One Tough Cookie: 10 Boards with Intel i875P Chipset: Part I

Intel Takes Dual DDR To Its Mass Market

Intel, its reputation preceding it, has chipsets that have often been rather more mature than those from the competition. With a few exceptions, of course - as the homo politicus will note. Problems are rare, as a rule, and genuine "milestones" like the 440BX (for Pentium III) are still humming away in many PCs or notebooks out there today.

But, it's all about RAM performance, these days. Rambus technology was innovative, but it has been literally booed out of the market and slaughtered by the press so, the time is ripe for a replacement at the high-end. Now we can safely say, dual DDR400 will offer the best performance and knock the socks off the former leader, dual RDRAM with PC1066.

Despite its force feeding of Rambus, Intel pulled out all the stops on making it to the top of the DDR league table: the company has had a team of developers working on the Canterwood modules for more than two years. The article All Aboard! P4 with 200 MHz FSB and the i875P Dual DDR400 Chipset provided some first impressions of the new chipset.

However, the adaptation of the Intel-875P is causing a few difficulties - even if none of the manufacturers or anyone at Intel itself will admit it. After all, handling a 200 MHz RAM bus under two-channel operation isn't all that easy, particularly when using the latest modules with their aggressive timings.