Mobo maker ABIT will release boards based on VIA's Pentium 4 chipset, the PT800, during Q3, according to the company's latest roadmap.

And the company will support AMD's Athlon 64 in October - a month after the chip's official launch - with two boards, one based on VIA technology the other using Nvidia's 'Crush K8' chipset.

The VIA-based P4 board, dubbed the VI7, is scheduled to ship late July or early August, according to the roadmap. It will feature 400MHz DDR memory support, 800MHZ frontside bus support, AGP 8x, Serial ATA RAID, USB 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet and an optical digital S/P DIF out port - all features provided by the PT800 North Bridge and 8237 South Bridge.

The same parts will be used in mid-September on a follow-up board that provides augments the VI7's feature set with a dual-channel 400MHz DDR memory sub-system.

ABIT's other P4 boards are based on Intel chipsets, suggesting that the company's decision to adopt VIA's product was made possible by the settlement of the twp chip makers' legal battle a couple of months back.

Speaking of Intel, ABIT will release the i875P-based IC7-MAX3 mobo in the same timeframe as the VI7. It will offer 800MHz FSB support, dual-channel 400MHz DDR memory, 6x Serial ATA, AGP 8x, gigabit Ethernet, 1394 and USB 2.0.

ABIT's Athlon 64 boards, the KN8-G and KV8-G, based on Nvidia and VIA technology, respectively, should arrive in October, according to the roadmap.

The KN8-G will be based on the Crush K8 chipset, likely to be a more enthusiast oriented version of the nForce 3 Nvidia launched in April to support AMD's Opteron CPU. According to the roadmap, it offer an 800MHz FSB, DDR 400 support, AGP 8x, 6x Serial ATA RAID, USB 2.0, 1394, Gigabit Ethernet, SoundStorm, six-channel audio and in/out S/P DIF.

The VIA K8T800-based KV8-G has the same feature set, lacking only SoundStorm. ®

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