Motherboard

1. Introduction to Motherboards

2. Motherboard Form Factor

AT
ATX

3. Parts of motherboard
a. Buses : The circuits in Circuit Board
b. CPU Slot or Socket
c. RAM Slots
d. Expansion Slots
e. Drive Connectors
f. Battery
g. Chipset
h. Jumpers
i. BIOS & CMOS

4. Working with BIOS Setup Program

Introduction to Motherboards

Evolution

The early PC had minimum integrated devices, just ports for a keyboard and a cassette deck for storage.
Everything else, including a display adapter and floppy or hard disk controllers, were add-on components,
connected via expansion slots.

Over time, more devices have been integrated into the motherboard. It’s a slow trend though, as I/O ports
and disk controllers were often mounted on expansion cards as recently as 1995. Other components –
typically graphics, networking, SCSI and sound – usually remain separate. Several manufacturers have
experimented with different level of integration, building in some or even all of these components.
However, there are drawbacks. Its hard to upgrade the specification if integrated components can’t be
removed, and highly integrated motherboards often require non-standard cases. Furthermore, replacing a
single faulty component may mean buying a new motherboard.

Consequently, those parts of the system whose specification changes fastest – RAM, CPU and graphics –
tend to remain in sockets or slots for easy replacement. Similarly, parts that not all users need, such as
networking or SCSI, are usually left out of the base specification to keep costs down.

Motherboard development consists largely of isolating performance-critical components from slower ones.
As higher speed devices become available, they are linked by faster buses – and the lower speed buses are
relegated to supporting roles. In the late 90s, the trend was towards putting peripherals designed as
integrated chips directly onto the motherboard. Initially, this was confined to audio and video chips –
obviating the need for separate sound or graphics card – but in time the peripherals integrated in this way
became more diverse and included items such as SCSI, LAN and even RAID controllers. While there are
cost benefits to this approach, the biggest downside is the restriction of future upgrade option.

Overview

The motherboard or the mainboard (as it is also called) is the platform or the foundation on which various
components like processor, memory, chips, graphic cards, and HDD connect to. This makes the
motherboard the most important component in your PC, because all other individual components
communicate via the mainboard.

When motherboards were introduced, users had minimal options at their disposal as far as connecting
different devices were concerned. At that time, one could only connect devices like mice, hard disk drives
and miscellaneous add-on components were connected with the help of add-on cards. The same goes in for
the Form Factor of the mainboard.

Motherboards are also classified according to its physical size, also known as Form Factor. When
motherboards were introduced they used the AT Form Factor. Another form factor that is still around is
Baby AT. Motherboards available in this form factor measure 9-x10-inch. PC’s based on the Baby AT
format became popular among users who were falling short of space. Since this board is smaller, one
disadvantage is that the layout of the internal components in the system is rather cramped. Therefore,
troubleshooting and removing internal components in these systems is rather cumbersome.

As technology improved and more technologies like onboard LAN, AUDIO, and USB,
started to get integrated on to the board, the form factor had to be improved on so as to
provide more headroom in the future. This is when the ATX form factor came in 1996.
This form factor is still by far the most popular in the PC industry. The ATX form factor
rotates the Baby AT layout where the board is higher than it is wide. This allows a greater
variety in the arrangement of I/o components at the system. The power supply used here
also feature a side mounted fan allowing for direct cooling of the processor and
expansion cards eliminating the need of a secondary fan in the system. Apart from this,
manufactures like VIA are aiming to bring the small form factor back in the PC industry.
The Mini- ITX mainboard which VIA has launched is one such example. It is Modem
Pentium class motherboard have a data bus with 64 bits. That is the width o f the data
highway that goes in and out of the processor. The Pentium processors, however, do use
32-bit register to handle 32-bit instructions.
Bus speeds and widths have increased due to faster processors and the needs of
multimedia applications. Typical bus names and widths are:-
--- Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) – 8 or 16 bits
--- Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) – 8 or 16 bits.
--- Microchannel Architecture (MCA) – 16 or 32 bits
--- VESA Local Bus (VLB) – 32 bits
---- Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) – 32 or 64 bits
---- Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) – 32 bits

World’s smallest native x86 mainboard measuring 170mmx170mm and enables

development of an infinite variety of small form factor system platforms. It is 33 per cent
smaller than Flex ATX mainboard form factor. The Mini-ITX allows foe the development
of entry-level value PC’s.
This mainboard is increasingly becoming popular among rapidly emerging enthusiast
user group, seeing the small size, quiet operation and low profile as ideal for moving the
PC to different parts of the home from stylish case modifications for the living room to
in-car PC’s.
The Mini-ITX mainboard successfully integrates various combinations of readily-
available chipset and processor components from VIA that come with rich feature sets
that include ultra-low power native x86 processors, onboard LAN and integrated AGP
graphics and audio options. Further enhancing its versatility, the Mini-ITX mainboard
can include a TV-Out connector, SPDIF 5.1 audio, USB 2.0, 1394 (firewire), integrated
MPEG2 decoding, support for DDR266, ATA – 133 and much more.
Think mainboard and the one thing that comes on to your mind is the chipset that it is
built around it. The sheer choice as far as chipsets are concerned is simply mind-
boggling. Take for example the chipsets available for the Pentium range of processors.
Here you will find different chipsets supporting different memory standards like SD
RAM, DDR RAM, and RD RAM. What you probably won’t see is the pushing of the RD
RAM standard further higher. Currently, the most popular mainboard for the SD RAM
memory standard are the ones based on Intel’s 845 chipset.
The main reason for the popularity of this chipset is its easy availability coupled with
low price. But performance hungry users know what they want and right now nothing
offers more performance hungry users know what they want and right now nothing offers
more performance than the mainboard built around chipsets that support the RD RAM
memory standard. The sheer memory bandwidth available here is what pulls the
performance hungry users towards itself. But motherboards based on chipsets supporting
DDR memory standard are probably more popular right now due to its competitive price
and the performance that’s a shade lower than DDR memory based motherboard.
In the future, we will see DDR chipset based motherboard becoming the standard, as
faster and efficient memory technologies are introduced. Apart from this we will have
motherboards extending support for technologies like Hyper Threading from AMD. Dual
Channel DDR boards are also ready to show their capabilities. Considering the relation
between storage interface and mainboards, ATA was the de facto standard, but all that
will change faster than one can imagine and serial ATA will become the next chapter in
this area.

HOW IT WORKS?
The motherboard acts as the central (and largest) part in a computer. All components of a
computer from video cards and sound cards to hard drives and CD-ROM drives, and even
external peripherals like printers, are eventually connected to the motherboard. When a
user wants to plug in a new piece of hardware, the type of motherboard he chooses will
determine which CPU will or will not work with the motherboard.
Picture this : If you end up buying a cheap, unbranded motherboard, you might have to
live with the system’s sluggish performance and lack of flexibility in upgrade and other
serious compatibility issues. On the other hand, if you choose wisely and buy a
motherboard, which works smoothly and is compatible with the next generation CPUs,
you can save the trouble and cost of buying another motherboard within a year or two.
The motherboard, to a first-timer could probably be the most daunting component under
the hood of your system. Compared to other components in a computer, the motherboard
is the largest and one of the most complex pieces of electronics that acts a foundation –
both physical and electronic – upon which all the other components in your computer co-
exist. Even though if appears so awe-inspiring, the motherboard is one of the most logical
devices in construction and layout.

CHIPSET
To understand the motherboard better, let’s first understand the important parts of the
mainboard. First let’s get to know what a chipset is. If the CPU is the brain of the
computer along with memory, chipset is the nervous system of the mainboard. It takes
care of all the communications between the devices in a computer. It is the chipset upon
which every major component of the system relies. The chipset is designed keeping the
specifications of the CPU in mind. In this respect the CPU is manufactured first and then
the chipset. The chipset manufactures also need to be in conjunction with the memory
manufacturers and BIOS code writers.
The main system chipset contains the logic circuits that contain a blueprint of how the
processor, memory and other integrated components on the motherboard are meant to
communicate. It acts as a hub, controlling the transfer of data between the processor, its
cache, system buses and peripherals. The timely transfer of data without errors is
probably the most important function of a system chipset and its proficiency in
performing this task dictates exactly how well the system as a whole performs.
Apart from the main system chipset, which handles the core components ( and is
commonly referred to as the North Bridge), motherboard also have a separate South
Bridge that integrates, manages and controls all the ‘external’ peripherals like IDE, ISA.,
PCI,USB, etc. Coming to the functional part, the chipset as said earlier performs all the
communications between peripherals. All the devices for communications and use what
are called as controllers. For instance the memory uses memory controller, the Keyboard
uses the keyboard controller, the PCI devices use PCI bridge controller and so on.
 The chipset contains is most of these controllers integrated. Every bit of information
between memory and peripherals to the CPU has to go through the chipset. The CPU is
the terminus, while the

The chipset contains is most of these controllers integrated. Every bit of information
between memory and peripherals to the CPU has to go through the chipset. The CPU is
the terminus, while the chipset is the hub. The chipset is all about I/O communications,
multiplexing and data transfers. But if this was the case then the computer should
perform excellently well, without any hiccups. This is where the speed comes into
picture; the CPU is a fast device while the peripherals are slow devices. The chipset is
divided into 2 main parts mainly the Northbridge and the Southbridge. The Northbridge
mainly consisted of the faster devices that are processor memory and PCI Bridge. While
the Southbridge consisted of the other peripherals that were slow like the storage devices,
I/O devices etc.

PROCESSOR INTERFACE
This is the socket that is used to mount the processor on the board. If categorized
according to processor interface, there are many types of slots available: Socket 370,
Socket 478 to name a few. Nowadays slot 1 processors are no longer manufactured.

The Memory Controller Hub (MCH)

This component of the chipset is responsible for coordinating the flow of information
between the system and memory buses and the AGP controller. It is this component that
is responsible for the graphics performance of the system where large texture and image
data needs to be transferred between the processor, the main memory and the local
graphics memory.

The I/O Controller Hub (ICH)

This controls the flow of information between the I/O ports and interface on the
mainboards like the serial, parallel and USB ports.
The firmware Hub (FWH): As the name suggests, this component controls the system
BIOS and also provides random number generation through hardware. This random
number generation is utilized in applications like secure transactions over the Internet.
The primary reason why the hub architecture approach is superior it predecessor is due to
the 32-bit 66MB/Sec – that’s twice the data transfer rate of the PCI bus. With this
approach, there are no components left working at 33MHz within the system. The PCI
bus is designed to operate external to the system and therefore does not pose to be a
bottleneck. Another important observation is the disappearance of the legacy ISA
interface.
Interface Slots
This consists of an array of slots that are used to connect add-on cards like a sound card
or a network card to the computer. There are primarily three types of slots found on
today’s motherboard, that is ISA, PCI and AGP. The ISA slot is the oldest of the
three. These slots support 8 and 16-bit data transfers and operate at a bus frequency
of 8.33 MHz. There are very few ISA cards that are still available today as the data
transfer rates that these cards can support are very low in comparison to PCI and
AGP cards. PCI cards are the most commonly used cards today and can support 32-
bit data transfers. Initially, the PCI standard allowed the cards to support bus
frequencies of 33MHz, but the newer PCI66 specification allows a 66 MHz bus
frequency. Commonly manufactured PCI cards include devices like sound cards,
network cards, SCSI controllers etc. These cards are capable of a process called ‘bus
measuring’ which is used to relieve the CPU of processing power, allowing the cards
to gain control of the PCI bus, facilitating sustained and faster data transfer.
The AGP interface is meant solely for interfacing graphic cards. This port provides a
high-speed path between the graphics hardware and the main system memory,
allowing the system RAM to be used as graphics RAM. Like the PCI66 standard, the
AGP interface operates at 66MHz in 1x mode but most AGP slots available operate
at least at 133MHz (2x mode). Data transfer rates of up to 533MB/sec can be
achieved in AGP 2x mode. With the advent of Intel’s i820 chipsets, the newest AGP
incarnation is AGP 8x.

RAM Slots
There are a variety of RAM modules that can be mounted on motherboards. The two
types of RAM modules most commonly used are SIMM ( Single Inline Memory
Modules) and DIMM ( Dual Inline Memory Modules).
The older RAM ( that is EDO and DRAM) were available as SIMMs and are composed
of RAM chips that are mounted on a narrow PCB which is inserted into the slots.
Electrical contact is established through edge contacts. SDRAM (Synchronous
DRAM) is available in the DIMM format.
All newer motherboards have the DIMM interface and the speeds at which data is
accessed range between 8 or 10 nanoseconds. Apart from the fact that SDRAM is
faster, this type of RAM does not need to be installed in pairs. Different capacities
can be mixed in the same computer, allowing more flexibility. The newer generations
of motherboards like Intel’s i850 chipset based systems are built to support the
Rambus DRAM memory.

BIOS
Every motherboard carries a special circuitry called the BIOS ( Basic Input Output
System) that exists on a ROM chip. This chip is programmed with the software that
controls the flow of information among the various components of the computer and
it also handles information regarding the various hardware present in a system.
 In today’s motherboard, there have been numerous advances in the BIOS with support
for advanced power management, plug and play support and even automatic
processor speed detection. The norm today is ‘jumperless’ motherboards, where all
parameters – ranging from the processor core voltage and clock multiplier to the
configuration and control of the integrated peripherals – can all be automatically
detected and configured. This makes processor upgrades much less cumbersome.
Features like wake-on-LAN allow the computer to be remotely powered on, enabling
unsupervised uploading of data on a computer system in a LAN environment
Likewise another similar feature like Wake-on-Modem-ring allows the computer to
automatically power itself on for receiving information over telephone lines like
faxes using the necessary software.

Comparison of Technologies:
There is no way that we would not be coming across newer technologies in the PC
industry. The motherboard arena is no different. Let’s take a look at some
technologies that will rise in the near future keeping motherboards in mind. With
Intel’s introduction of HyperThreading technology, we will soon find the technology
in the upcoming boards.

Serial ATA
First a little background. Parallel data transfer (sending data along a number of parallel
routes) is one the most widely used technology today. Using parallel ATA has always
meant a large number of wires and high frequency signals prone to electrical
interference. It has been clear for some time that the IDE/ATA standard is well
overdue for replacement. Up until now, all IDE disk drives have been using the
parallel ATA interface, which use the flat, broad 80 pin data cable. These cables have
their own set of drawbacks. With a maximum length of only 40cm, it is difficult if
not impossible to install drives at the top of a full tower case. Another drawback is
that, the connectors are located at fixed positions along the cable, which means that
you often have to move a drive to another bay so that the cable will reach. To top it
off, the grove designed to prevent a reverse phase connection often necessitates that
the plug be twisted around 180 degrees.
Serial ATA follows in the footsteps of other successful standards that are based on the
principle of serial data transfer. Ethernet, USB, fire wire and other technologies, such
as AMD’s Hyper Transport, are all serial technologies. Serial ATA is an evolutionary
replacement for the parallel ATA physical storage interface. As far as cables go, serial
ATA wins, by far. The new cable can be up to a meter in length, and they can be kept
small and neat because they only need seven conductors. Serial ATA aims to
provide a serial interface to future disk drives.
The main benefits of this technology are that users will no longer have to go through
the tedious process of adjusting jumper settings every time they add or remove IDE
drives. Added benefits are better airflow around the smaller serial data cable, which
is significant in today’s computers that dissipate heat to a large extent. Thanks to
serial transfer, Serial ATA needs only two data channels- one for sending and one for
receiving. These are supplied with a more modern 250 mV, in contrast to the 5 V
typically used with IDE. Smaller voltages mean lesser power dissipation, and better
tolerances for the devices that use this low voltage.
The serial ATA promoters group includes APT Technologies Inc, Dell computer
corporation, international Business Machines, Intel Corporation, Maxtor
Corporation, Quantum Corporation, and Seagate Technology, With such
heavyweights supporting this initiative, most of the users could be using the new
hard disks with the serial interface in under an years time. Backward compatibility
with motherboards that use the old parallel interface should not be a problem, as
adapters will also be made available. So does SATA hit miss?
Simply put, there are two main reasons why serial ATA should easily become
established. First, it offers a simpler, more efficient way of handling data than
parallel ATA. Second, serial ATA offers exactly the same speed as Ultra ATA/133 and
the speed is bound to double up as technology catches up. But as serial ATA is still in
a nascent stage, the real benefit would be still in nascent stage, the real benefit would
be seen as serial ATA II drives with speeds twice as of ATA 133 start showing up and
as mother boards supporting these become easily available.
SO WHAT’S THE FUTURE?
The future of motherboards looks brighter than ever as more and more features get
crammed onto this rectangular PCB. What we could now expect is the introduction
of more and more boards with features like onboard Serial ATA, inclusion of up to
10 USB ports, Integrated Firewire, Dolby digital audio. Video in / out ports and so
on. Apart form this we can also expect boards to continue support for features like
support for raid configurations and so on.
Expect chipsets with supports for dual channel DDR memory to hit the market very
soon. Intel has already unveiled its latest range of main boards with support for its
much hyped HyperThreading feature and future chipsets will extend supports for its
next iterations. We won’t be seeing any new chipsets for RDRAM boards, but Intel
will continue with its production of the last RDRAM chipset the 850E. More and
more manufacturers will push the DDR memory standard further ahead.
Motherboards built around the chipsets supporting a SDRAM will continue to pour
into the market as they provide a value alternative for price conscious users. As far as
the core chipset technologies are concerned. Where are we heading?
To put it simply it all basically depends on the sort of devices that are used and
connected to the system. With the advent of USB 2.0 and Firewire (one of the fastest
cable having transfer capabilities of 1.2GHz), they have to be integrated too. And
with new bus protocols like the PCI –X which allow 1GB bandwidth, and the USB
devices becoming a standard. There is of course going to be more and more
integrations into the Southbridge. nVidia already showing us the beginnings of
integration of the high performance Dolby Digital Encoder. Hardware designers are
certainly going shove a lot of things into the chipset in the future.

Pentium Chipsets

Until the most recent times there existed only one core logic for Pentium 4 CPUs, so
those users willing to get a Pentium 4 system didn’t have any actual choice. Since the
arrival of the first Pentium 4 processor and almost till nowadays, that is, for nearly a year,
Intel 850 has been the only chipset supporting Pentium 4 CPU. In India for long Intel
850 GB was default choice as Intel was bundling the SDRAM chips along with these
processors. Perhaps, this state of things could perfectly last on, if it hadn’t been for one
unhappy trait of i850. To be more exact, i850 supports nothing only one type of memory:
RDRAM, which is considerably more expensive than any other memory type available in
the today’s market. For this reason Pentium 4 family faced a serious obstacle on their
way to the market: because of the pricy Rambus memory Pentium 4 CPUs remained quite
expensive, no matter how hard Intel tried to reduce the prices. This way the market gave
people to understand that there is a real need in alternative non-RDRAM Pentium 4
platforms. Intel as well as other core logic manufacturers realized that completely. So,
it’s was quite natural that this fall the chipset developers including Intel prepared a
number of new Pentium 4 solutions supporting memory other than RDRAM. The
introduction of these products was timed to the launch of new Socket478 Pentium 4
CPUs. Subsequently, there are three Pentium 4 chipsets produced in mass quantities at
this moment:

 Intel 850 with RDRAM support;

 Intel 845 with PC133 SDRAM support;

 VIA P4X266 with PC2100 DDR SDRAM support.

It is worth mentioning that all these chipsets are absolutely different products due
to different memory types supported. In its turn, this fact tells on the memory bus
bandwidth of these chipsets, which is known to decisively influence the overall system
performance in general.

You should always bear in mind that for Pentium 4 based systems the memory
type used tells much greater on the overall system performance than, for example, in
systems built on Pentium III or Athlon CPUs. Pentium 4 with NetBurst architecture has a
CPU bus with an unprecedentedly high bandwidth totaling 3.2GB/sec. None of the
today’s memory types provides bandwidth like that, so in most Pentium 4 based
platforms the memory subsystem appears the limiting factor. Only i850 with its two-
channel Rambus memory provides the same bus bandwidth as the Pentium 4 processor.
The other two chipsets, i845 and VIA P4X266, suffer in-balanced CPU and memory bus
bandwidths. This way, making the right choice of the chipset matters much more for
Pentium 4 based platforms than for Pentium III or Athlon based ones, where the CPU bus
bandwidth is smaller than in Pentium 4 based systems. Later on in this article we will try
to illustrate this idea, and in the meanwhile we would like to point out that we have not
included two more Pentium 4 chipsets (from Ali and SiS) into our today’s comparison.
Although both these manufacturers have already announced their Pentium 4 products, SiS
645 and Ali Aladdin-P4, there are no stable samples of these chipsets yet, so they are not
included in our race list. Nonetheless, these chipsets are of great interest to all of us from
both practical and theoretical points of view, because these are the first chipsets
supporting today’s fastest DDR SDRAM – DDR333 (PC2700) with 2.7GB/sec
bandwidth. We take a look at then three challengers who compete for the top slot in the
race for making it into a PC with “Intel Pentium 4 inside”

Intel 850
The first core logic for Pentium 4 CPUs launched together with the announcement of the
very first processors from this family, i850, still stays the best balanced Pentium 4 core
logic. In order to make use of the whole

(Diagram)

3.2GB/sec Quad Pumped CPU bus of Pentium 4 CPUs, Intel equipped i850 with a dual-
channel RDRAM controller. With PC800 RDRAM it ensures 3.2GB/sce memory bus
bandwidth (i.e. equal to the Pentium 4 CPU bus bandwidth). So, from the technical point
of view, i850 is a real success.

Like all the latest chipsets from Intel, i850 features Hub architecture comprising
two Hubs connected via a special bus with 266MB/sec bandwidth. The Memory
Controller Hub (aka North Bridge) supports up to 2GB PC800 RDRAM with or without
ECC, AGP 4x and 400MHz Quad Pumped Pentium 4 CPU bus. The role of the South
Bridge in i850 plays ICH2 chip supporting 4 USB 1.1 ports, ATA/100 devices, PCI bus,
6-channel AC’97 sound and CNR/AMR slots.

Unfortunately, the marketing position of i850 looks not so nice as its

specifications. The trouble is that this core logic doesn’t allow to assemble more or less
low-cost systems because the memory typei850 supports as well as the mainboards based
on it are pretty costly. Unfortunately, RDRAM modules are now considerably more
expensive than PC133 SDRAM and PC2100 DDR SDRAM modules of the same
capacity. The price of RDRAM modules are correspondingly 3-4 and 2-3 times higher
(as of mid September). This undermines the chipset’s popularity, of course. Besides,
most i850 based mainboards have six-layer PCBs, which tend to be more pricy than
commonly used four –layer PCBs. Then, i850 itself costs about $45, which is quite a
sum. Accordingly, i850 based mainboards are destined to be positioned as expensive
high-performance solutions. With these characteristics Intel 850 fits neither value, nor
even mainstream platforms.

That is why Intel devoted a lot of time and effort to developing a new Pentium 4
core logic, which would become a moderately priced basis for mainstream systems,
though maybe not so fast as the predecessor.
Intel 845
That’s what i845 is like. According to Intel’s plans, i845 (also known under the
codename “Brookdale”) should help Pentium 4 CPUs to conquer the mainstream sector,
where system blocks are priced starting from $800. Sadly, Intel is hog-tied by a contract
signed with Rambus. It writes that until 2002 Intel cannot launch any chipsets with
memory bus bandwidth of over 1.06GB/sec. So, the only solution Intel can offer now is
a Pentium 4 chipset with PC133 SDRAM, however weird it may sound.

(Diagram)

Nonetheless, Intel has enhanced i845 with DDR SDRAM support from the very
beginning, though real mainboards with DIMM slots for DDR memory will arrive no
sooner than in the beginning of next year. For the time being, the users can only get hold
of PC133 SDRAM systems with 1.06GB/sec memory bus bandwidth, which is about 3
times slower than the system bus of Pentium 4 CPUs. Taking into account that the
architecture of Pentium 4 processors is optimized to process steaming data, the limited
memory bus bandwidth may theoretically result into a tangible performance drop. An
enlarged L2 cache could somehow save the situation probably, but unfortunately, Pentium
4 has a comparatively small L2 cache – only 256KB. Thus, the performance gap between
i845 and i850 based systems should narrow, when the Pentium 4 line migrates to the
0.13micron technology and the new Northwood core with 512KB L2 cache (the event is
scheduled for the end of this year).

We’d like to point out that in nominal mode i845 and PC133 SDRAM work
asynchronously, because with the 100MHz FSB frequency used in today’s Pentium 4
systems, the memory works at 133MHz. Still, with i845 you may clock the CPU and
memory buses synchronously. It implies that you may combine this chipset with the
older PC100 SDRAM as well. It’s noteworthy that when i845 gets DDR support next
year, DDR memory modules will work in i845 based mainboards in the synchronous and
asynchronous modes. In other words, i845 will support not only PCI600 DDR SDRAM.
As for the faster PC2700 DDR SDRAM, Intel will probably implement the support for
this memory type only in the next chipset from the Brookdale family aka Brookdale-G,
which is due in mid 2002.

PC133 SDRAM used instead of RDRAM will make Pentium 4 based systems not
so expensive, but it’s not the only reason why i845 is so much awaited in the
marketplace. It is important that the new core logic will allow the main board makers to
return to four-layer PCBs. Together with the pleasantly low price of i845 itself, it should
help to reduce the cost of i845 based main boards.

So, i845 is a tremendous move of Intel’s aimed at making Pentium 4 based

systems cheaper. Even though the lower price will be reached at the expense of
performance, it will hardly matter for good many buyers, because very often the CPU
clock frequency appears a more important determinative than its performance. In other
words, there’ll be barely any headache for Intel.

Intel 845 core logic is also built on Hub architecture. MCH (the North Bridge) of
i845 supports Pentium 4 CPUs with 400 MHz Quad Pumped Pentium 4 CPU bus (based
both on Willamette and the upcoming Northwood core), AGP 4x and up to 3GB PC133
SDRAM with or without ECC. As for the DDR version of i845, which is to come out in
early 2002, it will support only 2GB PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM. The
South Bridge of i845, ICH2, is the same as in i850, so it makes no sense to repeat
everything mentioned above. However the Intel 845 prices are the lowest. See the table
given at end of the article.

(Diagram)

VIA P4X266
As you have just seen, the two Pentium 4 chipsets from Intel have absolutely different
memory subsystems. Intel 850 ensures 3.2GB/sec memory bus bandwidth, but demands
more expensive RDRAM modules. Intel 845 offers 1.06GB/sec bandwidth, but it can
work with the cheapest PC133 SDRAM. As a result, the performances of i850 and i845
based systems differ a lot. The situation might have remained like that for quite a long
time, if it hadn’t been for one more memory type – DDR SDRAM. Its bandwidth is
higher than that of PC133 SDRAM, and DDR modules are far not that expensive. No
wonder, the idea to use DDR SDRAM in Pentium 4 based system was dimly felt. At last,
VIA brought it into life.

The new core logic from VIA, P4X266, allows using Pentium 4 processors with
PC2100 DDR SDRAM, which has 2.1GB/sec bus bandwidth falling between the memory
bus bandwidths of i850 and i845 memory subsystems. Moreover, taking into account
that the price of DDR SDRAM is getting closer to that of PC133 SDRAM, we dare
suppose that P4X266 will be the best choice among all the existing Pentium 4 chipsets
from the price-to-performance ratio point of view.

P4X266 is equipped with the same memory controller as the freshly announced
KT266A for the Athlon CPU family. It means that apart from DDR SDRAM, P4x266
supports the regular PC133 SDRAM. Whatever memory type you use, PC2100 DDR
SDRAM or PC133 SDRAM, please, keep in mind that this core logic works in
asynchronous mode, because the CPU and memory buses, being compatible with PC1600
DDR SDRAM and PC100 SDRAM.

As you can see on the chart above, VIA P4X266 comprises two microchips
connected via V-Link bus with 266MB/sec bandwidth. The North Bridge ensures the
appropriate interface for Pentium 4 CPUs with 400 MHz Quad Pumped FSB. Then, it
supports up to 4GB PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM and PC133/PC100 SDRAM with or
without ECC. It also supports AGP 4x. We’d like to stress that an accessory VPX-64
 microchip can grant PCI64 bus support to this chipset, but then you’ll have to sacrifice
the support of AGP 4x interface. The South Bridge of this core logic supports 6 USB 1.1
ports, 6-channel sound, PCI bus, ATA/100 interface and ACR slot.

Yes, the characteristics of VIA core logic for Pentium 4 processors look smart
enough, don’t they? Besides, the price of P4X266 and main boards based on it is
discernibly lower than the prices of the two Intel chipsets and corresponding main boards.
It goes without saying that Intel is not happy to all to face a competitor like this, since it’s
a serious menace for i845.

In order to get rid of the nuisance, Intel is ready to do everything that lies within
its power. After it failed to make P4X266 too pricy with high license fees, Intel filed a
lawsuit against VIA for selling the Pentium 4 core logic without Intel’s license for the
corresponding system bus. The outcome of this lawsuit is still vague, but VIA keeps on
shipping P4X266 full blast. Intel’s intimidation policy can discourage many main board
makers and prevent them from dealing with VIA core logic, but we believe that some of
them will still risk to launch a potentially successful product. Most probably, the first
P4X266 based main boards will arrive in the nearest future already.

Chipset Specs Comparison

Here is a brief summary of he chipsets features, so that you could easily compare
them with one another:

Intel 850 Intel 845 VIA P4X266

North Bridge I82850 I82845 VIA VT8753

Processor bus 400 MHz Quad 400 MHz Quad Pumped) 400 MHz Quad
Pumped) Bus (3.2GB/sec Pumped
Bus (3.2GB/sec Bus (3.2GB/sec)
Socket478
Processor interface Socket423 Socket423
Socket478 Socket478
PC133/PC100
Memory Type Dual-channel SDRAM* PC2100/PC1600 DDR
PC800 RDRAM SDRAMPC133/PC100
SDRAM
1.06GB/sec
Max. memory bus 3.2GB/sec 2.1GB/sec
bandwidth
3GB 3 DIMM slots
Max. memory size 2GB 4 RIMM slots 4GB4 DDR DIMM slots
+
ECC support + +
+
AGP 4x + +
 Hub Link (266MB/sec)
Inter-Bridge bus Hub Link (266MB/sec) V-Link (266MB/sec)
I82801 BA
I82801 BA
South Bridge 5 VIA VT 8233 (A/C)
5
Max. number of PCI 5
Master +
+
ATA/100 support + (optional ATA/133 support)
+
+ +
AC’97 CNR
CNR ACR
CNR/ACR support +
+ +
10/100 Mbit LAN 4
4 6
USB ports $42
$47 $34
Estimated price $100
$109 $78
Estimated Price of the A
second tier motherboard
* - The integrated DDR SDRAM controller of i845, which Intel will be allowed to introduce in the end of
2002, supports up to 2GB PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM.