Yesterday we posted a short news post regarding the release of the P4X266E based P4PB mobo by VIA wondering why the Taiwanese company would launch a "new" motherboard based on an older (and slower) chipset then what is currently available on the market today. VIA responded in the thread we created in our forums, here is the response:

 

The P4X266E is a low-cost chipset that is why we are doing it OEM's dont want DDR333 just yet.

 

As for the SiS Xabre400 you must use the right AGP driver for AGP 8x the VIA 8x AGP driver will be out in time for the ATI R9700. And we have dropped the P4x333 as we got the P4x400 working so quick and we didn't want to only have a chipset out for 1 month!

This seems like a fair enough reason to us but we aren't sure if it is really the only reason, feel free to talk about it here.