New Intel Chipsets: 800MHz Bus and DDR400 in Q2 2003

by Anna Filatova
12/17/2002 | 09:43 PM

The launching of new CPUs with 800MHz bus scheduled for Q2 pushed Intel to introduce some changes to their chipset plans as well. By the time Pentium 4 with 800MHz bus is out, the company should be ready to offer new chipsets supporting them and offering adequate memory bus bandwidth. As you know, the bandwidth of the 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus equals 6.4GB/sec.

Almost together with the launching of the new Pentium 4 with 800MHz bus, Intel was planning to announce two new chipsets aka Springdale and Canterwood. However at first they were not intended for the faster 800MHz bus and were supposed to support only dual-channel DDR266/DDR333 SDRAM. Now Intel changed its initial plans in this respect accordingly.<%BANNER[article]%>

Both chipsets, Springdale and Canterwood, will acquire 800MHz bus support. To be able to provide the desired memory bus bandwidth, both chipsets will also get the support of dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM, which bandwidth is most likely to equal the needed 6.4GB/sec.

As you remember, Intel used to vote against the DDR400 SDRAM standard, however now they had to change their attitude towards this memory type. But the DDR400 standard Intel is going to support will still be different from the currently existing “unannounced” DDR400 standard.

As I found out, DDR400 SDRAM will be supported by Intel chipsets only in case 800MHz system bus frequency is used. As soon as the system bus in your computer is set to 400/533MHz, the platforms built on the new Intel chipsets will automatically offer only two options: DDR266 or DDR333 SDRAM.

The company expects the “true” DDR400 SDRAM to appear in the market in Q1 2003. By January the major memory makers and suppliers should have their products ready for sampling. So far Intel has already sent out the preliminary DDR400 rev 0.9 spec to the memory guys, who claim to have the engineering samples meeting this specs already at hand.

Speaking about the chipsets coming out in Q2 next year to support the new Pentium 4 processors with 800MHz system bus, we would like to mention their following features:

• Canterwood. The chipset is positioned as a high-performance solution, which should come to replace i850E and Intel E7205. It will support Pentium 4 with 800/533MHz bus and Hyper-Threading technology. Two DDR SDRAM channels will be capable of working with DDR400/DDR333/DDR266 with ECC and also Turbo Mode (a special work mode increasing the performance). Also the chipset will support AGP 8x interface and will go with an ICH5 South Bridge featuring SerialATA-150 support.
• Springdale-PE. This mainstream solution will come to replace i845PE. This core logic will support Pentium 4 and Celeron CPUs with 800/533/400MHz bus and dual-channel DDR400/DDR333/DDR266 SDRAM. No ECC will be supported. Also the chipset will boast AGP 8x interface support and will go with an ICH5 South Bridge featuring SerialATA-150.
• Springdale-P. This is a cut-down version of the previous chipset differing from Springdale-PE by the absence of support for CPUs with 800MHz system bus and DDR400 SDRAM.
• Springdale-GE. This chipset will replace the today’s i845GE. It is none other but the already described above Springdale-PE but with the integrated graphics core.

Intel expects the chipsets supporting processors with 800MHz bus to make about 25% of all shipments in Q2, which will grow up to 50% in Q3. By the end of next year 65% of all Intel chipsets will support the new 800MHz processor bus.

Note that Springdale and Canterwood are also compatible with the future 90nm Prescott core due in the end of next year.