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As far as motherboard chipsets go, a successor to the Intel BX chipset is sorely needed. Sure, the BX is still the performance king, but with CPUs steadily moving to the 133 front-side bus, it is really starting to show its age. Intel has readied a few chipsets that looked to unseat the BX, but each comes with both positives and negatives. The Intel 810 and 810E are both capable performers, but are held back by their on-board AGP video and lack of a separate AGP slot. The Intel 820 is also very fast, but it is linked to the more expensive RDRAM memory specification. Even after Intel released a SDRAM bridge, the 820 chipset experienced performance issues and lagged behind competing SDRAM platforms.

Enter VIA Technologies and their Apollo Pro 133 chipset. Taking the chipset market by the horns and providing the highest feature set of any SDRAM motherboard chipset, the VIA Apollo Pro 133 includes support for ATA-66 and PC133, along with the all-important 1/2 AGP divider. VIA further enhanced their line-up with the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset, adding AGP 4X to their already potent mix.

Soon after its introduction, several motherboard manufacturers released Apollo Pro 133A motherboards, each putting a slightly different spin on their product. The AOpen AX64 Pro supplied a MicroATX design, while the innovative Tyan S1854 Trinity 400 supplied a dual Slot 1 and Socket 370 CPU interface. Other boards like the Abit VT6X4 and Asus P3V4X stayed with the standard Slot 1, ATX format. FIC also produced a competitive Apollo Pro 133A board, the KA11. With this kind of competition, motherboard design and implementation will be just as important as the chipset.