VIA's first PCI Express chipset will sample next month, the company said today. And its rival Taiwanese chipset maker, SiS, will same one in January, too.

The VIA PT890 is a Pentium 4 part, running an 800MHz effective bit rate frontside bus and supporting dual-channel 400MHz DDR SDRAM and DDR 2 memory, according to a DigiTimes report.

SiS' SiS656 is likely to have a similar specification. Just in time: VIA hopes its PCI Express chipset will allow it to overtake SiS in the P4 chipset market. Its deadline for doing so is Q2 2004.

PCI Express isn't likely to hit the market before that date, allowing VIA - SiS, too - to sample, then ship chips to mobo makers in time for a mid- to late Q2 launch. ®

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