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WHAT'S IN A NAME? - YOUR CHIPSET CHOICE
by Alan Crease:
alan.crease@net.ntl.com
Well, what are those strange PC motherboard chipsets? They are usually PRO this or that, such as VXpro or TXproII. What they are not is INTEL and expensive. As only one of them is considered to be in any way less than worthy, the only reason they are not openly badged is to differentiate them from their real manufacturers main branded products. However, with a little bit of detective work, close examination of motherboards and a little bit of Web-weaving you can make both definite identifications and a few good guesses.
So where do they come from? Well, it seems there's a great demand for anything PC that's cheaper but still turns in a creditable performance. First of all some background: There are very few companies in the business of chipset manufacture, and even those that design them don't necessarily produce the chips in a (fab)rication plant. There's INTEL, of course, who design, and produce their own chips. They are followed by (S)ilicon (I)ntegrated (S)ystems or SiS for short, VIA Technologies, and A.L.I who are the chips division of the huge ACER corporation. I believe that, at best, Opti only make chipsets for portables these days.
INTEL are still so dominant in chipsets that they can claim, like Kellogg's, that if it doesn't say INTEL on the wrapper, then it isn't INTEL on the inside. As things stand, the others make up the little three of the desktop PC world, and don't figure in the multiprocessor and high-end server world. SiS, the second largest chipset Company proclaims that it is a fabless designer of chipsets and it is unlikely that the smaller VIA will have a fabrication plant either. Acer however is probably big enough to run a fab' plant but it's volume of production is the smallest of the four. So what's missing. The answer is the PCChips group of Companies. This is the organisation who were apparently responsible for the fake cache chips scam of a few years ago. They are very big and keep a very low profile, despite probably being amongst the top three of motherboard manufacturers in the world: that's just behind INTEL! What informed comment I have seen seems to think that they probably started the anonymous chipset game rolling 2 or 3 years ago by licensing chipset designs from VIA, initially for use in their own motherboards. Then, following the stealing of Intel's clothes in using the VXpro name, (presumably INTEL has never bothered to Trademark it's chipset names), and making a marketing success of it, it must have dawned on the little 3 that it would be a good idea to jump on the bandwagon. So they started off by badge engineering their own products on the back of Intel's marketing clout. After all, VX or HXsomething sounds a lot sexier than "vp1" or "5571". Just to complicate matters I suspect the odd-motherboard manufacturer even renames the renames. The result is an absolute plethora of chipset names.
Starting with the socket 7 Pentium grade models, the following are the names that I've heard:-
Vxpro VXpro2 Vxii
and:
VX+ Hxpro HXii, neither of which I've seen or can now trace.
Thirdly, the TX series starting with:-
Txpro TXproII TXproIII TX3 TXtoo TXaGPro TX4agp
and any day now the PC100SXpro.
As Intel produces a new chipset the little 3 are only a month or so behind with competitive chipsets. Indeed, these days the offerings from the little 3 are just as good and arguably better than Intel's products. The little 3 didn't obviously bother to match Intel in slot 1 designs with the LX chipset, but waited until the BX was produced. The result is the following:
Bxpro Bxcel Bxpert BXtoo.
So how do you tell them apart? Well, what you cannot rely on is any consistency by the little 3 and PCChips. PCChips continue to licence the emerging products and then make subtle changes to a chipset, such as taking an old design and adding UDMA hard-drive support over what was previously Enhanced IDE. This process can give rise to a whole new suffix or numeral. The basic clues are as stated before. For example only VIA has ever produced a four-piece chipset, the VP1, and it's brand update the VIA VPX. Generously, VIA often leave their chip codes on the anonymous chipsets, so look out for the characters VT82Cxxx, where xxx represents number such as 580, 585, 586 and 596 for the socket 7 chipsets. VT has an obvious meaning, but the 82C coding has also been used by Intel. SiS design chipsets of just one or two highly integrated chips but occasionally match them with their own branded VGA video or AGP accelerator chips such as the gold coloured 6326. The motherboards on which their chipsets are mounted are mainly aimed at the OEM system builder market and often provide integrated VGA with one or two sets of four-in-a-line video ram chips. Where there are a maximum of two chips the larger one is often under a green or gold heatsink and shows no numeric clue, but the small plain chip might bear an isolated number such as 5595. Just to make identification more confusing it's not unknown for SiS graphics chips to be linked to VIA or ALI main chipsets on PCChips motherboards.
So, as they say on all the best Police statements "to the best of my knowledge and belief" here is:
THE CHIPSET SCHEDULE: this is what they are.
1) The VXpro - A VIA VP1 derivative or even identical. The original only offered EIDE. The clue here is the number code VT82C580; the two small identical chips possibly marked VT82c587 over by the ram sockets are data path devices. This chipset normally only works up to a 66Mhz main bus, supporting chips up to 233Mhz.
I suspect the VX+ is simply the VXpro with added UDMA and/or USB support. The numbers to look for are 580 or possibly 585 and 586.
The VXtwo or VXii is also a four piece chipset but offers a main bus speed up to 75Mhz as well as UDMA and USB support, so this is probably a version of the VIA VPX ( an updated VP1) without the power management. Look for the codes VT82C585vp and 586a.
At present I cannot be definite about the VXpro2; it's a two piece device with EIDE and capable of operating on a 75Mhz bus but there the obvious clues end until I see one in the flesh. My hunch is it's an ALI chipset.
2) The HX series is a mystery, although the HXii is rumoured to be a SiS product.
3) The TX series. First up the TXpro: this is an ALI Aladdin IV chipset in disguise. Look for two identically sized chips with code numbers such as M1531 and M1533 and the capability of running on an 83Mhz main bus.
The TXproII and the TX3 are certainly SiS in origin with a single piece chipset providing for shared memory architecture (SMA) i.e. using system memory for the video. They're both exactly matched to the SiS 5598 with the difference in name being made by different motherboard manufacturers.
The TXproIII is another 4 piece chipset and certainly derived from VIA. It's nearest relative is the VIA VPX.
The TXtwo is a two-piece unit with UDMA and support for the USB. It is probably a close relative of the ALI Aladdin IV or IV+
The TXaGPro, i.e. supporting AGP, is more easily identified as VIA carelessly leave the code number on the smaller of the two chips. Look for the number VT82C598. This tells you that it's a version of the VIA MVP3 and operates at up to 100Mhz.
The TX4agp is a fairly rare two-piece unit, and I've never seen one in the flesh, so again I cannot be categorical about it, but my feeling is that it's a combination of the 5591 & 5595 chips from SiS, and officially operates at up to 83.3Mhz.
The PC100 and the PC100sxPRO are also designed for the 100Mhz bus and appear very similar. They are relatively new 2 piece units, the former is definitely from SiS, this time combining the 530 chip with a 5595 to give on board AGP using shared memory architecture (i.e. using some of the system RAM for video). Look for the large number 5595 on the chip which is not camouflaged by a heatsink. The sxPRO is the newest of the two, and could be the first sighting of the VIA MVP4. This is a more direct competitor against SiS than against Intel, in that like the SiS combination, it includes a 2d/3d AGP graphics accelerator and supports the upcoming UDMA-66 protocol for hard-drives. By the way, the "PC100" description and logo appears to be a trademark of PCChips: you'll find it emblazoned across their web-site.
That's the end of the socket 7 boards, but not the end of the mixing of chips, because SiS carries over the 5595 system input/output controller into its Slot 1 chipsets.
4) The BX series. Starting with the BXpro or BXproAGP: This is probably a combination of a 5600 principle controller chip with the 5595. However the 5600 will be obscured by a heatsink.
The BXcel is ALI's competitor chipset to the above. It's formal name is the ALI Aladdin ProII. The clue to it's origin should be a number such as M1543c on the uncovered smaller chip.
The BXpert is VIA's APollo Pro in disguise, but confusingly it is often found in combination with one of SiS's graphic accelerators such as the gold coloured 6326.
Lastly the BXtoo. One motherboard manufacturer has broken rank and identified this as a VIA product and differentiated it from the BXpert, but there is very little to separate them in terms of specification. The chip numbering clue with these latter two ?VIA chipsets is VT82C596.
- - to be amended, not concluded. Research will continue.
