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Return To Castle Intel: 16 Years Of Motherboard History

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  • Motherboards
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Anonymous
a b V Motherboard
March 16, 2009 6:00:03 AM

Last month, we took you on a tour of Intel's closely guarded Hawthorn facility, where its motherboards are refined. We returned this month with camera in hand to walk down memory lane at some of the company's big motherboard hits (and flops).

Return To Castle Intel: 16 Years Of Motherboard History : Read more

More about : return castle intel years motherboard history

March 16, 2009 6:49:40 AM

Nice article. My only critique would be ending it with the skulltrail platform. It wasn't a breakthrough, both in terms of performance and innovation. AMD produced a similar system a year before Skulltrail in hopes of regaining its performance crown by pulling out the big guns, unfortunately that beast couldn't outperform Intel's quad core chip.
The Skulltrail had similar results, offering very little performance gains over single socket systems while costing and arm and a leg to build and run.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-skulltrail-pa...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/brute-force-quad-co...
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March 16, 2009 9:52:40 AM

I am not even finish reading but have fond to many errors that I will stop

EX:

-AGP came from the LX chipset not the BX
-PII starting clock where 233Mhz and 266Mhz
-FX chipset had not cache on the board it was on the slot with the CPU

actually the 233Mhz had a really strange cache mem divider that gave it really slow cache access compared to the 266Mhz variant if memory serv well?
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Related resources
March 16, 2009 9:58:11 AM

also could you please give us back the drop down menu for changing back to the right article page?
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March 16, 2009 10:08:59 AM

The unknown power connector you mention on the Plato motherboard is an ATX 6-pin auxiliary power connector. It was used if motherboard drain was to exceed 250 watts. With this many slots it must have been possible to exceed this. I still have ancient power supplies lying (as keep sakes) that have this connector. However, I have never found the need to connect it myself.
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March 16, 2009 10:17:25 AM

old time jonI am not even finish reading but have fond to many errors that I will stop EX:-AGP came from the LX chipset not the BX-PII starting clock where 233Mhz and 266Mhz-FX chipset had not cache on the board it was on the slot with the CPUactually the 233Mhz had a really strange cache mem divider that gave it really slow cache access compared to the 266Mhz variant if memory serv well?


Jon,
You're right about the chipset--the LX was, in fact, first with AGP.
I believe the author was referring to 100 MHz bus models--clarified that.
I believe you're incorrect about the 430LX, though--it did support onboard pipelined burst cache memory.

As for the drop-down menu, it appears on all reviews. However, you can navigate through picture stories using the little boxes up top, which also give you a preview of each page before you click.

Thanks, and all the best.
Chris
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March 16, 2009 10:27:25 AM

Quote:
I believe you're incorrect about the 430LX, though--it did support onboard pipelined burst cache memory.


You're correct that some slot 1 boards did offer onboard pipelined cache. Often it was an add on option with its own socket but some definitely did have soldered in out of the box.
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a b V Motherboard
March 16, 2009 10:42:15 AM

Well done! Next, do a history of OCing. AFAIK OCing has existed as long as these boards.
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March 16, 2009 10:45:00 AM

swyn01You're correct that some slot 1 boards did offer onboard pipelined cache. Often it was an add on option with its own socket but some definitely did have soldered in out of the box.


I may yet learn something here? Seing as the L2 cache on slot 1 CPUs was on the sloted card itself did this soldered on cache on the motherboard become L3 or was it just deactivated?
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March 16, 2009 10:48:12 AM

swyn01You're correct that some slot 1 boards did offer onboard pipelined cache. Often it was an add on option with its own socket but some definitely did have soldered in out of the box.


I do remember this option on the socket 5-6-7 motherboards. Some super 7 motherboard went a far as 1mb cache with depending on the CPU would be L2 or L3 cache.
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a b V Motherboard
March 16, 2009 10:57:10 AM

I just finished reading all of this. What surprises me is that from the old days there were barely any MOSFETS/caps. Today we have about 6+ MOSFETS just for the CPU.
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March 16, 2009 11:24:05 AM

old time jonI may yet learn something here? Seing as the L2 cache on slot 1 CPUs was on the sloted card itself did this soldered on cache on the motherboard become L3 or was it just deactivated?


Adding on additional cache onto these motherboards created an L3 cache. It was really just a luxury with little performance boost in desktop markets. Its effect may have been more profound with server boards. Either way, most motherboard manufacturers never bothered to include additional L3 cache or at best the L3 expansion slot.
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March 16, 2009 11:34:39 AM

This article brings back bad memories of SIMM chips. They had to be installed in pairs - no dual-channel action, it was just required for them to function, period!
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March 16, 2009 11:39:17 AM

default123http://www.tomshardware.com/pictur [...] adaxe.htmlisn't the fan for the chipset and not the processor?


The heatsink with the fan is for the chipset and not the processor. The Atom processor is actually under the smaller heatsink to the left.
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a b V Motherboard
March 16, 2009 11:50:50 AM

Intel 440FX (P6) was the first with AGP yes, NOT the 430FX

P5 (Pentium 1) Designs had the L2 cache integrated into the motherboard and was accessed via the FSB rather then a sort of "back side bus" like the pentium 2's etc and NO P2's didnt have any cache on the motherboard, but the L2 was integrated on the cpu "package", this time directly accessed etc (but at a 1:2 ratio), this was only done because it wasnt cost effective at the time to integrate the cache into the cpu die/package (like the P6/Pentium Pro).

L3 expansion slot? your talking about the "COAST" slots on a P5 based motherboard, right? They dont exist on P6 based motherboards ;) 

That AUX power connector, i doubt any system listed here based on the P5's and P6's ever used anywhere near 250w, and you can find a far more modern motherboard even as far as the original Pentium 4 socket 423 with that connector or similar - iv seen them from ASUS (P4T??) and other OEM's - even in Dell's.

Interesting side note i have used a Pentium 1 with 1gb of ram (Gigabyte GA-5AA, 2x512 SDR PC133), and Pentium Pro's with 256mb EDO etc, still got working samples of most Socket 5/7 CPU's (AMD, IBM/Cyrix, IDT, Intel etc) - the last socket shared by everyone!
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March 16, 2009 1:30:37 PM

The power connector on pic 6 is the ATX auxilliary connector. It was optional but needed if you wanted to think about populating all of those card slots
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Anonymous
a b V Motherboard
March 16, 2009 1:53:44 PM

Didn't RDRAM start with Pentium 4??? I don't remember dealing with RDRAM with Pentium 2 or 3. I had a Pentium 2/3 (Slot 1) board that used DDR.
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March 16, 2009 2:00:34 PM

wtf is with safecount.net hijacking your page for a survey for? There are no signs what-so-ever that its a legitamate survey and with all the redirects to malware sites lately I'm getting sick of this. Your site will NOT be viewed by me any longer if this continues.
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March 16, 2009 3:18:16 PM

subliferwtf is with safecount.net hijacking your page for a survey for? There are no signs what-so-ever that its a legitamate survey and with all the redirects to malware sites lately I'm getting sick of this. Your site will NOT be viewed by me any longer if this continues.

Are you sure you don't have the hijack on your end? I have no such problem with the site.
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March 16, 2009 4:07:48 PM

Quote:
Next, do a history of OCing. AFAIK OCing has existed as long as these boards.


The original PC's with 8086 and 8088 processors could be overclocked in various ways. I remember some kind of add-on product for the IBM PC that upped the clock speed. I went to the local CompUSA (the original one!) to buy one and they told me it was a crappy product and talked me out of it. I remember various clone computers that upped the clock speed to 6 and 8MHz.
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March 16, 2009 6:31:25 PM

subliferwtf is with safecount.net hijacking your page for a survey for? There are no signs what-so-ever that its a legitamate survey and with all the redirects to malware sites lately I'm getting sick of this. Your site will NOT be viewed by me any longer if this continues.


I've made my opinion on that survey heard already, believe me. The malware issue was something else--an infected ad agency--and has been solved!
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March 16, 2009 7:59:38 PM

BallistaManAre you sure you don't have the hijack on your end? I have no such problem with the site.


No, this happened with quite a number of people over the last few weeks. It's not the users, even the editors are seeing it sometimes.
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March 17, 2009 12:08:51 AM

Quote:
Are you sure you don't have the hijack on your end? I have no such problem with the site.


I have encountered this on different networks but only while accessing tomshardware.com This has been going on for quite sometime. I just assumed toms had paid for some survey service.
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a b V Motherboard
March 17, 2009 12:41:12 AM

subliferwtf is with safecount.net hijacking your page for a survey for? There are no signs what-so-ever that its a legitamate survey and with all the redirects to malware sites lately I'm getting sick of this. Your site will NOT be viewed by me any longer if this continues.

+1. And not I DO NOT have any spyware,etc on my end. This only seems to happen with Win XP systems and NOT with Vista systems. WTF? The other thing is being redirected to a AV website. lol. I run Kapersky/NOD32/AVG/Avera.
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March 17, 2009 12:43:24 AM

Nice. You forgot the most important intel chipset: the 865. You can find old computers on ebay for 50 bucks that have everything a modern computer needs, if they have that chipset. All you need to do is slap a 1950 pro agp card in there and you can even play games on it. But obviously its best for a budget pc. Whats really funny is what happens when you slap a $130 30GB OCZ vertex into one of those $50 machines. You end up with a computer that is light years faster than any computer you can buy new for under $300.
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March 17, 2009 2:23:58 AM

I'd hesitate to call the 865 Intel's most important, honestly.
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March 17, 2009 4:27:11 AM

"The real nugget here is the “OverDrive Ready” stamp on the CPU socket (Socket 4), a feature so ancient that it stumped our first set of Intel engineers." Your Intel engineers must be quite young, or I'm just way too old, as this brought back memories of the entire DX2 = 2 times but DX4 = 3 times logic, more than just 2 (sorry for the cheap shot VIA) chip brands & P1 being slower than a DX4 for more money. Great times for resellers.

Too bad you didn't go back to the days of everyone having 2 socket MBs (CPU + FPU). Everything is new again if you wait long enough.

cadderThe original PC's with 8086 and 8088 processors could be overclocked in various ways. I remember some kind of add-on product for the IBM PC that upped the clock speed. I went to the local CompUSA (the original one!) to buy one and they told me it was a crappy product and talked me out of it. I remember various clone computers that upped the clock speed to 6 and 8MHz.


Yep, change out the clock crystal or junk the Intel chip for something the gave more performance per clock tick.
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March 17, 2009 5:49:46 AM

I had a Compaq with the funky power connector between the ISA and PCI. The power supply died and I couldn't for a replacement for a reasonable price or get the guy who had it to test the board. The woes of living in a small town. So I bought a P4 1.8, the progress of planned obsolescence... Enjoyed the flashback.
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Anonymous
a b V Motherboard
March 17, 2009 6:30:32 AM

First, do the late 486 Classic/PCI boards not qualify as Intel "commercial release" boards? Those predate Batman, I think. Also, Neptune was the name of the original 430NX Socket5 chipset. I thought the recalled dud of the CapeCod board would be worth mentioning in this article. I actually had a friend that ended up with one of those and went had to deal with that recall.
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March 17, 2009 8:45:52 AM

Nettop is not a contraction from laptop and network. Think instead of a settop box with networking to the whole house. If you consider today that many homes are deploying NAS boxes that function as both Audio/Video servers AND could also be used for daily/weekly backups, it would see that, especially for cable, the 'set top box' should evolve into the set top / cable modem / entertainment server. Ie: an even great cost reduced multimedia PC. A PC is every bedroom, all connect to the central home nettop box. Files, internet, music and even TV served out.
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March 17, 2009 8:47:13 AM

Nettop is not a contraction from laptop and network. Think instead of a settop box with networking to the whole house. If you consider today that many homes are deploying NAS boxes that function as both Audio/Video servers AND could also be used for daily/weekly backups, it would see that, especially for cable, the 'set top box' should evolve into the set top / cable modem / entertainment server. Ie: an even great cost reduced multimedia PC. A PC is every bedroom, all connect to the central home nettop box. Files, internet, music and even TV served out.
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March 17, 2009 8:47:58 AM

Nettop is not a contraction from laptop and network. Think instead of a settop box with networking to the whole house. If you consider today that many homes are deploying NAS boxes that function as both Audio/Video servers AND could also be used for daily/weekly backups, it would see that, especially for cable, the 'set top box' should evolve into the set top / cable modem / entertainment server. Ie: an even great cost reduced multimedia PC. A PC is every bedroom, all connect to the central home nettop box. Files, internet, music and even TV served out.
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March 17, 2009 8:51:50 AM

Sorry about the re-posts. *IF* you post a reply while displaying the first page of comments, it replies with an error that it cannot open a subpage. It did that repeatedly, and I tried a few things to get around the error- thinking that the comment wasn't even being posted. It appears that the comment is posted, but then the error occurs. Sorry! error said something about http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/498-intel-skul... cannot be found, or something similar to that. Don't want to create more multiple posts. I am assuming that if you first move to the last page of comments [2nd here] that no error occurs.
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a b V Motherboard
March 17, 2009 12:05:56 PM

the i820 featured RDRam for P6 yes
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Anonymous
a b V Motherboard
March 17, 2009 10:03:01 PM

Wheres the Intel Zappa boards? Those were GREAT boards for their time!
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March 21, 2009 9:01:57 AM

i think the term nettop came actually from netbooks, i've seen and heard of asus eepc netbooks before anything about nettops.
it's quite effective, my first impression of the word nettop, is a desktop pc with netbook costs and capability.
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Anonymous
a b V Motherboard
April 21, 2009 10:17:57 PM

These early boards did have on-board serial and parallel ports. See those pin connectors near the PS/2 ports? That is what those are for. Unfortunately, for the Mercury and Neptune chipsets, these were flaky.
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July 15, 2009 1:49:41 PM

For those who were in the PC building/selling business back when RD-RAM showed its ugly face... it was a bad time for the PC business.

Intel was shoving RD-ROM onto the vendors as the "next thing". While many people remember the 820 Chipset debacle (PIII with RD-ROM used a Memory Translator Hub to convert the DDR into signals the PC could deal with since intel demanded RD-RAM - the very short version: CPU->NB->MTH->SDR) which meant VERY expensive, complicated motherboards. Or you bought a 820 board with RD-RAM slots and paid about $600 for 512mb of RAM, rather than $100~150. Then the failures happened, Intel got sued and and to replace motherboards/memory. The 815 motherboards were FAR better, built for SDR PC133 RAM and lasted most of the P3 life as it was FASTER and cheaper but had a 512mb limit (this was before Windows XP).

The P4 NEEDED RD-RAM to get any performance. But the early P4s were SO SLOW that P3 and AMD CPUs were easily faster with SDR. SAD.

But HOW intel really screwed the industry is that the memory makers were gearing up for the RD-RAM standard. Paying RAMBUS $$$ for severely
flawed tech (Fast RAM with very high latency). But, people were not buying P4s and the P3s were selling with VIA chipsets (SDR) since Intel had nothing to ship to support their P3 CPUs. Yep, there were severe shortages of SDR memory which drove the prices WAY up. Still cheaper than RD-RAM. Took about 6 months for the memory prices to stabilize.

Intel made the killed chipsets. The 440LX (PII) and the 815 was most noticeable for stability, performance and features.

And this... is why we DON'T have intel dictating the memory market, and hopefully never again. I'd actually would prefer if they stay out of the GPU market... but we'll see.
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