User manual VIA VT8251 WHITE PAPER

[. . . ] 11 Network Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 PCI Interface & LPC Bus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 VIA VinylTM Multichannel Audio Suite 12 VIA Vinyl HD Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 VIA Vinyl Gold Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [. . . ] The Server and Workstation market has utilized Command Queuing technology in SCSI drives for more than a decade, but SATA NCQ represents the first time such technology is available for the desktop PC market. Figure: 4 NCQ vs Non NCQ Internal Command Queue Additional SATA features In combination with supporting drives, the VT8251 South Bridge enables support hot plug and staggered spin-up capabilities to boost drive reliability. Hot plug operation allows a user to swap out a failed drive or add a new drive without taking down all the drives in an array. Staggered spin-up lets users control the sequence that drives power up, avoiding the massive power drain caused by all drives starting simultaneously. 6 Copyright © VIA Technologies, Inc, 2005. Third party brands and names are the property of their respective owner. VIA VT8251 South Bridge VIA DriveStationTM Serial ATA Controller Performance Figure: 5 Serial ATA Performance: PCMark 2004 As shown in Figure 5, the integrated VIA DriveStationTM Serial ATA Controller delivers an increase of over 25% in performance when compared to our competitors using PCMark 2004. When measuring read speed performance with the HD Tach 2. 7 benchmark, the VIA DriveStationTM Serial ATA Controller also shows a performance advantage over our competitors, as shown in Figure 6. Figure: 6 Serial ATA Performance: HD Tach Read Speed DriveStationTM Parallel ATA-133 Controller The VIA DriveStationTM Controller Suite also includes an enhanced IDE controller with a dual channel DMA engine and interlaced dual channel commands, allowing for full backwards compatibility with up to four Parallel ATA 133/100/66 devices delivering data transfer rates of up to 133 MB/s. 7 Copyright © VIA Technologies, Inc, 2005. Third party brands and names are the property of their respective owner. VIA VT8251 South Bridge VIA DriveStationTM V-RAID Controller The advanced VIA DriveStationTM V-RAID Controller implemented in the VIA VT8251 South Bridge enables users to benefit from all the enhanced performance and rock solid data security benefits of a high-end RAID system, but without the complicated setup procedures that are normally found in such a PC and at a much more affordable price. With digital media applications such as digital video creation and editing, and digital audio storage and playback becoming increasingly popular, the demands on hard disk drive throughput are growing at a dramatic rate. But although memory, processor, and Front Side Bus technologies have improved in recent years, significantly enhancing the performance of desktop systems, storage performance has not scaled at the same rate. V-RAID overcomes this bottleneck by delivering a significant boost in desktop storage performance. V-RAID is the first native RAID controller to support a complete range of RAID Level 0, RAID Level 1, RAID Level 0+11, RAID Level 5, and JBOD configurations (shown in the table below), giving the user maximum flexibility in tuning their disk array to achieve the optimum balance of performance and data integrity depending on their requirements. Table 1: RAID Configurations Supported by V-RAID RAID Level 0 1 0+1 5 JBOD 1 Effect Striping Mirroring Mirroring & Striping Striping & Parity None Capacity 100 % 50 % 50 % 80 % 100 % Performance Fault Tolerance High Medium/High High High Normal Low High High High Low Figure: 7 Serial ATA Internal Architecture 8 Copyright © VIA Technologies, Inc, 2005. This significant boost in bandwidth is expected to take the PC into new realms of high-definition, cinematic quality graphics. PCI Express also delivers a significant boost in bandwidth for peripheral connections, with a single PCI Express lane offering transfer speeds of up to 250MB/s, again an almost 100% increase over the existing PCI standard. Furthermore, the flexible nature of the PCI Express standard allows the implementation of four lane (1GB/s) or eight lane (2GB/s) PCI Express connections for higher-bandwidth peripheral connections. Scalability and Headroom The layered, point-to-point architecture of the serial bus based PCI Express standard allows PCI Express lanes to be stacked together to increase bandwidth. This offers a significant advantage over the existing PCI standard, which was confined to the limitations of its parallel bus architecture, and provides guaranteed longevity and improved flexibility. It is expected that PCI Express has the headroom to meet all our I/O needs for at least the next decade. Simplified Design and Flexibility In comparison with other I/O buses, PCI Express offers unparalleled levels of bandwidth per pin. With up to 100MB/s/pin bandwidth, component chips will require fewer pins and less silicon space, ultimately helping reduce component cost, or alternatively, freeing up silicon real estate for additional features. A welcome boost for motherboard and system designers is the fact that fewer pins means smaller connector size, fewer traces and signals, and improved signal integrity. This, allied with improved power management capabilities, will help enable a new generation of high-performance, small form factor devices that don't compromise on I/O connectivity. 10 Copyright © VIA Technologies, Inc, 2005. Third party brands and names are the property of their respective owner. VIA VT8251 South Bridge VIA VT8251 PCI Express Connectivity The VIA VT8251 South Bridge integrates PCI Express connectivity offering a total of 500Mb/s of bandwidth for the latest peripheral devices. PCI Express is a next generation standard intended to replace existing PCI and AGP connections. [. . . ] The Ultra V-Link bus delivers the necessary bandwidth and low latency required by today's increasingly demanding multimedia applications, and also provides headroom for ever increasing CPU and memory bus speeds. Not only does Ultra V-Link speed up data transfer rates, it also addresses potential bottlenecks on the South Bridge that may be created by the growing use of high-speed USB2. 0 and 1394 peripherals. VIA Hyperion 4in1 Unified Driver Set A pioneering unified driver set, the VIA Hyperion 4in1 drivers optimize system stability and performance for all systems running Microsoft® Windows® operating systems. 14 Copyright © VIA Technologies, Inc, 2005. Third party brands and names are the property of their respective owner. VIA VT8251 South Bridge Conclusion With increasing demands for connectivity and multimedia support the VIA VT8251 South Bridge sets a new standard for integration and performance. With its advanced support for VIA V-MAP, the VIA VT8251 South Bridge also extends support for the latest PCI Express Peripheral devices across VIA's extensive array of chipset North Bridge offerings. [. . . ]