VIA has begun shipping its P4M890 integrated chipset for mainstream Pentium 4- and Celeron-based desktop systems, the chip maker said today. The part has support for HD audio and video, with an output resolution of up to 1080p, VIA said. With an eye on the media centre market, the chipset has two video capture ports and three digital video outputs.

The P4M890's frontside bus runs at up to 1066MHz, and connects the CPU to as much as 4GB of memory. All four DDR clock speeds are supported, along with 400MHz and 533MHz DDR 2, all in dual-channel configuration.

The chipset has its own UniChrome Pro graphics engine on board, but it can support an external GPU across the North Bridge chip's 16 PCI Express lanes. The integrated GPU supports accelerated DVD playback and HDTV output at up to 1080p resolution, VIA said, provided the host system has a suitable DVI or TV-out port. The chip has two 8-bit video capture ports and three 12-bit digital video ports.

A separate, single PCI Express lane hangs of the North Bridge for other add-in cards, such as a TV tuner or Gigabit Ethernet board.

The chipset's VT8237A South Bridge can host up to four parallel ATA 66/100/133 devices and two Serial ATA drives. It can support up to eight USB 2.0 ports, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, a 56Kbps modem, six PCI slots and legacy connectors. It also contains VIA's HD-enabled Vinyl audio sub-system.

The P4M890 is available now, VIA said. Pricing was not disclosed, and the company didn't forecast when it expects motherboards based on the chipset to hit the market. ®