VIA aims latest P4 chipsets at HDTV generation

VIA today launched a pair of integrated chipsets for the Pentium 4, touting the parts' graphics performance delivered courtesy of an S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro core. The chipsets, the PM800 and PM880, offer single- and dual-channel 400MHz DDR SDRAM memory controllers, respectively. That's their only distinguishing feature: both can handle up to 80GB of RAM and both support the P4's 800MHz effective bit rate frontside bus.

In addition to the UniChrome Pro core, both chipsets support external AGP 8x interfaces. The integrated graphics engine is based on a pair of 128-bit pixel pipelines clocked at 200MHz. Up to 64MB of the host PC's main memory bank can be assigned as video RAM.

The core's graphics output system, dubbed the Chromotion CE Video Display Engine, sports a 350MHz RAMDAC and is capable of supporting all HDTV formats, VIA said, including 1080p. The engine can handle two output devices. It also features DVD decoding in hardware, backed by adaptive de-interlacing and video de-blocking filters for improved playback on non-interlaced displays, such as LCD panels. The system also supports video encoding.

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