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KT266 supports SMP!

R

Rand

Lifer
According to this article from The Inquirer, the KT266 chipset supports SMP and certain mobo manufacturers are working on boards providing SMP support based on the KT266 chipset.

If this works out it could be a very interesting product as the Kt266 chipset should be considerably cheaper then AMD's upcoming AMD760MP chipset.
 
Sounds promising, but I hope VIA irons out all the major bugs this time.

"The 686b southbridge compels you" Say it three times fast EXORCIST style.
 
Just that KT266 doesn't use 686B...

I thought everybody knew the KT266 is SMPable, just like their Apollo Pro266.
 
I knew it was SMP capable in theory just like "in theory" the KT133(A) is, and so is the Pro 133(A) and Pro 266. But this is the first I've heard of them actually officially supporting it or their being any board based upon it with SMP support.
 
I think I'll spend a little (even a lot) more for a 760MP-chipset board than *ANY* VIA competitor. No, I *know* I will.
 
I agree with pabster, i knew they were going to do a KT266MP but i didn't think they were going to be ready for like 4-5months atleast. Either way i am an MP hobbyist and i'm into multithreaded solutions so i play with anything relevant to dual. But if the price is right i think more manufacs are going to definetly stand behind VIA on this as the 760MP might not be the best choice or better yet they can have the both amd and via in the sameline up. As the not so spendy ppl into mp will spend there money on the small platform and the gurus like me will spend more on the 760. I think either way its a win win situation for everyone here into MP design. All my Dual Boards have been VIA ap133a so i'll go up against the grain once more with the KT. JMHO 🙂
 
<<I knew it was SMP capable in theory just like &quot;in theory&quot; the KT133(A) is, and so is the Pro 133(A) and Pro 266. But this is the first I've heard of them actually officially supporting it or their being any board based upon it with SMP support.>>

I dont think its a theory. The Pro266 and KT266 are actually SMP ready chipset, there is already a Pro266 dual P3 board out, the Iwill DVD266. Its the same with KT266.
 
I didnt mean it was a theory in the case of the Pro 266 and now seemingly the KT266... I was just comparing them to the KT133(A) etc. that theoretically are SMP capable but do not officially support SMP operation.

For example the AP 133A is SMP capable but the KX133 chipset was deemed as not SMP capable. While &quot;theoretically the KX133 chipset should have been SMP capable as it contained all of the elements that would seemingly make it a viable option. Indeed besides support for the EV6 bus the KX133 chipset was almost exactly the same as the AP 133A chipset that officially supported SMP.

It could make for an interesting alternative to the AMD760MP chipset. It should turn out to be significantly cheaper then manufacturing a board based on the AMD760MP. Especially one such as the Tyan board that seems to be so feature-filled.... feature that are beyond what the average consumer would likely wish for.
Just as the AP 133A turned into a popular budget SMP chipset, the KT266 could do the same for AMD.
 
Rec, thats what i said in another forumn. I am kind of thinking they will test those waters first quarter of next year.
 
Rand,

I know what you mean, but what I tried to say was that the KT266 and Pro266 could be officially supported SMP chipsets.
 
There was a good article on the 760MP at Tom's. http://www6.tomshardware.com/smoke/01q2/010420/index.html

I guess that the 760MP has a feature totally new to the whole SMP x86 world, each CPU has it's own 2.1GB/s bus to memory/AGP. The Intel 840 has a 1.5GB/s transfer cap. This might mean that the KT266 will be limited to somewhere around 1.5-2.1 GB/s. That sounds to me like a pretty big performance gain for the extra money the 760MP costs. I'll wait until ABIT puts out a 760MP without onboard SCSI, LAN, and video like the Tyan board that ships June 4.
 
It'd be nice if a &quot;run-down&quot; Tyan board is released at $500~$600 CDN range. I wouldn't mind saving up a little and buying one of those.
 
I doubt the SiS chipset is SMP compatible.... mostly because I don't know that SMP has ever targeted the market that SMP chips would be aimed for and I don't believe they have ever produced an SMP chipset before.

Zzzt, I believe what our referring to is the EV6 protocols Point to Point Bus connection for multiprocessor systems, meaning that each processor added to the system gets its own 200/266MHz or 1.6/2.1 GB/s of bandwidth to the chipset.
Whereas in conventional SMP chipsets each processor must share the same bus.

This is NOT specific to the AMD760MP chipset. It is inherent in the EV6 bus protocol that AMD uses for the Athlon, which was originally created by Alpha Processors Incorporated (API) and licensed to AMD for use with the Athlon.
As such, the KT266 chipset ould also support the point to point bus protocol supplying each processor wth a dedicated bus.

Of course the PC2100 DDR SDRAM used is still only able to supply 2.1GB/s of data to both processors which somewhat limits the effectiveness of a Point to Point bus, though it still has some defiite benefits.
 
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