Successor to VX700 named

THE FOLLOW UP to Via's recently-announced VX700 chipset will be the VX700M, in a similar package to save customers from having to redesign their boards.

VX700M will work on improving the graphics features of the integrated Unichrome Pro II core. It will support WMV9 hardware acceleration, MPEG4 with ASP (advanced simple profile) level 5 and quarter-pixel motion compensation and, of course, MPEG2.

However still no support for H264 in hardware, and there's no DX9+ support planned, so Vista will have to run in plain mode. If you want both of those, then you'll need to either wait for the CN750 chipset, or use the CN700 plus an external graphics card with a bit more beef.

VX700M will have the same 3.5W TDP and remain an integrated north/south bridge - great for small form factor devices, and still pretty rare these days.

The long in the tooth will remember back to the first such device: the SiS630 which supported Pentium 3s, and even managed to integrate the LAN PHY layer as well as the now-common MAC.

VX700M should launch later this year. µ