VIA PT880 Pro: Budget Class Chipset

The first in line is VIA’s PT880 Pro, which is more of a transitional variant than anything else. If you are thinking about opting for the latest technologies from Intel, but are afraid to make a complete move due to the costs involved, you will be quite delighted by this chipset’s offerings.

Interestingly, the PT880 Pro requires a new Socket 775 microprocessor, but is flexible enough to work with the AGP and DDR standards, which is what most users have. Unless you are completely looking to build a new system from scratch, this chipset will come in handy for gradual upgrading enthusiasts. Also, this particular core logic is the most economically friendly, as boards based on the PT880 Pro will cost the lowest in their category.

While the block diagram is somewhat misleading, we must point out that PT880 Pro will support DDR2 memory with speeds up to 667MHz. By the way, VIA chipsets are currently the only ones that officially support DDR2 speeds of 667MHz. Also with the PT880 Pro, the boards will have both PCIe and AGP connections, which users can utilize simultaneously to support up to four separate monitors. That being said, the PCIe connection will only be limited to x4 PCIe, but it should be fast enough for all high-end offerings from ATI and NVIDIA. Not only that, but both connections should perform to their full potential unlike what we saw with AGP Express (or AGPe – a hybrid of AGP and PCI Express). The diagram also fails to show support for 1066MHz microprocessors, but they are in fact supported by all three chipsets.

After the PCI Express lanes have been used for the graphics card, that’s the end of their life span. The VT8237 south bridge cannot support more than the necessary PCI Express lanes, which is rather unfortunate, but with the new VT8251, the number of PCI Express lanes can be increased. While we do think that implementing VT8251 on the PT880 Pro is possible, we highly doubt many, if any, motherboard manufacturers will opt for this standard. The reason being is they have to distinguish between more of transitional or mainstream boards (it will still be overclocking friendly) to the high-end enthusiast pleasing boards.

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