If you decide to go with an Intel CPU (Celeron or Pentium III), then you basically have 5 choices, one of which just completely sucks! The Intel i820 chipset was supposed to "take over the world" with it's support for the oh, so, expensive RDRAM (let's just say that it costs about 3 times more than SDRAM, which we'll mention later) which was supposed to kill the old SDRAM, performance wise. Well, it seems that Intel's engineers were dreaming a bit too much when they were designing the chipset. The performance of RDRAM was almost identical to that of SDRAM, and RDRAM prices never actually came down to acceptable levels. Intel saw this, and tried to save it with a special chip, called the Memory Translator Hub (or MTH for short), so that the i820 chipset was capable of using regular SDRAM. With it, the performance level dropped even more and it really started to look like Intel was desperate. Then, when you could have thought that nothing worse could happen to them, they found out that there was a bug in the MTH hub, and they had to recall all the boards that were ever made with one of the MTH chips on it and give the people a refund. What a bummer that must have been!

Then we have Intel's other "value" choice, the i810. This chipset sports support only for a 100MHz bus (which means you won't be able to plug in one of the really high-end Pentium III's) and uses PC100 SDRAM instead of RDRAM. It also sports built-in sound and video, which is ideal for those who are looking to save a lot of bucks. The main downside to this chipset? It has no AGP support! (Yes, let me repeat that, it has no AGP support!) This means that you won't be able to plug in a nice and fast video card that takes advantage of AGP technology, and that you'll be limited to a PCI video card (however, 3dfx does make nice PCI solutions), which are slowly being phased out. Unless you're really pressed for cash and would just like a computer that "just works," this chipset is really not a good choice if you're in need of some good fraggin' action. So, as you can see, the Intel i820 and i810 is really not a viable choice to plug that spankin' new Celeron or Pentium III CPU into, hence, we have the other "alternatives," such as the VIA Apollo Pro 133A.

The Apollo Pro 133A is VIA's chance to really break into the chipset market. Intel was having huge problems with their i820 chipset, the Apollo Pro's main competitor, and AMD was making huge grounds with their Athlon CPU. If you were VIA, what better time was it to really show the world what you're made of!? VIA did just that. The Apollo Pro 133A has official support for the 133MHz bus (forgot to mention that the i820 does too, but, like I said earlier, we won't even look at the i820 as a choice) using the much cheaper, and more standardized PC133 SDRAM and has AGP 4X support (so does the i820). Performance wise, it is nearly as fast as the i820 + RDRAM combo, at about 1/3 of the cost! In the minds of consumers like you and me, what a great chipset!

But, like all things, good things always come to an end, for VIA this time. Introducing the Intel i815 Solano chipset! A hybrid between Intel's i810 chipset and the i820 chipset, the i815 has official support for PC133 SDRAM and ATA-100 support for hard drives when coupled up with Intel's "ICH2" Southbridge chip. PLUS, it has built-in sound and video for you people who are looking to save a few bucks, AND, unlike the i810, it even has AGP 4X support (when coupled with the ICH2 Southbridge, only AGP 2X with the ICH Southbridge, which, in my mind, is not going to make a difference). Look out VIA! Performance wise, the i815 beats both the i820 and the Apollo Pro 133A. Kudos to Intel for finally recognizing that the i820 + RDRAM combo was not getting them anywhere. My choice for a chipset that supports the Celeron and Pentium III and you can upgrade easily in the future? Definitely i815!

I must also include the good old "tried, test, true" 440BX chipset by Intel. This chipset was released in 1997 to support the, then new, 100MHz version of the Pentium II and Pentium III. It supports only a 100MHz bus uses PC100 SDRAM and only has AGP 2X support. It may seem that the BX is really "out of it" compared to the other newer chipsets mentioned here, but its performance is still way up there! To make things nice and short, the BX beats the i820 + RDRAM combo, the i810, the VIA Apollo Pro 133A AND the i815 (mentioned below). So, is BX a viable solution? Definitely! If you're getting a Celeron or a 100MHz version of the Pentium III, I think you should consider this as a home for it. Some people have also overclocked this chipset so that it will support a 133MHz version of the Pentium III, although, I do not recommend doing that, as you are running your AGP card out of spec. If you do, however, decide to choose the BX chipset, you must keep in mind that it'll be very hard for you to upgrade to a faster processor in the future because it lacks official support for the 133MHz bus (same goes for the i810), but if you just want a chipset that'll run your current CPU as fast as it can, then the BX is certainly a good choice!

On to: AMD Chipsets