Introduction

Just over three months ago we saw the end of an extensive legal argument between VIA and Intel. Without going into too many details, the conclusion was that Intel and VIA entered into a 10 year patent cross license agreement covering both company's products. Since the case has been closed, VIA now have the opportunity to put all their time and effort back into producing chipsets. Recently we saw the release of the KT600 platform and today we get to see what VIA have done with their new Intel licensing rights.

The PT800 chipset is the newest chipset to hit the market and is accompanied by VIA's latest Southbridge, the VT8237, which carries a host of new features for all Pentium 4 users. With the release of the new 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 processors, we have seen Intel release their latest line of chipsets in the shape of the I865 and I875 otherwise respectively known as the Springdale or Canterwood and while VIA don't expect to compete with these in the performance department, the PT800 is designed at people who want to purchase an 800MHz FSB processor without going all out and spending their money on Dual Channel Memory.

Without dragging on anymore, let's see what happens when we strap our 2.8GHz (800MHz FSB) Pentium 4 processor into the latest chipsets on the market from Intel and VIA where importantly we will see if those extra dollars reflect on the performance or not.