Chipset Guide

Supporting all of the features of the Intel 440BX AGPSet, the Apollo Pro is much more than an alternative to the BX Chipset as it brings much more than AGP and SDRAM support to the game.  Support for 5 PCI master devices (compared to the 3 PCI masters on Intel chipsets) make the Apollo Pro ideal for an ISA Slot-less motherboard, in theory, with the use of an additional PCI-to-PCI bridge, a motherboard featuring 7 PCI slots could be constructed although only 6 of them would be usable at one time as long as a card populated the AGP slot.  Expect to see a minimum of 5 PCI slots on most Apollo Pro based motherboard solutions.  In addition to that, the Apollo Pro, like the VIA MVP3, does support the operation of the memory bus at an external frequency identical to that of the AGP Clock.  Meaning you can run your memory banks at the 66MHz Front Side Bus, while your processor's speed is derived from the 100MHz FSB.   This will allow you to re-use your old PC66 DIMMs and even your old EDO/FP DIMMs so long as they work at the 66MHz FSB. 

The Apollo Pro's supported DRAM types extends far beyond the normal EDO/FP/SDRAM list, to include DDR (Double Data Rate) SDRAM.  While this looks wonderful on paper, the absence of DDR SDRAM in the mainstream market will keep that feature from becoming a reason to opt for an Apollo Pro based board over an Intel chipset based model.  Expect performance of Apollo Pro based Pentium II boards to be at least on par with that of well designed BX motherboards, with the first boards shipping in the next month or two we should soon be able to find out if the Apollo Pro is everything it is cracked up to be.  

A downside to the Apollo Pro is that, unlike the Intel LX/BX/GX series, you must use VIA's own AGP GART drivers to get the full benefit of the supported AGP port which may introduce some issues with future video cards and chipsets, nothing that a simple driver patch won't fix but something to keep in mind.