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Tyan's release of the VIA KT400-based S2495 or Trinity KT400 adds another player to the AMD Socket A platform. The board features a bit of an awkward layout as, for example, the diagnostic LED panel is almost completely hidden between the ribbon cables above and below the display. Likewise, the proximity of the AGP interface to the DIMM slots makes the use of certain graphics cards, including Tyan's own Tachyon G9700 a risky undertaking. For the overclocking community, the Trinity KT400 features some of the highest voltages, that is up to 3.3 VDD and VDDQ that are applied when 2.675V is selected in the BIOS. In the end we were able to run it rock stable but we have a few reservations about the S2495 nonetheless.

The second issue we were concerned with was to compare the older VIA 4-in-1 drivers (4.33) with the new VIA Hyperion drivers (4.43) on identical hardware to get some idea of how much better these drivers really are and which applications might profit as opposed to those that won't.

A Socket A and the Tyan logo on the passive chipset cooler is what a lot of fans have been looking for lately. The Trinity KT400 (S2495) may answer their prayers. Is it worth it?

The VIA KT400 chipset is something like a veteran in the Socket A platform, however, being a veteran does not necessarily mean that it is outdated. It is true that the nForce chipset shows somewhat better performance in certain applications, on the other hand, the performance delta is not that great either. Featuring DDR400 support, AGP8X for what it is worth and a 533 MB/sec interconnect between South and NorthBridge, at least the infrastructure is there around which a quite powerful system can be designed.

It is not too surprising, therefore that particularly those manufacturers that are, amongst other things, building ATi - based graphics cards, stick with the established KT400 platform to keep their foot within the AMD camp. When speaking about performance issues and VIA chipsets, one of the issues that resurfaces on a regular basis is the chipset driver support. In the past, this has been a sore spot on more than one occasion but lately, with the introduction of the so-called Hyperion drivers, things have taken a quantum leap to the better.

Thus far, we have not yet had a chance to look into the claims of 8 - 15% performance increase achieved with the new drivers, there is only so much that can be done in a day's worth. With the latest addition to the KT400 camp in form of Tyan's Trinity KT400 a.k.a. S2495, featuring all kinds of niceties from a Highpoint RAID controller to Serial ATA RAID support in form of the Silicon Image SiI 3112-R onboard controller, it appears that we might have the right toy for doing just that.

The chipset itself, that is, the VIA KT400 is an old acquaintance, consisting of the KT400 AGP and memory controller and the VIA VT8235 I/O controller with built-in support for UATA133 support. Keep in mind that the name KT400 is actually a misnomer since support for DDR400 is not listed as an official feature on the VIA website. However, the improvements over the KT333 chipset, that is, 533 MB/sec Vlink interconnect, USB 2.0 support as well as the integration of VIA's own 10-100 Ethernet controller warrant a different name to offset the new system logic from its older brethren. It appears somewhat funny though that the unofficial support of DDR400 had to stick out its head for the new name.

In any case, enough of a preamble, time to look at the real thing in form of the brand-new Tyan Trinity KT400.

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