Intel plans that the major chipset, that is the one selling in the biggest quantities, will become Springdale. This solution is intended to replace the successful i845 family and move Pentium 4 processors performance to a new level.

We managed to get hold of some very interesting information, which reveal some exciting details about the Springdale chipset family. The picture below is none other but a flow-chart illustrating the new Springdale-PE (i865PE) core configuration without the integrated graphics:

The major chipset specifications have been known for long now. Here they are:

• CPUs
  • Supports Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors, including those based on the future Prescott core;
  • Supports 400MHz, 533MHz and 800MHz system bus frequencies;
  • Supports Hyper-Threading.
• AGP
  • Supports AGP 8x.
• Memory
  • Two DDR266/DDR333/DDR400 SDRAM channels;
  • 4 DIMM slots, no 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.

I would also like to draw your attention to a few things typical only of Springdale. Firstly, it has to do wit the memory bus clocking. When the bus frequency is 400MHz, Springdale allows using only single-channel or dual-channel DDR266 SDRAM. When the bus frequency used is 533MHz, the memory bus can be clocked at 266 and 333MHz. and only when the system bus frequency equals 800MHz, the system can work with DDR400 SDRAM. Also the memory bus in this mode can be clocked at 266 and 320MHz (not 333MHz!).

The second Springdale peculiarity worth mentioning is Communication Streaming Architecture (CSA). The idea of CSA implies that the (G)MCH features an additional port for network controllers, which helps to get rid of one serious bottleneck: the PCI bus. The sources in Intel claim that using CSA will allow speeding the data transfer via network by up to 60%.

The third chipset feature is the new ICH5 South Bridge. The new bridge, besides the support of two SerialATA-150 ports and 8 USB 2.0 ports (as you know ICH4 supports only 6 USB 2.0 ports), will also be compatible with Gigabit Ethernet and will have a built-in VRM making the mainboard designing easy. The chipset North and South Bridges will be connected with one another with the help of the already familiar Hub Link 1.5 with 266MB/sec bandwidth.

Our sources in Intel also shared with us the preliminary benchmarks results shown by the Springdale based platforms. According to these data, Springdale with dual-channel DDR333 memory outperforms i845PE with DDR333 memory by 4% in SPECint_base2000 and by 25% in SPECfp_base2000. Moreover, the additional performance gain can be achieved by moving the CPU to a faster 800MHz bus. The same test results indicate that in case the CPU core clock is the same and there is DDR333 memory used in the system, the simple shift from 533MHz bus to 800MHz bus will lead to 5% increase in SPECint_base2000 and 20% increase in SPECfp_base2000.