Taipei, Taiwan, 18 June 2003 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today announced the availability of the VIA Apollo KT600 chipset, set to become the first choice chipset in the market for ultimate performance AMD Athlon™ XP compatible motherboards. The worlds first Socket A platform chipset with a native integrated Serial ATA/RAID controller, the KT600 boasts a balanced configuration of 400MHz FSB support for the new Athlon XP processor 3200+ with VIAs FastStream64 DDR400 memory controller technology, as well as advanced connectivity features and VIA Vinyl Audio support.

To date, VIA KT600 chipset based performance motherboard designs have been confirmed by around 20 manufacturers representing more than 90% of the global market for AMD compatible motherboards, including ABIT, Acorp, Albatron, Aopen, Asus, Azza, Biostar, Chaintech, DFI, ECS, Epox, FIC, Gigabyte, Jetway, MSI, Shuttle, Soltek, Soyo and QDI.

"The huge choice of KT600 based solutions to be launched into the marketplace reflects the popularity and demand in the marketplace for KT Series mainboards," commented Richard Brown, Associate Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "The VIA Apollo KT600 coupled with the VIA VT8237 continues VIAs fine tradition of offering the premier performance and most feature-rich chipset solution for the AMD Athlon XP processor platform."

"MSIs new KT600-based KT6 Delta and the AMD Athlon XP processor 3200+ with 400 FSB are a powerful combination that enables the highest level of performance possible on gaming and multimedia applications," said Charles Chiang, Vice President of R&D, MSI.

"VIAs V-MAP architecture has allowed us to bring our KT600 solution to market in record time," said David Chiang, General Manager of Channel Business, Gigabyte Technology. "Our superior time-to-market with the latest technologies has been a major factor in the success of our VIA line of AMD mainboards."

"The VIA Apollo KT600 is the latest in a series of performance chipsets from VIA that have been successfully implemented in our Socket A motherboard range," said Mike Chou, Senior Vice President, ECS. "ECS KT600-A+ motherboard provides a combination of performance and stability that allows our customers to get the best from their AMD Athlon XP processor based systems."

Source: VIA