VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) are poised to support the new 400MHz FSB (front-side bus) Barton-core processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) with their respective KT600 and SiS748 chipsets.
Following the recent launch of its K7-based KT400A chipset, VIA is planning to release one more product, the KT600, for the AMD platform in May. According to sources, the KT600 (codenamed KT400A-CE) is pin-to-pin compatible with the KT400A (codenamed KT400A-CD), but is designed to support a 400MHz FSB. The KT400A only supports a 333MHz FSB. SiS recently debuted its SiS748 for the upcoming Athlon XP processor at CeBIT Hannover.
With the new offerings, both companies are expected to be more competitive in the high-end sector against Nvidia, whose nForce2 chipset has been gaining popularity due to its strong price/performance ratio. According to motherboard sources, monthly shipments of nForce2 chipsets are likely to have exceeded 500,000 units.