DDR is coming!
The new memory technology Double Data Rate or DDR received a lot of interest in June already at the Computex show in Taipei. Now first samples of motherboards and memory modules were shown at the recent VIA Tech Forum 2000.
Apparently VIA is trying to create a show similar to Intel’s Developer Forum, which has become a significant technology convention with lots of key people and information about the latest PC technology. Instead of ferrying business partners and editors to the headquarters in Taiwan, VIA decided to hold the new symposium in five major cities. We attended the session in Munich, Germany, although it was held around the same time as Munich’s world famous Oktoberfest, the world’s largest convention for beer drinkers and party animals.
VIA’s DDR-strategy is backed up by well-known motherboard companies like ABit, Asus, Chaintech, Epox or MSI. Infineon, Micron and NEC attended the session to represent the memory makers. AMD is one of the draught horses as well: They are currently working on the 760 chipset, featuring DDR support for Athlon and Duron processors.
The new Apollo Pro 266 chipset uses the North Bridge VT8633 (for Pentium III systems), which supports DDR SDRAM for the first time.
The Forum: Stale Atmosphere
The presentation was a little bit of a disappointment, since it lacked effective demonstrations, as done by Intel to make the whole affair vivid and even a bit exciting. The more so as most participants were adequately familiar with the technological details and genuine innovations were not presented.
It would have been really interesting to see a working sample or at least get some rough numbers of the performance of this new technology.
VIA is reaching for a high goal. Previous chipsets have not been able to beat Intel products that were based on the same technology. However, this time VIA will introduce a new memory generation that has no official support from Intel so far. Unless Intel is finally ending the unholy marriage with Rambus to give the first positive sign of this year, VIA and DDR SDRAM will be up against Intel and RDRAM.
Chipsets With DDR Support: VT8633 and KT266
According to the name of the current Athlon chipset (KT133) the new model with DDR support is called KT266. It supports both the AMD Duron and Athlon (Thunderbird). VIA also offers a chipset for Celeron or Pentium III systems, the VIA Apollo Pro 266 (VT8633). Intel is not supposed to release a chipset with support for DDR memory (codename Almador) until mid 2001.
That’s the schematic structure of the Apollo Pro 266 chipset. The North Bridge is compatible to all Slot-1 and Spcket 370 processors including Celeron, Pentium III and the VIA Cyrix III.
Integrated Graphics for Low-Cost Systems
VIA also announced two chipset with integrated graphics. Currently, the PM133 (VT8605) is available for Intel based systems. This one is a simple Apollo Pro 133A that has been enhanced by the 3D-graphics of S3’s Savage 4. The KM133 (VT8365) is based on the KT133 and comes with the same graphics logic.
Both chipsets will be finally getting DDR support, but a release date is not known so far.
DDR Competition from AMD and ALi
AMD and the Acer Laboratories (ALi) are also working on chipsets with support for the new memory. AMD is of course not working on a chipset for Intel processors but on a product for Duron or Athlon CPUs. Gigabyte showed the first working AMD-760 motherboard sample in June at Computex. The chipset will be released very soon.
Two products will be released by ALi this fall as well: The ALiMAGiK-1 for Athlon and Duron processors and the Aladdin Pro 5 for Celeron or Pentium III platforms. Each will come with DDR-support.
VIA’s Common Problem: Average Memory Performance
Even two years after the initial release of Intel’s 440BX chipset, the latest SDRAM chipset of VIA is not able to reach BX-performance. Both the i815 and the 440BX chipset are clearly superior regarding memory performance. At 133 MHz FSB, Intel’s BX is overclocked but still the fastest chipset with PC133 SDRAM support.
In theory the memory transfer rate of DDR-SDRAM is about twice as fast as traditional SDRAM. We expect an overall system performance increase of up to 20% as long as all other hardware remains unchanged. This would give DDR-systems a rather scary edge over Intel’s Rambus-solutions i820 and i840.
AMR? CNR? No, ACR!
Almost every new motherboard has either AMR slots (audio modem riser) or CNR slots (communications/network riser). Each is supposed to host inexpensive sound or communication upgrades. Both standards might be based on good ideas, but two reasons speak against them: First it is not that easy to get AMR or CNR components (be careful, they are not compatible!). Second we think that a PCI-sound/network device will be a higher, but much safer investment. Nobody knows if next generation mainboards will still be equipped with AMR or CNR slots, but they will certainly offer several PCI slots.
ACR (Advanced Communication Riser) is another expansion slot. This time the developers seem to have spent more thought. ACR is backwards compatible with AMR. The developers avoided introducing another new slot by using a standard PCI connector turned by 180 degrees. If you should see a motherboard with a PCI slot that seems the wrong way around, it is the new ACR. Not all 120 pins will be assigned, leaving a margin for future enhancements.
Summary
Other topics on the VTF were the development of the PC architecture, the success of IEEE1394/Firewire, future network technologies and the Cyrix III. The main focus was of course on the new chipsets with DDR support, as it could extend VIA’s new role of the world’s largest PC chipset supplier.
VIA has done a very important job by carrying out the Tech Forum. Lots of companies were involved, showing their support of VIA. The Taiwanese company has a very big chance now. If VIA’s new DDR-chipsets live up to the expectations, Intel will be beaten to the punch in the chipset market. I doubt that the Santa Clara company can afford any more defeats and failures this year.
AMD and ALi are not asleep and launching their own products shortly. AMD and VIA are not competing with each other here, as the Texan company does not want to fully step into the chipset business. However, AMD has to make sure that Athlon and Duron get DDR-support soon and VIA is well-known for serving customers with Intel processors first.
ALi has never been a player in the high-end arena. Of course we are looking forward to take a first look on their new chipsets, as they might mean a possible comeback for Ali in the chipset arena.
Ladies and gentlemen, faites vos jeux! At this point the chipset market is completely open. If Intel shouldn’t move up the release of its ‘Almador’ chipset, ALi and VIA will have some extra time to eliminate bugs and to optimize their DDR-products in order to finally kick Intel out of the chipset market. I wonder if this is in the interest of Rambus Inc.
