For the High-End market segment Intel is preparing one more core logic set aka Canterwood (i875P). This chipset will be targeted for gamers and enthusiasts, CAD and workstations. However, in terms of features, it will be very similar to the solutions from the Springdale family. Just have a look at the flow-chart below to know what I mean:

As we see, the features of the new Canterwood do not differ that greatly from those of i865PE:

• CPUs
  • Supports Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors, including those based on the future Prescott core;
  • Supports 533MHz and 800MHz system bus frequencies;
  • Supports Hyper-Threading.
• AGP
  • Supports AGP 8x.
• Memory
  • Two DDR333/DDR400 SDRAM channels;
  • 4 DIMM slots with ECC support;
  • Maximum 4GB of memory.
• Communications
  • Kenai II CSA for Gigabit Ethernet or Kinnereth-R+ for Fast Ethernet;
  • Calexico for WLAN.
• Input/Output: ICH5
  • 8 USB 2.0 ports;
  • 2 ATA/100 ports and 2 SerialATA-150 ports;
  • 6-channel AC’97 sound.

In fact, the formal differences between i875P and i865PE lie with the ECC support and the absence of support for 400MHz system bus and DDR266 support, however, the actual differences are much more significant.

Intel 875P will boast much higher performance due to the special Turbo Mode it supports. This mode will be available in case of 800MHz QPB and DDR400 memory and will ensure a tangible performance increase in most widely spread benchmarks. The idea of this Turbo Mode implies a better optimized interaction with the memory subsystem by removing a few stages from the memory addressing procedures. Turbo Mode of Canterwood is very similar to Super Bypass Mode implemented in AMD750 chipsets (if you still remember this solution for Slot A Athlon processors). Moreover, Turbo Mode will use more aggressive memory timings.

Unfortunately, we cannot tell you now how big the performance growth provided by Turbo Mode will be.