On 02.02.2008 14:19, Rudolf Marek wrote:
Great. Can we pick a socket AM2 board with these chips? Such boards are more readily available than socket 939 boards and usually they are also cheaper. A list of socket AM2 boards with K8T890/K8M890, availability and price in Germany follows:
Asrock ALiveSATA2-GLAN, K8T890 (50 Euro) Asus M2V, K8T890 (63 Euro, difficult to get) Asus M2V-X (unavailable) Asus M2V-TVM, K8M890 (49 Euro, difficult to get) Asus M2V-MX, K8M890 (43 Euro) Asus M2V-MX SE, K8M890 (38 Euro) Foxconn K8M890M2MA-RS2H, K8M890 (40 Euro) Foxconn K8M890M2MB-RS2H, K8M890 (36 Euro) MSI K9VGM-V, K8M890 (38 Euro)
Hmm M2V seems to use VT3351 aka K8T890CF (not CE). I checked some lspci dumps I found and this is bit different - perhaps I will need to contact VIA again and get the docs. This can take few months :/
That's unfortunate. Then again, the M2V is difficult to get, so it probably is not a viable candidate.
I would suggest to stick with the boards which PCI id is
00:00.0 0600: 1106:0238 00:00.1 0600: 1106:1238 00:00.2 0600: 1106:2238 00:00.3 0600: 1106:3238 00:00.4 0600: 1106:4238 00:00.5 0800: 1106:5238 00:00.7 0600: 1106:7238 00:01.0 0604: 1106:b188
(K8T890CE variant)
I was unable to find the M2V-MX lspci -xxx dump on the net. Imho the chipset is called K8M890. But it seems that it is CE version + unichrome. It uses internal AGP and unichrome card. The AGP bridge may need some programming. Lets try to get some PCI dumps first. The southbridge is VT8237A it should be fairly similar same to VT8237R.
Good.
I know already about one difference, hopefully not more will arise. Again, there is a chance to get the datasheets from VIA under NDA, but it takes some time to get them - in my case slightly less time I guess - I have already signed the papers and I think it can be extended to that chipsets too.
That would be great! We will need support for newer VIA chipsets anyway, so if you're 2 months ahead with requests, supporting the K8T890CF and K8T890CE+Unichrome should be attainable until May 2008.
To sum it up, with VIA we may be able to get the datasheets, it just takes time. They also answered some of my technical questions and provided additional help and asked their engineers. All just takes a lot of time to get the answers ;)
Good to know that they cooperate.
That's really expensive.
It was "buy now" button.
My list mentioned boards available from German online stores, so it would be mostly equivalent to "buy now" at ebay. By the way, the MSI K9VGM-V is available in the US from Newegg for $35. MSI have been cooperative in the past when trying to port their boards, so this may be a good choice.
Regards, Carl-Daniel