VIA's latest Athlon XP Chipset

[KGB1]

Is the KT600 the LAST of the chipset series for the Athlon (Barton and below?) I plan on getting the ABIT motherboard that x-bit labs had just reviewed Here! Its a pretty cool board, small (so it can fit in my HP Pavilion chassis) and fairly cheap.

I was thinking of the 2nd Nforce, however there is no native serial ata support, nor do I want Raid features most of those boards are equipped with. I just want a fairly stripped down mobo with 5.1 sound

 

[Vette73]

NO the kt600 is NOT the last chipset for the Socket A chips. VIA is about to come out with a Dual Ch chipset to go againist the nForce2 chips

 

[KGB1]

The difference currently with the Nforce 2 is marginal. Sure Nvidia is leading most times, but is the dual channel more memory more $$ really needed to make a 2% difference? I'll admit, nVidia does have some pretty stable, fast drivers. VIA has not been known early on for their wide support nor compatibility. I've never really had a proplem with VIA's chipsets at all in the past (yeah even with Kt133a).

 

[yhelothar]

dual channel is useless...
it's nforce's very advanced memory controller along with the CPU prediction thingy that makes nforce2 so much faster than the competition.. not DCDDR
DCDDR was made primarily for onboard video... if you don't use onboard video, it only provides 0-2% extra performance

 

[wicktron]

KT880 is right around the corner.

 

[selene]

So NForce is the way to go ? I'm getting ready to build a XP 2500 system (cheaper better) and in the past I had many VIA problems. I guess Ill try out the nvidia stuff.

 

[Mem]

VIA has not been known early on for their wide support nor compatibility.

That`s a little unfair,the KT600 is a very stable chipset,you look at the nforce 2 and sure it has a slight edge in performance and overclocking(because of the AGP/PCI lock) but there are still lots of guys having problems with the Nvidia IDE driver,most are going back to the the default microsoft driver,however having said that they are both very stable chipsets.Also remember the KT600 has native S-ATA support.

Bottom line is it really depends on what you want between the two.

 

[jjyiz28]

via integrated graphics do not support server 2k, another reason to go NF2 IGP

 

[Peter]

There are Windows 2000 drivers from both S3 and VIA ends of the story; VIA's AGP bus driver also installs perfectly fine on any Windows flavor. Also, there is no technical difference in how W2K server and W2K professional handle graphics cards.

Where does your conclusion come from?

Besides, this thread is clearly talking about performance chipsets, not integrated-graphics budget solutions. Sorry, this post of yours smells like a FUD campaign.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: Peter
There are Windows 2000 drivers from both S3 and VIA ends of the story; VIA's AGP bus driver also installs perfectly fine on any Windows flavor. Also, there is no technical difference in how W2K server and W2K professional handle graphics cards.

Where does your conclusion come from?

Besides, this thread is clearly talking about performance chipsets, not integrated-graphics budget solutions. Sorry, this post of yours smells like a FUD campaign.

personal expereince. i had a KM400 chipset from biostar, same prob, did RMA exchange for km400 epox, same prob. i have a msi km266, didn't test server 2k yet though integrated. whereas 2k pro works fine for both setups.

whats FUD?

 

[pspada]

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. IBM taught it to Microsloth, and they are the best at using it to ream their competition. But many other companies use it too.

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: Mem

VIA has not been known early on for their wide support nor compatibility.

That`s a little unfair,the KT600 is a very stable chipset,you look at the nforce 2 and sure it has a slight edge in performance and overclocking(because of the AGP/PCI lock) but there are still lots of guys having problems with the Nvidia IDE driver,most are going back to the the default microsoft driver,however having said that they are both very stable chipsets.Also remember the KT600 has native S-ATA support.

Bottom line is it really depends on what you want between the two.

totally agree, the kt600 is an extreemly stable chipset... plus the native sata support is a big advantage

plus the kt600 is very close in performance to the nf2

im not sure how much of a performance gain will be had by waiting for the kt880 (thats the new via socketA dual channel chipset) but i would guess it will slightly beat out the nf2.... but in reality they are so close already that i personally wouldnt worry about waiting

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28

Originally posted by: Peter
There are Windows 2000 drivers from both S3 and VIA ends of the story; VIA's AGP bus driver also installs perfectly fine on any Windows flavor. Also, there is no technical difference in how W2K server and W2K professional handle graphics cards.

Where does your conclusion come from?

Besides, this thread is clearly talking about performance chipsets, not integrated-graphics budget solutions. Sorry, this post of yours smells like a FUD campaign.

personal expereince. i had a KM400 chipset from biostar, same prob, did RMA exchange for km400 epox, same prob. i have a msi km266, didn't test server 2k yet though integrated. whereas 2k pro works fine for both setups.

whats FUD?

probably tried to install the wrong drivers?? the onboard video on the km266 and km400 works flawless with windows 2k server... either that, or just spreading fud as was mentioned above

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: Boonesmi

Originally posted by: jjyiz28

Originally posted by: Peter
There are Windows 2000 drivers from both S3 and VIA ends of the story; VIA's AGP bus driver also installs perfectly fine on any Windows flavor. Also, there is no technical difference in how W2K server and W2K professional handle graphics cards.

Where does your conclusion come from?

Besides, this thread is clearly talking about performance chipsets, not integrated-graphics budget solutions. Sorry, this post of yours smells like a FUD campaign.

personal expereince. i had a KM400 chipset from biostar, same prob, did RMA exchange for km400 epox, same prob. i have a msi km266, didn't test server 2k yet though integrated. whereas 2k pro works fine for both setups.

whats FUD?

probably tried to install the wrong drivers?? the onboard video on the km266 and km400 works flawless with windows 2k server... either that, or just spreading fud as was mentioned above

you sure about that?? do you get the extra tabs in display properties??? are you able to change resolution refresh more than 640x480x60?? if so help me out. this sh!t has been driving me up a wall. i've been doing the same procedure in installing 2k pro and 2k server. but server doesn't support the driver in some way. im using the driver on the cd that came with mobo. how is it that it works fine for pro but not server.

do you even have a km266/km400 chipset and windows 2k server??

 

[Boonesmi]

maybe something wrong with the drivers that came on the cd ??

i always just download the newest ones link for km266 chipset

or here you can find the drivers for the km400 unichrome onboard video



by the way the drivers come in several versions... there is a version with utilities (all the tabs) and one without, also large font versions, etc

 

[Peter]

My guess is that the Server installation by default doesn't install AGP bus drivers. For the VIA chipset, these are in the 4-in-1 package, also at VIA Arena.

It is frequently overlooked that VIA and SiS chipset integrated VGA are implemented exactly like a normal AGP card, and hence also require proper AGP drivers in place.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: Boonesmi
maybe something wrong with the drivers that came on the cd ??

i always just download the newest ones link for km266 chipset

or here you can find the drivers for the km400 unichrome onboard video



by the way the drivers come in several versions... there is a version with utilities (all the tabs) and one without, also large font versions, etc

VT8373 northbridge on KN400 chipset & VT8378 northbridge on UniChrome KM400 Win2K/XP
i already tried the latest drivers, these ones. still didint' work.

btw, your first link ppoints to a hs/fan review??

seriously, i have nothing bad to say about via chipsets. most people don't use 2k server so its no big deal. my km400 running 2k pro works like a charm. as long as you choose the right company (msi, epox, etc..), you;ll be fine.

are u runnign 2k pro or 2k server on those boards?? i already stated that pro works excellent, server has the prob. if ur running pro, that does me no good, i already know pro works fine for me.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: Peter
My guess is that the Server installation by default doesn't install AGP bus drivers. For the VIA chipset, these are in the 4-in-1 package, also at VIA Arena.

It is frequently overlooked that VIA and SiS chipset integrated VGA are implemented exactly like a normal AGP card, and hence also require proper AGP drivers in place.

peter, i installed the 4in1 right after i installed service pack 4 for 2k. that gavbeme an idea though. im gonna try the diff options during the 4 in1 install adn see what happends. proly nuttin, but oh well

 

[Peter]

First thing you should check is that the system "VIA AGP bridge" driver is actually up and running. You can assert that using an actual AGP card, then remove it again to reactivate the integrated VGA, and then move on to getting the VGA driver to work.

 

[Boonesmi]

oops sorry about that link

but its fixed now

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: Peter
First thing you should check is that the system "VIA AGP bridge" driver is actually up and running. You can assert that using an actual AGP card, then remove it again to reactivate the integrated VGA, and then move on to getting the VGA driver to work.

it worked! i put in my 7000agp, installed driver, worked fine, took it out, and when i restarted i got all the tabs in the display settings and the background color changed from the light teal color, to the dark blue color.

but then i got a new problem that cropped up just now, when i do a restart or a shutdown in 2kserver, it goes through the motion, then i get a blank screen with a cursor blinking at me in the upper left corner. but when i restart or shutdown in 2kpro, its fine. wtf??? server was installed first on my 1st partition (c drive), and then pro was installed on my other partition (d drive).

anyways, thanks for the tip, i owe you . im gonna get a NF2 board though, and if it installs without any issues on 2ksrv, im gonna ditch this KM400.

 

[Peter]

That sounds like W2K server is missing a handful of graphics related patches that W2K pro has received.

Good luck with the NF2 - that's a much more difficult to handle chipset. I have no experience with this one on W2K server, but I'd expect things to be even worse than with VIA's rather well known chipsets.

 

[InlineFive]

Another bonus with nVidia is that their chipsets are more stable.

 

[Peter]

Yeah right. NForce 3 is so stable that they had to reduce the bus speed on the CPU connection by 25 percent to even get it working. Also, look at the massive amount of stability struggles with NForce 2 that currently circulate in the Linux community.

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: PorBleemo
Another bonus with nVidia is that their chipsets are more stable.

totally false statement

early via socketA chipsets did have some stability problems (at least i had some problems with my kt133 and kt133a) but kt266a and newer seem to be rock stable and only getting better