DOS Games Discussion

I heard about some non-original chipsets, called VXPro, VXPro+, TXPro, HXPro, FXPro... Can you tell me something more? I saw a lot of Pentium-motherboards with these chipsets, and, if you don't want extra-performance, they run very well.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/chip/pop/g5i.htm (the sub pages)

According to them, those "Pro" chipsets are cheap imitations.

These chipsets were basically OEM versions of VIA chipsets, possibly some others like SiS and/or ALi as well.

I noticed them mostly on the really cheap Taiwainese motherboards like those from ECS which makes so many cheaper brands like Amptron, PC Chips, Matsonic et.al.

The advantage to many of these chipsets was that you could run other then an Intel CPU on them, for instance the old Cyrix 6x86 and the AMD K5/K6 series CPU's.

Yes, I know, but, about 2 years ago, we installed a AMD K6 /200 MHz processor on a Green Pci/Isa system from ABIT, with the chipset I430TX, and it ran very well! How do you explain this?

i430TX is the real Intel. In fact, it was Intel's final (and second best) chipset for Pentium-class motherboard.

fabiobol wrote:Yes, I know, but, about 2 years ago, we installed a AMD K6 /200 MHz processor on a Green Pci/Isa system from ABIT, with the chipset I430TX, and it ran very well! How do you explain this?

Nothing to explain, some manufacturers built-in support in the system BIOS for non-Intel CPU's and others did not. That being said, some motherboards that were supposed to support non-Intel CPU's still had issues running these CPU's so it sometimes was problematic to getting a non-Intel CPU working properly. Other motherboards had little or no problems running all the CPU's that were available at the time.

Basically the compeating chipsets out at the time were primarialy used by the Tier 2/3 motherboard manufacturers, many of these had some or many issues running non-Intel CPU's...

From my POV, it would be AMD's responsibility to be 100% compatible with Socket 7 standards.

In your opinion, what of these 2 chipsets is the best? i430TX or Via (M)Vp3?

If both of them are normal Socket 7 (not Super Socket 7), then I would go with the i430TX, as it was Intel's final Pentium chipset before it moved on to its Pentium II/Slot 1/440 series.

If the VIA is a Super Socket 7 (with 100 MHz FSB support) then I would go with the VIA.

Mine is a Super-socket 7, but I remember that with a i430TX MB, the performance were better than with my soltek sl-54u5.

If the CPU runs with 66 MHz bus, then it's fair game.

Sorry, what do you mean? Sorry but I am Italian, and usually I don't understand some English expressions.... Could you explain me, please?

Ok...

If the CPU uses a 66 MHz bus, then the Super Socket 7 pretty much operates little different from the normal Socket 7, which also has a maximum bus speed of 66 MHz.

Since the Super Socket 7 would no longer have the advantage of the 100 MHz bus, the 2 chipsets can then be compared for their architectural features instead of their clock speed (since both operate at the same clock speed - 66 MHz).

The best Intel Pentium chipset was the HX (server class). The VX and TX could not cache more then 64MB of memory (so if you add more your system slows down quite a bit). There were other differences too.

The HX lacked SDRAM support (and it was a tad older) in spite of its superior performance.

The chipsets that did support SDRAM had one or maybe 2 sockets and only used small sizes of slow PC66 dimms, not much of an advantage.

Super socket 7 boards had better chipsets but were aimed at K6's since intel had moved onto the P2 by then (BX chipset being the best/most stable).


http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/chip/p ... 0TX-c.html

check this out for a comparison.