Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Components > Motherboards > DDR For AMD: 16 Boards With VIA KT266

DDR Power For AMD Athlon/Duron, Continued

07:00 - Wednesday 8 August 2001 by Frank Völkel

Chipset	VIA Apollo KT266	AMD 760	SiS 735	ALi Magik 1
Introduction	April 2001	February 2001	May 2001	February 2001
Platform	Socket 462	Socket 462	Socket 462	Socket 462
Processors Supported	AMD Athlon/Duron/Palomino	AMD Athlon/Duron	AMD Athlon/Duron	AMD Athlon/Duron
Multi-processor Support	no	no	no	no
Chipset Northbridge	VIA VT8366	AMD 761	SiS 735	ALi M1647
Chipset Southbridge	VIA VT8233	AMD 765	integrated	ALi M1535D+
FSB System Clock	100/133MHz DDR	100/133MHz DDR	66/100/133MHz DDR	100/133MHz DDR
Memory Clock	100/133MHz DDR	100/133MHz DDR	66/100/133MHz DDR	100/133MHz DDR
asynchronous Memory Clock	yes	yes	yes	yes
33MHz PCI at 133MHz FSB	yes	yes	yes	yes
FSB overclocking*	up to 200MHz	up to 150MHz	up to 150MHz	up to 150MHz
max. # DIMM slots	4	4	3	4
Max. memory	4096MB	2048MB	1536MB	1024MB
SDRAM support	yes	no	yes	yes
DDR SDRAM support	yes	yes	yes	yes
VC SDRAM support	no	no	no	no
RIMM support (Rambus)	no	no	no	no
Ultra-DMA/33/66/100	yes/yes/yes	yes/yes/yes	yes/yes/yes	yes/yes/yes
# USB connectors	6	4	6	6
max. # PCI slots	6	6	6	6
integrated graphics core	no	no	no	no
AGP 1x / 2x / 4x	yes / yes / yes	yes / yes / yes	yes / yes / yes	yes / yes / yes
ACPI features	yes	yes	yes	yes

* depending on clock generator

Comparison of all available chipsets with DDR-SDRAM support for AMD Athlon/Duron. Although the VIA KT266 was announced months ago, it is only now that the boards are available in larger quantities.

Special Features Of The VIA KT266: 6-Speed USB

In addition to the combined SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM support, the VIA KT266 chipset offers the following important innovations: Three USB controllers have been integrated, thus allowing six devices (without USB hub) to be operated simultaneously. Two of these ports are located on the board itself, whereas the remaining four connected by cable. Generally speaking, most of the boards we tested have no additional cables for the fifth and sixth USB port. This can be remedied by a cable that is appropriatedly coded, which is available from electronics stores for around 8 dollars.

A View Of The Test Candidates

First, the good news: Although we tested all the boards with the maximum possible memory speed, with the exception of the Aopen AK77 Plus, we experienced none of those major system crashes which have been so typical of other tests.