Reply 20 of 70, by pixel_workbench
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Because VIA gives you options and Intel takes them away.
For mainstream Win 98 builds with a P2 or P3, the 440bx is pretty hard to beat. But then Intel got greedy and made some annoying restrictions. The i815 only makes sense if you want a Tualatin Win 98 rig and to run 133mhz FSB with in-spec AGP. But then you lose ISA, so you might as well skip the P3 and move to P4 or Athlon XP, or even Athlon 64. I would argue the i815 has a very narrow niche of applications.
Want to push Tualatin to the max and see how it handles Win XP games? You're gonna need a VIA board with at least 1GB RAM.
Want to maintain good DOS compatibility with that Tualatin? You'll also need a VIA board with ISA.
Want to have it all and use a good Intel chipset? Get the modded Tualeron on ebay and put it on a 440bx board.
Tualerons and 440bx too expensive these days? Get a cheap Coppermine and a VIA Apollo Pro 133A board with an ISA slot. Sure, it's not as fast clock for clock, but you get 133mhz fsb with the right AGP divider, and ISA slot. It might also be less compatible with some primitive early AGP cards, but a Geforce or Radeon works just fine. You might not get AGP 4x stable, but the 440bx doesn't even have that option.
If you're building a P3 rig today, I'd say there are even less reasons to use the i815 than before.