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Intel's 875P "Canterwood" & 800MHz FSB P4

We look at the new i875P Canterwood chipset and the Dual Channel DDR400 that it brings with it. And of course we show off the 800MHz Front Side Bus and one of the Pentium 4s built to do it.

Introduction

Intel set the stage for their upcoming desktop chipsets when they released the 7205/Granite Bay chipset some months ago. We could see from its Dual Channel Double Data Rate RAM at 266MHz (DCDDR266), that it had the makings of a powerhouse. For us though, it pulled up just a bit short. Certainly when we started hearing rumors of Intel moving to DCDDR400, it began to whet our appetites. If you are an Intel fan, this is what you've been waiting for. If you are not, you just might be one soon.

The i875P

The "P" stands for performance, and this 875 chipset is actually going to wear two hats. It will be both Intel's high performance desktop chipset and also double as an entry level workstation chipset as well. There will be a couple of differences, with the only one worth mentioning being the addition of ECC support on the workstation part. The i875P comes with one of two southbridges, either the ICH5 or the ICH5R. The "R" stands for RAID and the "ICH" part stands for everything besides the kitchen sink. Take a look at the chipset in this graphical representation, as it will give you a much better idea of what is available than me listing every single item.

In The Spotlight

First and foremost is the DCDDR400 support. This gives us a maximum theoretical memory bandwidth of 6.4GB/sec. And coupled with the Quad Pumped Bus of the Pentium 4 at 800MHz, we actually get a CPU that has the ability to utilize the bandwidth, unlike the competition.

Of course AGP8X is supported, as that is standard for any performance box now that the 875P has shown up. We, however, also have the addition of a couple of upgrades that are not yet standard, but are certainly nice to see included.

GbE, or Gigabit Ethernet, is handled by the MCH northbridge. On the southbridge we have a world's first: an integrated Serial ATA controller featuring a soft RAID function. The list goes on and on, and we will leave that to the graphic above.

We were so impressed with the actual Intel desktop mainboard, that we will be reviewing it here, so we will certainly address all the features that it sports here shortly.

PAT In The Shadows

A new brand name phrase you will seen thrown around today is "Intel Performance Acceleration Technology", or PAT for short. First off, don't let this throw your focus off. PAT consists of two very real things that are aimed squarely at the enthusiast.

The above graphic will outline this for you. It, however, does not really leave you with that warm fuzzy feeling of understanding; at least it didn't for me, anyway.

First, we see mention of "Advanced Manufacturing/Test". To understand this, you have to be aware that Intel is going to release another desktop chipset. It is called "Springdale", and it will be very much like Canterwood, but it will not come with the benefit of PAT. What Intel is doing is "speed binning" chipsets. What this means essentially is that it's picking out the really good ones. Now seeing that Springdale is also a 800MHz FSB part, it would seem that all Canterwoods and Springdales would be tested to 800MHz. While Intel will not state this is true, we have a theory that the chipsets that are worthy of the "Canterwood" name will truly have the ability to reach beyond their rated speeds. If you were to possibly overclock an Intel CPU, this would certainly come in handy.

Secondly, you can see the memory diagram and how Intel is saving two clocks with their memory controller. This should give lower latencies across your memory bus. Seeing as how we have not yet seen a Springdale chipset to compare it to, it is hard to say how well this PAT function is working. I am sure we will see it here in the very near future though.

You will surely notice the "no overclocking" on the slide as well. Have no fear, this refers to the ability to hold the AGP and PCI at spec while being able to run the FSB and memory bus in "Burn-In" mode.

The Pentium 4

Of course, we cannot have a 800MHz chipset without a CPU to match. Today, Intel introduces the Pentium 4 that rides an 800MHz Front Side Bus (FSB). Basing this on Intel Quad Pumped technology, we have an actual FSB of 200MHz. The 3GHz (15*200MHz) model with HyperThreading is the first to be introduced today. Other models will follow, scaling form 2.4GHz and higher and will be supporting HT as well.

Let's move on to see some of the boards that are sporting this technology. As always, this stuff if only good if you can actually purchase it, and I feel as though there will be no problems with doing that...unless of course demand outstrips what I think it going to be a healthy supply. We hear that Intel is coming loaded for bear this time round with plenty of mainboards and falling CPU prices as well.