11/21/2001: ROUTE defies Intel with another chipset for Pentium 4 and DDR

    The manufacturer of Taiwanese chipsets has just raised the bets in his battle for the mastery of the market, ignoring the Intel legal actions for the supposed absence of rights of ROUTE to be made chipsets for Pentium 4; after everything, ROUTE has other demands on certain patents of the design of the proper Pentium 4...
    The new chipset ROUTE Apollo P4X266A is a review of the chipset that caused the latter clash of two manufacturers, the Apollo P4X266 (without "To"). To the support for Pentium 4 of 423 ó 478 pines and memory DDR-SDRAM, he adds improved yield of the controler of memory of the northbridge (major effective band), and - if the released block diagram is correct - enclosed support of future Pentium 4 with 533 MHz bus (4 x 133 real MHz).
    It is a compatible pin to pin with the previous model, what facilitates enormously his rapid use for the manufacturers of basic badges, and combinable with several southbridge models, including the new one VT8233A with support of Ultra ATA/133.
    Costing a few wretched 25 $, if the improved yield is at least similar to the observed one (enormous!) in the review KT266A of the chipset for Athlon + DDR, the only reasonable motive for use this chipset be the fear of the manufacturers of basic badges of the anger of Intel... and, just in case, ROUTE have just begun to make "your" own basic badges, by means of agreements with other manufacturers.
    Perhaps Intel should have thought better where it was getting when he decided to join the destination of his Pentium 4 to the memory Rambus-DRAM... although the true thing is that the users are buying basic badges with chipset i845 (Pentium 4 + classic SDRAM, not DDR), despite his awful yield. There is nothing like being a mark "of prestige".