THE LATEST VIA ROADMAPS indicate that the company is pressing ahead with its AMD and Intel chipsets. The firm will introduce the KM400, which includes an integrated "Castlerock" GFX (graphics) core, and preliminary benchmarks show a 3Dmark2001 score of close to 1800. It is likely to launch this chipset at Cebit in Hannover in Q1 of next year.
The same is true of the PM400, a Pentium 4 chipset with a similar core to the KM400.
One of its Hammer chipsets, the K8T400M, looks as if it still on target for a Q1 2003 launch. This too includeds CastleRock II GFX with external AGP 2X, 4X and 8X. Via has two other Hammer (K8) chipsets – the K8T400 and the K8T400M. These all use a 800MHz Hypertransport bus, and are scheduled to be released "in Q4".
A new South Bridge chip, the 8237, looks very much like Intel"s ICH5 product, and will support two Serial ATA ports with Raid and eight USB 2.0 ports.