Chipset maker Via to support Tualatin
LONDON (ZDNet UK)--Via Technologies announced on Wednesday a range of chipsets supporting Intel's pumped-up Pentium III, codenamed Tualatin, which is expected in July.
Tualatin uses Intel's new 0.13-micron manufacturing process, reducing chip size and power consumption and giving Intel additional ammunition against Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon 4.
A range of chipsets will support Tualatin, from the performance-oriented Apollo Pro266T to the low-cost Apollo PLE133T and VIA ProSavage PL133T, Via said. Via will be demonstrating the components at Computex Taipei next week.
"The implementation of Tualatin support across our complete range of Socket 370 chipsets shows our commitment to further extending the capabilities and longevity of this industry standard platform," said Via director of marketing Richard Brown, in a statement.
The high-end Apollo Pro266T supports DDR SDRAM and the high-bandwidth V-Link bus architecture, and can run one or two processors. The mid-range Apollo Pro133T and integrated Apollo PLE 133T and ProSavage PL133T will also support Tualatin. The chipsets are all backward-compatible with previous versions of Pentium III, Celeron and Via's own C3 processors.
Via is the largest chipset supplier, and the availability of these components will be necessary for manufacturers to build Tualatin-based machines.
The Tualatin chips will be the first new and faster Pentium III chips in more than a year, boasting clock speeds of up to 1.13GHz, according to sources familiar with Intel's plans.
The fastest new mobile Pentium IIIs will compete with AMD's Athlon 4 chip, a mobile version of the Athlon that runs at speeds as high as 1GHz.
The five Tualatin chips will run at clock speeds of 866MHz, 933MHz, 1GHz, 1.06GHz and 1.13GHz.
John G Spooner of ZDNN US contributed to this report.