Gigabyte Technology is exhibiting a mainboard based on VIA PT880 Pro chipset that supports Intel's processors and native PCI Express x16 and AGP 8x ports for graphics cards in a store in Tokyo, Japan. The mainboard was on the display at CeBIT 2005 show in Hannover, Germany, earlier this month and considering that usually mainboard makers expose products that approach commercial introduction in stores, the product may soon reach the market.

Gigabyte's GA-8VT880P Combo mainboards supports Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors in LGA775 packaging and up to 1066MHz processor system bus, dual-channel PC3200 (DDR 400MHz) and PC2-5400 (DDR2 667MHz) memory, PCI Express and AGP 8x slots for graphics cards, 3 PCI slots, Parallel ATA and Serial ATA ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel audio and other capabilities.

Gigabyte GA-8VT880P Combo. Click to enlarge

The main capability of the PT880 Pro chipset from VIA Technologies is support for both AGP 8x and PCI Express x16 slots for graphics cards, which provides flexibility for system integrators or end-users who have AGP 8x graphics cards, but want to install new Intel Pentium 4 processors in LGA775 form-factor and possibly with 64-bit capability and also have an ability to upgrade to next-generation graphics cards with PCI Express x16 interface.

According to VIA's estimations its new chipsets ?including PT880 Pro, PT894 and PT894 Pro ?offer approximately the same, or little bit lower, performance compared to platforms based on Intel's 915 and i925X-series core-logic products.

At CeBIT 2005 Gigabyte demonstrated working samples of GA-8VT880P Combo mainboards. The products were shown off using ATI RADEON X850 XT AGP 8x version.

According to Japanese web-site Akiba PC Hotline, the mainboard maker plans to sell the VIA PT880 Pro platform in the second half of April, about 2.5 months after the chipset was introduced and about one year after the core-logic was supposed to emerge at first.

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