ALi MAGiK 1: The Athlon gets a second DDR platform

ALi resurfaces at Computex 2000

Half way across the world, in Taipei, Taiwan, ALi returned to the surface after a very long hiatus.  This time around, the treasure ALi brought with them was in the form of the first platform for the AMD Athlon that had official support for Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM and the 266MHz FSB (133MHz DDR).

ALi’s presence at Computex 2000 was very important because they were the only company, VIA included, to actually have a DDR Athlon motherboard on the show floor.  While VIA crowded the show with DDR266 banners, ALi actually had a part to show. 

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However things weren’t smooth sailing for ALi.  Not only was their part non-functional but out of all of the motherboard manufacturers present at Computex, only a single one indicated that they would be building a board around ALi’s solution.  To top it off, this was one of the smallest motherboard manufacturers in Taiwan, Iwill.  As if things didn’t appear to be gloomy enough, every other manufacturer we talked to indicated that they had no plans to use ALi’s solution nor would they be interested in doing so.  Everyone seemed to be waiting on VIA’s KT266, their DDR offering.