/4 of the data bus frequency. Yes, the DRAM core for DDRII has to be set to a lower frequency to achieve a higher data rate.
 


<< DRAM core will run at a speed of 1/4 of the data bus frequency >>



Ah. Okay, I see it now. I was looking at the DDR II presentation paper and missed that. 6.4GB/s seemed like a really staggering jump to be called an evolution.
 


<< Micron is the only one that I could find that meets the JEDEC standards, but I do not think their memory modules are on the market yet. >>



Kingmax and samsung have them also, and can be found in the market.
 
Agreed about not waiting for 333a or even speculating about the KT400a right now, but I just had my Shuttle AK-31 (overclocked 1800+ to 1740mhz 🙂 die on me. I'm hesitant to grab another AK and have been looking at the Iwill 333-R (good board, good price), Asus' A7V333 (who HAS them???), and even Soyo's Dragon Plus (I like the integrated LAN and 6-ch audio).

Ideally, I'd like to find a board with integrated LAN, audio and firewire (not so juch USB 2.0, but...) and Asus' A7V333 seems to be the only one with all three.

Any other suggestions? Or if you had to buy a board TODAY (given our propensity to overclock the snot out of our XP chips), which one would it be?

Thanks to all for any suggestions...or a gentle nudge to the right forum if this one isn't appropriate.


> Omaha Jim <
 
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