Pentium 4 Chipsets
So far only one platform has been available for Pentium 4, Intel's 850 RDRAM chipset. Now VIA is starting to ship its P4X266 and in a few weeks Intel will release the first 'step' of the i845 chipset. We made a little comparison table to give you an overlook of the different features.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
| Chipset | VIA P4X266 | Intel 845 | Intel 850 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | August 2001 | September 2001 | November 2000 |
| CPU-Platform | Sockel 423/478 | Sockel 423/478 | Sockel 423/478 |
| Supported Processors | Intel Pentium 4 | Intel Pentium 4 | Intel Pentium 4 |
| SMP-Support | No | No | Yes |
| Chipset Northbridge | VIA VT8753 | Intel 82845 | Intel 82850 |
| Chipset Southbridge | VIA VT8233 | Intel 82801 BA | Intel 82801 BA |
| Front Side Bus Clock | 100 MHz (quad pumped) | 100 MHz (quad pumped) | 100 MHz (quad pumped) |
| Memory Clock | 100/133 MHz SDR/DDR | 100/133 MHz SDR/DDR | 400 MHz |
| asynchronuous Memory Clock | Yes | No | No |
| FSB-Overclocking* | up to 200 MHz | up to 180 MHz | up to 133 MHz |
| max. number of memory-Slots | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| max. amount of Memory | 4096 MB | 2048 MB | 2048 MB |
| SDRAM Support | Yes | Yes | No |
| DDR-SDRAM Support | Yes | Yes, but not supported until Q1/2002 | No |
| VC-SDRAM Support | Yes | No | No |
| RDRAM Support | No | No | Yes |
| Dual Channel RDRAM Support | No | No | Yes |
| Max. Memory Bandwidth | 2133 MB/s | 1066 MB/s for the time being | 3200 MB/s |
| Ultra-ATA/33/66/100 | Yes/Yes/Yes | Yes/Yes/Yes | Yes/Yes/Yes |
| Number of USB Ports | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| USB 2.0 | No | Yes | No |
| max. number of PCI-Slots | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| integrated Graphics | No | No | No |
| AGP 1x / 2x / 4x | Yes / Yes / Yes | Yes / Yes / Yes | Yes / Yes / Yes |
| ACPI-Features | Yes | Yes | Yes |
* depending on clock generator chip
We know that i850 is an RDRAM-only solution, which makes it expensive. Its dual-channel Rambus architecture however allows a memory bandwidth of up to 3200 MB/s, which is identical to Pentium 4's processor bus bandwidth.
