VIA P4X266 Motherboard Roundup - The Forbidden Five - January 2002

Final Words

Unfortunately for VIA, the P4X266 doesn't seem to have much of a chance thanks to Intel's pressures as well as SiS' competing 645 solution. Most of the major players have dropped support for the chipset leaving a handful of others to pick up the pieces, even VIA's own motherboards are very difficult to find in the retail channels compared to the larger names which will continue to keep this chipset out of the hands of the end users.

If you are set on purchasing a P4X266 based motherboard then the options are relatively simple; first and foremost, stay away from anything that doesn't have full manufacturer support and backing. The Tyan Trinity 510 is perfect for users that require a lot of memory and will populate all four DIMM slots, otherwise you'd be better off looking at either the VIA P4XB-SA, ECS P4VXAD or Shuttle AV40/R.

As we start to round up SiS 645 solutions it does seem like the P4X266 will never get the chance it truly deserved. With Intel's 845 already available in both DDR and SDR configurations, there's little reason to purchase a board that isn't 100% stable and widely available.