Micro Star International, the number three mainboard company in the world, has recently published the list of Intel Prescott supporting mainboards. Apparently, practically all quality ATX platforms from MSI launched in 2003 are compatible with the highly anticipated Pentium 4 processors with SSE3 technology.

Earlier this year we reported that due to a mandatory voltage regulation spec change from VIN 1.0 to VIN 1.5, Prescott processors may not work on at least some of current platforms designed to support the upcoming chip initially. Right after that we have seen some roadmaps that included mainboards supporting Prescott listed to come in August or September that was basically an indirect confirmation to the fact that Prescott will not be supported by quite some platforms available this Summer. However, there was a total mess with confirmations of Prescott support – at least one mainboard maker asked us not to publish any information in regards Pentium 4 SSE3 support by its 2003 products.

According to the report, the following mainboards from MSI are officially compatible with Intel Prescott processors:

• 875P Neo-LSR/-FIS2R (BIOS version AMI 1.8 required);
• 865PE Neo2-PS/-PLS/-PFISR (BIOS version AMI 3.2 required);
• 865PE Neo2-S/-LS/-FIS2R (BIOS version AMI 1.9 required);
• 865PM2/865PEM2/-L (PCB 1.1A, 4M BIOS) Award 7.xx (update by LiveBIOS);
• 865G Neo2-S/-LS (BIOS version AMI 1.9 required);
• 865GM2/-L (PCB 1.1A, 4M BIOS) Award 5.xx (update by LiveBIOS);
• PT880 Neo-SR/-LSR/-FISR (BIOS version AMI 1.0 required);
• 661FM /-L (BIOS version Award 3.0 required).

As you see, only micro ATX mainboards have need of new PCB design in order to support Intel Prescott processor. Presumably, all expensive mainboards from Micro Star International will be able to work with future Intel chip, even though MSI does not elaborate the maximal speed of Pentium 4 SSE3 able to work on the mentioned devices.

Intel Prescott processors will be formally announced on the 2^nd of February 2004 in 2.80GHz, 3.00GHz, 3.20GHz and 3.40GHz versions. The chips will be branded as Pentium 4 and will feature SSE3 technology and 1MB of L2 cache.