Computex 2001 Day 1 - Live Coverage

AMD

Because of the poor performance of the initial VIA KT266 chipset, AMD has decided to continue producing the 760 chipset. Many of the larger motherboard manufacturers have large amounts of the chipset on order and there are no indications that AMD will halt delivery on them.

According to our sources, AMD has informed motherboard manufacturers that the 760 will continue to be available until VIA's KT266 matures. The ALi MAGiK1 chipset is still performing poorly and although the SiS 735 offers great performance, SiS unfortunately has a very bad reputation in the North American market. It is honestly up to VIA to improve the KT266, but until then the AMD 760 will be here to stay. We expect to see the 760 stick around for at least a few more months.

The AMD 760MP chipset won't be announced until Tuesday, but we've known its been on the way for quite sometime. Our testing is complete and the finishing touches are being put on our review as you read this. Of course the official release date didn't stop a couple motherboard manufacturers from showing off their boards on the opening day of Computex.

Tyan of course had their Thunder K7 which we've had in the lab for quite some time now. It's a very impressive board, offering just about every feature you could ask for in a server motherboard. The Thunder K7 will be the first and only 760MP board available at the launch. Expect it to cost around $600 retail.

MSI was also showing a 760MP board, labeled only as the MS-6502 for now. While it's not as feature filled as the Thunder K7, it will come in at a much lower price. The current goal is to get it under $200 if possible, but we'll have to wait and see how that plays out. However, don't expect to see the MS-6502 until third or fourth quarter of this year.

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These are the only two 760MP boards we've seen so far today, but once the official announcement is made, there should be a couple more on the show floor.