Chipsets for Pentium 4

i845PE and i845GE Chipset

i845E and i845G don't officially support DDR333. i845G + PC2700 testing proved the significant boost, provided by this memory, and possible appeal of such a combination for users not willing to use RDRAM for some reason (though tests have repeatedly proved that i850E provides the best performance today). At that, researches proved great instability of i845G-based boards operating with DDR333 (due to this even today Intel is forced to use the same Chaintech 9BIF0, as in May), so today's chipset couple is attractive at least by simultaneous performance and stability.

The second important advantage of i845PE/GE is their prospect. According to preliminary data, i850E and i845E chipsets are potentially capable of supporting this technology, and i845G/GL is not (Hyper-Threading will be featured only in Pentium 4 with 533MHz FSB, so there's no sense to speak of older chipsets). Though it seems impossible to use already released i850E and i845E with such processors, as the new models (3.06 GHz would be the lowest in the line) require some technological changes for the support. At the same time i845PE/GE boards should be initially designed for these features.

Finally, speaking of announced chipsets,it should be stated that i845PE, like its i845E predecessor, is a discrete chipset, and i845GE - integrated, featuring the same graphics, as used in i845G. There's a slight difference between these integrated products: i845GE has higher graphics core clock (266MHz against 200MHz of i845G). A minor increase it is (speaking of absolute performance expected), and graphics memory, being an allocated buffer, has the same clock as well. Nevertheless, it's still interesting to look at the performance increase.

i845GE/PE Chipset Specifications:
* Supports Pentium 4 processors;
*The processor socket - Socket-478;
*The interbridge bus - Intel Hub Architecture v1.1, 266 MBps;
*Maximum RAM capacity - 2GB;
*There is support for AGP 2.0, in particular, the data transmission mode 4x;
*Integrated graphics core;
*Support for the memory frequencies 100/133/166Mhz;
*Supports 400/533MHz system bus speed;
*Number of PCI slots - 6;
*IDE modes - 33/66/100;
*Six USB 1.1/2.0 ports;
*Support for 6-channel AC'97 integrated audio;
*10/100Mbit LAN;
*Additional AMR/CNR expansion slots.

The specifications for this chipset fully coincide withthose for i845PE. As a result, there is no difference between boards based on the PE and GE chipset; the only thing that makes them differ is that GE boards have integrated video.

VIA P4X400 Chipset

Fusing the unequalled bandwidth of AGP 8X with the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, the VIA Apollo P4X400 with 533MHz processor bus, DDR333 , ATA-133, USB 2.0 and 8X V-Link chip interconnect, is a new paradigm in total system performance.

Building on the success of the VIA Apollo P4X266, the first DDR266 SDRAM chipset for the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, the VIA Apollo P4X400 is the most feature rich and powerful chipset ever produced. DDR333 memory support, offering 20% more memory bandwidth to the CPU, and the ultra fast 400/533MHz processor bus unleash the full power of today's and tomorrow's Intel® Pentium® 4 processors, enabling stunning performance across the full spectrum of applications. In addition, the VIA Apollo P4X400 supports the very latest I/O technologies including AGP 8X deriving maximum performance from the most powerful graphics cards, and new 8X V-link chip interconnect with 533MB/s of bandwidth between North and South Bridge enabling the processor to exploit the full potential of peripheral devices.

Sis648/963 Chipset

The 648 north bridge chip has a revamped AGP interface with AGP 8X support andtwice the bandwidth of AGP 4X solutions.The front-side bus supports the latest Pentium 4 chips with 533MHz bus speeds. And the reworked memory controller is faster than in the 645/645DX chipsets, with the ability to host three DIMMs of DDR266 memory or two DIMMs of DDR333. Unofficially, the 648 will support DDR400, as well—the necessary bus-to-memory clock ratio is there, and it worked flawlessly in tests with a single stick of Corsair DDR400 memory.

In between the 648 north bridge and the new 963 south bridge chip is SiS's proprietary MuTIOL chipset interconnect. This 16-bit interconnect runs at an effective rate of 533MHz, delivering a total of 1GB/s of bandwidth. That's twice the speed of VIA's "Enhanced V-Link" and four times as fast as Intel's Accelerated Hub interconnect.

The extra bandwidth will be needed, because SiS's new 963 south bridge chip can push a whole lot of bits at once. The chip supports up to six USB 2.0 ports at 480Mbps a pop, plus three IEEE 1394a (also known as Firewire) ports at 400Mbps each. The 963's updated disk controller can support dual ATA/133 channels, as well. Like its predecessors, the 963 also supports the full range of south bridge three-letter acronyms, including PCI, LPC, and ACR. The PCI controller can sustain six PCI master devices at once.

Basic System Requirements of Chipsets

* Operating System

* DirectX 9.0 or greater
* Processor

* 256 MB RAM
* Video Card:

* 15 GB Hard Drive

* Supported TV tuner card(s)

* Television Source

* Internet Access
* Optional Hardware

Core 2 Duo Chipset System Requirements

* Motherboard Compatibility

Although a motherboard may have the required chipset to support Conroe, some motherboards based on the above mentioned chipsets do not support Conroe. This is because all Conroe-based processors require a new power delivery feature set specified in Voltage Regulator-Down (VRD) 11.0. This requirement is a result of Conroe's significantly lower power consumption, compared to the Pentium 4/D CPUs it is replacing. A motherboard that has both a supporting chipset and VRD 11 supports Conroe processors, but even then some boards will need an updated BIOS to recognize Conroe's FID (Frequency ID) and VID (Voltage ID).

* DDR2 memory modules

Unlike the previous Pentium 4 and Pentium D design, the Core 2 technology sees a greater benefit from memory running synchronously with the Front Side Bus (FSB). This means that for the Conroe CPUs with FSB of 1066 MT/s, the ideal memory speed is PC2-4200 or PC2-8500 (twice the speed of PC2-4200). In some configurations, using PC2-5300 can actually decrease performance. Only when going to PC2-6400 is there a significant performance increase. While expensive DDR2 memory models with tighter timings do improve performance, the difference in real world games and applications is negligible.