VIA Hardware takes a look at the VIA Apollo Pro266 chipset.

VIA´s big release for 1998, the long delayed Apollo Pro Plus, sputtered like a wet firework. The actual chipset (consisting of the 693/596A North/Southbridge) was not a technical failure, but was actually a strategic blunder. Intel´s own BX chipset had been on shelves for nearly 6 months before the Pro Plus finally made it to market, and the Pro Plus offered no advantages over the ubiquitous BX. To top matters off, Intel´s implementation of the memory and AGP controllers was very good, and the Pro Plus simply couldn´t compete performance wise. As a result, few manufacturers sold boards based on the Apollo Pro Plus, and it became just another one of the also-rans in the P6 chipset market.

However, the situation was completely reversed in 1999, with VIA´s release of the Apollo Pro133 in August. Sporting a number of advantages over the Pro Plus, such as the worlds first 133MHz FSB support, and an integrated ATA/66 controller, the Pro133 proved to be a wild success. Its success, however, would not have achieved the level it did without the utter failure of Intel´s 820. Thus, just as VIA´s Pro Plus was broken by the excellent BX chipset, the Pro133 was made by the abysmal 820, whose performance was merely acceptable with the uber-expensive RDRAM ($1000 for 128MB on launch), or horrible when paired with PC100 via the infamous Memory Translator Hub.

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