The New Technology

If you look deeper into the problems of memory, sound and AGP then you'll notice an interesting link in the chain, BUS (FSB/Related), voltage and timing. During this brief article we haven't even begun to outline all the serious problems, just a few of the more prominent ones, bare that in mind.

Newer boards based on KT133A, AMD761 and related chipsets will take a much more streamlined approach. The AMD761 does away with an Asynchronous bus altogether due to DDR Ram and the KT133A keeps it, but gives you support for 133Mhz FSB Tbirds (266Mhz DDR) and standard SDRAM.

Such a change in technology and thus design may well result in a yet further streamlined chipset that in turn could cause less of the voltage and BUS niggles experienced in the past. Whether this pans out into reality is a question that should be answered by the end of Q1-2001, when some of the early boards will have finally hit the mass market.

I personally believe that it's important AMD and related parties get this batch right because if people still find the same old problems, then that'll mean they've existed for nearly three years. In other words, those who are more aware of the problems (hardcore gamers) may venture back onto Intel platforms. This is a problem because Intel hardware is currently vastly overpriced; we dare not even quote the cost of a P4-1.4Ghz and on a price/performance basis AMD is ahead in everything except RAM.

Just give us a stable gaming platform!

by Mark 'KILLZAT' Jackson

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