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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles R who wrote (112745)	5/25/2000 2:29:00 PM
From: Scot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571208

Looks like the split is being reserved for some other day. Seems that way. FWIW, the PR apparently was released a little early (cf. the time of the release) and is not on the amd web site yet. I suppose there could be more coming...but it would seem reasonable that they would only put out a single PR for the entire package. Here's a short interview with a PR person (Richard Brown) for via, mostly on DDR, but also a quick Joshua question. Via responses are in bold: tech-junkie.com TJ: Since we last spoke to you in late January, we began to see the availability of VIA Apollo Pro 133 (for Intel CPUs) and KX133 based (for AMD CPUs) motherboards. Both chipsets have proliferated themselves quite successfully in numerous motherboards. What has VIA got in store for the near future? We expect that PC133 will be the mainstream performance memory standard for this year, so right now we are still focused on the Pro133A and KX133, both of which have been extremely successful in the market. At Computex, we will also be demonstrating the PM133, which combines the Pro133A with the S3 Savage4 to provide the highest-performance integrated solution for the Value PC market. This is the first product resulting from our S3 Graphics Joint Venture and we are very excited about it. It's the first integrated chipset on the market to deliver advanced 3D graphics performance and also features an optional AGP slot for additional flexibility. We are also going to kick off our campaign to establish DDR as the next generation memory standard, and on the first day of Computex (5 June) we'll be holding a half-day DDR 266: Revving up PC System Performance seminar with speakers from VIA, S3, AMD and the main memory vendors. TJ: One interesting development that we'll see soon is the appearance of Double Data Rate (DDR) memory being used as system memory. Intel seems more eager to push RAMBUS at this time, but from your perspective what advantages does DDR have over RAMBUS? DDR SDRAM simplifies production and cost concerns, while dramatically improving overall PC system performance. DDR comes into the market riding firmly on the back of widespread industry support and an already existing SDRAM production infrastructure. We believe that this gives DDR a marked advantage in terms of cost, acceptance and quick adoption. And complementing its easy entry into the industry are the definitive and obvious performance benefits that DDR266 provides for memory to processor throughput. DDR266 offers 2.1GB/Sec bandwidth, greatly exceeding Rambus PC800's 1.6GB/Sec while avoiding the latency issues and technical difficulties inherent in a 16bit bus. For VIA, we expect DDR to quickly enter the mainstream, and all other segments of the market, due to its performance advantages, low cost premium and high yield production. TJ: Most people would love to see these advanced memory technologies approach the price of today's PC133 SDRAM, is DDR expected to cost less than RDRAM? We are looking at about a 3% cost addition over PC133 for DDR266 once it comes into production. And this is in comparison to 300-500% premium for Rambus. TJ: Some users have commented that even through using an Intel i820 chipset and installing relatively high priced RAMBUS memory, the real world system performance does not seem significantly greater than using a two year-old BX motherboard with regular PC100 or PC133 RAM. Do you anticipate a similar response when DDR system RAM hits the market? As mentioned above, we believe that DDR will deliver significant gains in overall system performance. TJ: Any possibility of Quad Data Rate (QDR) RAM appearing on desktop machines rather than laboratory samples in the foreseeable future? First we will work to push DDR266 into the market and then we can start to think about the next step. QDR is a possibility, but the obvious follow on to DDR will be the DDRII specification, already in discussion at JEDEC. TJ: Recently Intel has had its share of problems concerning their faulty Memory Repeater Hub (MRH). One could say that it's an unlikely side effect of attempting to provide compatibility while moving from SDRAM to RDRAM. Will ordinary SDRAM still be directly compatible with VIA motherboards capable of DDR? Will it require a similar device to the MTH? VIA chipsets will support both SDRAM and DDR with no difficulties. Some boards may even carry interfaces for both. TJ: It would seem VIA-based boards have also had their share of problems concerning compatibility problems with nVidia GeForce-based cards. There have been reports of AGP 2x/4x and power compatibility issues affecting some users. What is VIA's position on this? We are always concerned when users bring any compatibility issues to our attention, and have been working very closely with nVidia to resolve issues with the Geforce. TJ: You'll be showcasing the VIA Cyrix III CPUs (formally known as Joshua) soon, a value-oriented product. How does it compare in relative terms to AMD's Duron, and Intel's Celeron CPUs? Will there be a conflict of interest supporting all three CPUs, since they are all in aiming for a similar market segment? VIA believes strongly in supporting open industry platforms, and we will continue to develop chipsets running a full range of AMD and Intel processors. We don't see this as a conflict of interest. The VIA Cyrix III delivers very good performance for the Value segment, and we are confident that it will be very successful in the market. TJ: There have been rumors that Microsoft may implement DDR RAM in their X-Box game console system design. If other motherboard chipset manufacturers do not develop DDR RAM products, I guess VIA would be the logical choice. Is it a good possibility? Sorry, but it's not our policy to comment on rumors like this!