VIA PT Series: VIA PCI Express for Intel
by Wesley Fink on January 31, 2005 12:01 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
VIA PT894 Reference Board
Reference Boards are designed for chipset qualification, so they are not designed for case mounting and they often have abbreviated features.
VIA sent us an upper-end board based on the 894 northbridge with the current 8237 southbridge. We had planned to test on-board audio, Ethernet, and SATA, but the Reference Board was equipped with the older 8237 controller (the 8251 is not yet available), no gigabit Ethernet (the PCIe VIA chip was not ready), and basic AC'97 audio instead of the HD audio that will be part of shipping 894/894 Pro boards. This is not really that unusual with Reference boards, so you should not try to read too much into the fact that the 894 Reference Board was stripped compared to production boards. In addition, the 1066 FSB was not yet working, but VIA tells us that it will be fully functioning in production chipsets. The 800FSB was working as expected and all tests were run at 800FSB.
| VIA PT894 Reference Board Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Intel Socket 775 |
| Chipset | VIA PT894 Northbridge - VIA VT8237 Southbridge |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 232MHz in 1MHz Increments |
| PCI/AGP | 66/33, 75.4/37.7, 88/44, PLL1, Pll2 |
| CPU/PCIe | Synch/Asynch |
| Core Voltage | Default, +0.025V to +0.175V in .025V increments |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Fixed (Intel) |
| FSB | 800, 1066 |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.50V to 2.80V in 0.1V increments |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe 1 x1 PCIe 2 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/SATA RAID | 2 SATA Drives by VT8237 (RAID 0, 1, JBOD) |
| Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by VT8237 No Firewire |
| Onboard LAN | Wireless Ethernet 802.11g by VIA VT6655 |
| Onboard Audio | AC '97 2.3 8-Channel by VIA VT1617A |
| BIOS Revision | Award Beta 1/14/2005 |
The basic tweaking and overclocking controls were present on the board, so we were able to do some basic testing of locks and overclocking. This was a pleasant surprise for a Reference Board, since there are often insufficient options to really test locks and overclocking potential.
We confirmed that the PCI/AGP lock and the PCIe Lock were working properly by fixing the PCI/AGP bus at 66/33 and the PCIe bus at 100 - then overclocking the CPU to the highest 232 setting (FSB 928) available in BIOS. In a floating or non-working PCI/AGP lock, most boards will fail at around 217 to 218 CPU setting. With the Reference board, we had no problem at all running at the 232 setting. We confirmed the fixed PCI with a PCI Geiger card in a PCI slot. It also appears that the PCIe can be locked at 100, a large improvement over the floating PCIe frequency in Intel chipsets, which can limit overclocking.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
25 Comments
View All Comments
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
#14,we don't even know if the PT894 Pro will be more expensive than the PT894, or if it's just a name to help motherboard companies promote their DualGFX products. The nVidia nForce4 SLI is $20 more expensive than the Ultra.
As far as "restoring VIA's reputation", they're not going to focus on that when releasing new products. I have worked with their recent chipsets (PT880, PT800, KT880, KT600, K8T800, K8T800Pro) and I don't think there's anything else they could other than continue to bring good chipsets at low prices to make people that had a bad experience with them 5 years ago change their minds.
quanta - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
If the nForce4 Ultra/SLI mod is of any indication, the PT894[Pro] will be a crippleware scam! Unlike NVIDIA, VIA no longer have any marketing lead to afford ripping off motherboard makers. Support for DDR memory isn't going to restore VIA's reputation, especially with the emerging NVIDIA chipset on Intel platform...ChineseDemocracyGNR - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Just for the curious, PCPer has pictures of PT880 Pro and PT894 Pro boards. So what? Well, the PT894 Pro is using the VT8251 southbridge. :)http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=114&type=...
These two look very much like Jetway boards from the color scheme. ABIT's PT880Pro is also there.
MS - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
"Amd socket 939 = socket 754 + 184 pin = 938 pin "That's not exactly how it works, there are a number of power and ground pins that are not tied to the CPU at all. In other words, the calculation comes out somewhat close to reality but that is just coincidence. Otherwise, the Socket940 which needs to use 8 extra data lines and additional clock input would have a much higher pin count than just one over 939.
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
ALL - We apologize for the confusion this morning. The article posted at 6AM when the VIA NDA was 12 Noon EST (9AM PST). As soon as we realized this the article came down and went back up at the correct NDA time.#6 - Corrected
Dranzerk - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Wow, this will make for a nice upgrade path for people. If they show up on market fast enough, and ample supply they should do well.Jep4444 - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Socket 754 and 939 have a few useless pins. I believe 939 has an extra useless pin.I'm not sure if thats how it works though.
nserra - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
The power of the DDR dimm is drained by the amd processor, or by board? If its the board how many pins are needed? Thanks in advance.#avijay thanks but you didnt answer my question:
- Amd socket 939 = socket 754 + 184 pin = 938 pin
avijay - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
#5 skt939 has dual channel memory controller, not single channel like skt754. I think you can add that for the extra pin in the pin count.avijay - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
As always, a very nice article! Just one thing to point out:(Page 6) table:
VIA PT894 Reference Board Specifications
CPU Interface Socket 939 Athlon 64 ???
shouldn't that be skt 775!
you might like to correct that wesley.