The VXPro+ Chipset fully supports UltraDMA hard drives and SDRAM, unfortunately it doesn't feature the fast SDRAM timings found in the Intel TX and VIA Apollo VP2 chipsets which degrade its quality as a whole. However, the VXPro was never intended to be marketed under any labels, although the technology was apparently licensed to PCChips for use in their motherboards by VIA. VXPro chipset would appear to be loosely based on the VIA Apollo VP-1, however it seems to be a much cheaper version of it directed at entry level users. The VXPro was intended to be more of a head to head competitor of Intel's VX chipset, including features such as UMA support.
As far as most information sources goes, the VXPro chipset still limits the cacheable memory area to 64MB and unfortunately it doesn't support the maximum 2MB of L2 cache found in the superior Apollo VP-1. The VXPro chipset does however support the use of Concurrent PCI/CPU operations as well as an asynchronous PCI bus (i.e. the PCI bus can be set to 33MHz regardless of the external bus speed). The only area in which the VXPro really excels however, aside from the fact that the VXPro+ supports the UltraATA extension, is its amazing price. A motherboard built around the VXPro chipset will most likely go for about $60 which isn't bad for someone looking for an affordable solution for a second or third computer, possibly even a low cost business workstation.
VIA VXPro/VXPro+ Chipset | ||
Common Name | VXPro | |
Chipset Packaging | Number of chips | 2 (VT82C585, VT82C586) |
Packaging Type | 2 x 208-pin QFP | |
CPU Support | Number of CPUs | 1 |
AMD CPUs Supported | K5, K6 | |
Cyrix CPUs Supported | 6x86 (M1), 6x86MX (M2) | |
Intel CPUs Supported | Pentium, Pentium MMX | |
Cache | Type | Asynchronous/Synchronous Pipeline Burst Cache |
Maximum Supported Size | 512KB | |
Maximum Cacheable DRAM Area | 64MB | |
Memory | Maximum DRAM Supported | 128MB |
BEDO DRAM Read Timings (66MHz) | N/A | |
EDO DRAM Read Timings (66MHz) | 5-2-2-2 | |
FPM DRAM Read Timings (66MHz) | 5-3-3-3 | |
SDRAM Read Timings (66MHz) | 7-1-1-1 | |
Data Path to Memory | 64-bits | |
ECC Support | No | |
Hard Disk Controller | Chip | VIA BMIDE Controller (VT82C586) |
Busmastering Support | Yes | |
UltraDMA Support | Yes | |
Max. Theoretical Transfer Rate | PIO Mode 5/DMA Mode 3 (33.3MB/S) | |
PCI Interface | Supported PCI Bus Speeds | 25, 30, 33 MHz |
Concurrent PCI | Yes | |
Async. PCI Bus Speed | Yes | |
PCI Specification | 2.0 (66 MHz max.) | |
Power Management | PC97 Compliance | No |
Suspend to Disk | No | |
HDD Power Down | Yes | |
Modem Wakeup | No | |
System Suspend | No | |
Video | AGP Support | No |
Unified Memory Architecture | Yes | |
Peripheral Support | USB Support | Yes |
Plug and Play Port | Yes | |
Write Buffers | CPU-to-DRAM | Unknown |
CPU-to-PCI | Unknown | |
PCI-to-DRAM | Unknown | |
Officially Supported Bus Speeds | 50, 60, 66 MHz | |
Unofficially Achieved Bus Speeds | 75, 83 MHz |
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vortmax2 - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
The good ole' days when you could put multiple vendor CPUs into the same motherboard. So simple...PentiumGeek - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
This motherboard was on my 1st PC. I was very disappointed when faced with the problem that DIMM and SIMM memory can't work in the same time. I used Pentium 100Mhz CPU on this motherboard :)Amadeus777999 - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
Got an ASUS P2L97 board yesterday and I'm reading through this while DoomII is benchmarking. Good times.rogerjowett - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
Does n e 1 know where I can find a Voltage Regulation Module please