Chipset manufacturer and up-and-coming processor contender Via will today announce the intro, in volume, of its Apollo Pro133A chipset. The chipset, which is the subject of litigation by Intel's large legal department, supports AGP 4x, the 133MHz front side bus, PC-133 and the ATA66 bus. Via claims it is the first to market with this type of solution. Major OEMs and mobo makers have already started shipping the Via chipset in volume, the company said. The move is likely to upset Intel because of the further delay it announced to the Camino i820 chipset because of problems with Rambus a couple of weeks back. Just two weeks earlier, Intel was forced to announce it would, in the future, give support to the PC-133 memory standard. Via had a large part to play in promoting the PC-133 standard, which many Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers favoured over solutions suggested by Intel. At autumn's Intel Developer Forum, senior VP Pat "Kicking" Gelsinger said his company was more paranoid about Via than its x86 microprocessor rival AMD. The chipset from Via is backwards compatible with previous PC standards, and the company claims that it gives a 33 per cent boost over PC-100 solutions. Intel vehemently denies PC-133 offers this level of performance. ® See also Why Intel and Rambus are so close Intel shifts to 133MHz bus next year Intel in full cunning strategic retreat over PC-133