VIA VIA Technologies VIA Technologies is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets...  Apollo VP3
Chips used	VT82C597 System Controller VT82C586B PCI-to-ISA Bridge
Instruction set	x86
CPU support	Pentium Pentium The original Pentium microprocessor was introduced on March 22, 1993. Its microarchitecture, deemed P5, was Intel's fifth-generation and first superscalar x86 microarchitecture. As a direct extension of the 80486 architecture, it included dual integer pipelines, a faster FPU, wider data bus,... Pentium MMX AMD K5 AMD K5 The K5 was AMD's first x86 processor to be developed entirely in-house. Introduced in March 1996, its primary competition was Intel's Pentium microprocessor. The K5 was an ambitious design, closer to a Pentium Pro than a Pentium regarding technical solutions and internal architecture... AMD K6 AMD K6 The K6 microprocessor was launched by AMD in 1997. The main advantage of this particular microprocessor is that it was designed to fit into existing desktop designs for Pentium branded CPUs. It was marketed as a product which could perform as well as its Intel Pentium II equivalent but at a... Cyrix 6x86 Cyrix 6x86 The Cyrix 6x86 is a sixth-generation, 32-bit 80x86-compatible microprocessor designed by Cyrix and manufactured by IBM and SGS-Thomson. It was originally released in 1996.-Architecture:... WinChip WinChip The WinChip series was a low-power Socket 7-based x86 processor designed by Centaur Technology and marketed by its parent company IDT.-Design:The design of the WinChip was quite different from other processors of the time...  C2 and C6
Socket support	Socket 7 Socket 7 Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style CPU socket on a personal computer motherboard. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts P5 Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, as well as compatibles made by Cyrix/IBM, AMD, IDT and others.Socket 7 was...
Predecessor	Apollo VP2
Successor	Apollo MVP3

Apollo VP3 (alias ETEQ 6628) is a x86 based Socket 7

Socket 7

Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style CPU socket on a personal computer motherboard. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts P5 Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, as well as compatibles made by Cyrix/IBM, AMD, IDT and others.Socket 7 was...

 chipset

Chipset

A chipset, PC chipset, or chip set refers to a group of integrated circuits, or chips, that are designed to work together. They are usually marketed as a single product.- Computers :...

 which was manufactured by VIA Technologies

VIA Technologies

VIA Technologies is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets...

 and was launched 1997. y.
On its time Apollo VP3 was a high performance, cost effective, and energy efficient

Green computing

Green computing or green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT. In the article Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as "the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers,...

 chipset. It offered AGP support for Socket 7 processors which was not supported at that moment by Intel, SiS

Silicon Integrated Systems

Silicon Integrated Systems is a company that manufactures, among other things, motherboard chipsets. The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.-Business:...

 and ALi

Acer Laboratories Incorporated

Acer Laboratories Incorporated is a major designer and manufacturer of integrated circuits for the personal computer and embedded systems markets. It is a subsidiary of the Acer group....

 chipsets. In November 1997 FIC

First International Computer

First International Computer, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer, that designs and manufactures computer products and electronic components for other electronics equipment manufacturers worldwide. The company's products include motherboards, embedded computing systems,...

 released motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

 PA-2012, which uses Apollo VP3 and has AGP bus. This was the first Socket 7 motherboard supporting AGP.

Description

Apollo VP3 supports 64 bits Socket 7 CPU-s, like Pentium

Pentium

The original Pentium microprocessor was introduced on March 22, 1993. Its microarchitecture, deemed P5, was Intel's fifth-generation and first superscalar x86 microarchitecture. As a direct extension of the 80486 architecture, it included dual integer pipelines, a faster FPU, wider data bus,...

, Pentium MMX, AMD K5

AMD K5

The K5 was AMD's first x86 processor to be developed entirely in-house. Introduced in March 1996, its primary competition was Intel's Pentium microprocessor. The K5 was an ambitious design, closer to a Pentium Pro than a Pentium regarding technical solutions and internal architecture...

, AMD K6

AMD K6

The K6 microprocessor was launched by AMD in 1997. The main advantage of this particular microprocessor is that it was designed to fit into existing desktop designs for Pentium branded CPUs. It was marketed as a product which could perform as well as its Intel Pentium II equivalent but at a...

, Cyrix 6x86

Cyrix 6x86

The Cyrix 6x86 is a sixth-generation, 32-bit 80x86-compatible microprocessor designed by Cyrix and manufactured by IBM and SGS-Thomson. It was originally released in 1996.-Architecture:...

, WinChip

WinChip

The WinChip series was a low-power Socket 7-based x86 processor designed by Centaur Technology and marketed by its parent company IDT.-Design:The design of the WinChip was quite different from other processors of the time...

 C2 and C6 CPU-s. It uses VT82C597 (or VT82C597AT for Baby AT and ATX motherboards) northbridge

Northbridge (computing)

The northbridge has historically been one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a PC motherboard, the other being the southbridge. Increasingly these functions have migrated to the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. For Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion...

 controller chip and AC97

AC97

AC'97 is Intel Corporation's Audio Codec standard developed by the Intel Architecture Labs in 1997, and used mainly in motherboards, modems, and sound cards....

 compilant VT82C586B southbridge

Southbridge (computing)

The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. In Intel chipset...

 chip with ACPI

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

In computing, the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface specification provides an open standard for device configuration and power management by the operating system....

 power management system.
VP3 has 64 bits memory bus

Memory bus

The memory bus is the computer bus which connects the main memory to the memory controller in computer systems. Originally, general-purpose buses like VMEbus and the S-100 bus were used, but to reduce latency, modern memory buses are designed to connect directly to DRAM chips, and thus are...

; 32 bits 33 MHz PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...

; 32 bits 66 MHz AGP 2X with sideband addressing, 133 MHz signalling and up to 533 MB/s transfer capability interfaces. It uses an integrated 10-bits TAG

Content-addressable memory

Content-addressable memory is a special type of computer memory used in certain very high speed searching applications. It is also known as associative memory, associative storage, or associative array, although the last term is more often used for a programming data structure...

 comparator and supports up to 2 MB

Megabyte

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

 pipelined burst synchronous SRAM (cache memory) and up to 1 GB

Gigabyte

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

 ECC

ECC memory

Error-correcting code memory is a type of computer data storage that can detect and correct the more common kinds of internal data corruption...

 cachable RAM

Random-access memory

Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...

 memory. Memory controller

Memory controller

The memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor...

 supports up to 8 memory pages (banks) interleaving

Interleaving

In computer science and telecommunication, interleaving is a way to arrange data in a non-contiguous way to increase performance.It is typically used:* In error-correction coding, particularly within data transmission, disk storage, and computer memory....

 mode, flexible row and column addresses, concurrent DRAM writeback, read around write capability, burst read and write operations, etc. (for more details see). Officially, the supported speeds of the memory bus

Memory bus

The memory bus is the computer bus which connects the main memory to the memory controller in computer systems. Originally, general-purpose buses like VMEbus and the S-100 bus were used, but to reduce latency, modern memory buses are designed to connect directly to DRAM chips, and thus are...

 are 50, 60 and 66 MHz, but the numerous implemented motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

s with VP3 have also 75 and even 83 MHz bus speed capability.

VT82C597 Northbridge supports up to six memory bank

Memory Bank

A memory bank is a logical unit of storage in electronics, which is hardware dependent. In computer the memory bank may be determined by the memory access controller and the CPU along with physical organization of the hardware memory slots....

s of DRAM-s or DIMM

DIMM

A DIMM or dual in-line memory module, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers, workstations and servers...

-s up to 1GB in total size. Memory controller supports standard fast page mode (FPM) DRAM, EDO-DRAM, Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), and also SDRAM-II with Double Data Rate (DDR) in a flexible, mixed configuration. The Synchronous DRAM interface allows zero wait state bursting between the DRAM and the data buffers at 66 MHz. The six memory banks of DRAM can be used in arbitrary mixture of 1MB / 2MB / 4MB / 8MB / 16MBxN DRAM or DIMM modules. Memory controller has 3,3 V

Volt

The volt is the SI derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. The volt is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta , who invented the voltaic pile, possibly the first chemical battery.- Definition :A single volt is defined as the...

 (5 V tolerant) interface.

VT82C586B includes UDMA

UDMA

For the main article about the controller, see Parallel ATAThe Ultra DMA interface was the fastest method used to transfer data between the computer and an ATA device until Serial ATA....

-33 EIDE

Eide

Eide is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the region of Nordmøre. It is located on the Romsdal peninsula, along the Kornstadfjord and the Kvernesfjord. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Eide...

, USB, Keyboard

Keyboard (computing)

In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...

/PS2-Mouse interfaces and on chip RTC

Real-time clock

A real-time clock is a computer clock that keeps track of the current time. Although the term often refers to the devices in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are present in almost any electronic device which needs to keep accurate time.-Terminology:The term is used to avoid...

 plus 256 KB CMOS

CMOS

Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits...

.

Anandtech

AnandTech

AnandTech is an online computer hardware magazine. It was founded in 1997 by then 15-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi, who is the current editor-in-chief and CEO. The web site is recommended as a good resource of hardware reviews for off-the-shelf components addressed to computer building enthusiasts...

 described Apollo VP3 being a combination of the VIA Apollo VP2 and the Intel 440LX chipsets.
Apollo VP3 was quite shortly replaced with VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, which offers faster, 100 MHz memory bus capability and asynchronous memory bus, but supports somewhat less amount of the cachable memory area and system DRAM (only four memory banks). Lack of the 100 MHz bus support, which was needed for a newer AMD, Cyrix

Cyrix

Cyrix Corporation was a microprocessor developer that was founded in 1988 in Richardson, Texas as a specialist supplier of high-performance math coprocessors for 286 and 386 microprocessors. The company was founded by former Texas Instruments staff members and had a long but troubled relationship...

, etc., Super Socket 7

Super Socket 7

The Super Socket 7, also referred to as Super 7, is an extension of the Socket 7 ZIF socket specification. It features a 100 MHz front-side bus, support for AGP, and a SPGA package. Super Socket was used by AMD K6-2 and K6-III processors, and some of the final Cyrix M-II processors...

 processors pushed VIA to drop VP3 from production.

Apollo VP3 based motherboards

Majority of motherboards on the basis of Apollo VP3 chipset were implemented with 512 KB L2 cache memory, with single 32KB TAG-ram chip, and 2 (rarely 3) 168-pin DIMM slots plus 2 (rarely 4) 72-pin SO-DIMM

SO-DIMM

A SO-DIMM, or small outline dual in-line memory module, is a type of computer memory built using integrated circuits.SO-DIMMs are a smaller alternative to a DIMM, being roughly half the size of regular DIMMs...

 slots, with AGP slot, 2-4 PCI slots, 2-3 ISA

Instruction set

An instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...

 slots. Some extremes are FIC PA-2012 and Shuttle HOT-595 which have 1024 KB (some have 512 KB) L2 cache memory and have three 168-pin DIMM slots (1 AGP, 4 PCI, 2 ISA). Tyan Trinity ATX S1592S has three 168-pin DIMM slots plus four 72-pin SO-DIMM slots (1 AGP, 4 PCI, 3 ISA).

Apollo VP3 chipset was sold by Soyo also under name ETEQ 6628 chipset.

List of Apollo VP3 based motherboards (list may be not complete)

• 2theMax: 586VP3/98 and 586VP3A/98
• Achitech: ACHI-155 and ACHI-156
• Acorp: 5VIA3S and 5VIA5S
• AK-527 (?)
• Aristo: AM-596VP3 and AM-597VP3
• Biostar
  Biostar
  Biostar or Biostar Microtech International Corp, is a motherboard manufacturer based in Taiwan, designing and manufacturing of computer hardware products such as motherboards, video cards, barebone computers and industrial PCs, to meet the demands of market development by providing more integrated...
  
  : M5VIA
• California Graphics Sunray: Sunray VIA
• DFI
  DFI
  DFI, or Diamond Flower Inc., is a major motherboard manufacturer based in Taiwan.-History:DFI was first established in 1981 by Y.C Lu. At that time, DFI began as a graphics card maker with a turnover of 100 cards...
  
  : P5XV3 and P5BV3
• ENPC: EP-PI11
• EPoX
  EPoX
  EPoX was a manufacturer of motherboards, video cards and communication products. They manufactured mainboards for AMD and Intel processors, which are renowned for being overclocker-friendly yet affordable. Many of their products used the same StudlyCaps naming convention as the company...
  
  : P55-VP3 and 5BVP3A
• FIC
  First International Computer
  First International Computer, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer, that designs and manufactures computer products and electronic components for other electronics equipment manufacturers worldwide. The company's products include motherboards, embedded computing systems,...
  
  : PA-2012 and VA503
• Flasch Tech Inc.: SL-54T5
• Freetech: P5F88
• FYI: FYI-VT597
• Hopevision: SP-V586A
• Jet-Way: J-597A
• Leo-Tech: P55-VP3
• Lucky-Star: 5VP3
• Magic-Pro
  Magic-Pro
  Magic-Pro is a major computer equipment manufacturer based in Hong Kong. Magic-Pro's business focus is motherboard manufacturing, although it has LCD display and display card products....
  
   MP-VIP3-B
• MSI
  Micro-Star International
  Micro-Star International Co., Ltd is a Taiwan-based electronics company and one of the world's largest motherboard and video card manufacturers.-Overview:MSI is one of the top three motherboard and video card manufacturers worldwide...
  
  : MS-5171
• NMC: 5VMMX
• PC Partner: VIB806DS and VIA809DS
• QDI: P5V580VP3
• Rhino: VP3
• Shuttle
  Shuttle Inc.
  Shuttle is a Taiwan-based manufacturer of motherboards, barebone computers, complete PC systems, and monitors. Throughout the last 10 years, Shuttle has been one of the world's top 10 motherboard manufacturers, and gained fame in 2001 with the introduction of the Shuttle SV24, one of the world's...
  
  : HOT-595
• Soltek: SL54T5
• Soyo: SY-5ED5 and SY-5EDM
• Tekram
  Tekram
  Tekram is a Taiwanese company in the computer industry. They make SCSI host adapters, SATA RAID controllers, IrDA and Bluetooth adapters, and many more.It is a competitor to Adaptec and LSI Logic...
  
  : P5VP3-B3
• TMC: TI5VG and AI5VG
• Trigem: Lahti
• Tyan
  Tyan
  Tyan Computer Corporation , is a subsidiary of MiTAC International, and a manufacturer of computer motherboards, including models for both Intel and AMD processors...
  
  : Trinity ATX S1592S
• Unicorn: ENDAT- 586SL and ENDAT-586HL
• USI: Pro266 (?)
• Zida Tomato: 5DLX