Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/420



The motherboard industry operates in phases. The first phase is the acceptance of a new technology or chipset, the second is the adaptation phase and the third is the implementation of these changes into more perfected products. For the most part, the motherboard industry is a very boring topic to talk about. Following the above three phase description, over half of the time the motherboard industry is dealing with the same old products. A case in point would be the BX-motherboard craze. Intel released the BX chipset in April of 1998, which marked phase one. Upon its release, motherboard manufacturers released their first BX incarnations, thus marking the adaptation phase. Since this relatively quick adaptation phase, motherboard manufacturers have spent most of their time perfecting their BX boards, which is why we have seen release after release of more or less the same old BX board from a variety of companies.

On August 9, 1999, AMD released their long awaited Athlon processor and, on October 25, 1999, Intel released their rebuttal, the Pentium III E. With two new processors in the market, and a few more to come (i.e. VIA/Cyrix's Joshua) the chipset manufacturers have been hard at work making sure that these latest processors receive the proper support from their end. And thus marks the beginning of yet another cycle in the motherboard industry: the introduction of a handful of new chipsets has lit a fuse that will once again breathe new life into the motherboard industry.

At this year's Fall Comdex, we were given the liberty of taking a look at some of this "new life" and have managed to compact it all into a Motherboards in 2000 Preview. The preview is split into two parts, the first part concentrates on the chipsets behind the next wave of motherboards and the following part will provide a brief preview of the motherboards themselves.



Intel's 820

The i820 is a reality, in spite of its promotion of the very expensive Rambus platform. We will find Intel's 820 chipset being used more on motherboards as we move into the New Year. Intel has faced quite a few problems with the 820 chipset, the first being the chipset's untimely delay, announced just before the release of the chipset's CPU counterpart, the Pentium III E.

The show stopping bug that forced Intel to pull the plug (unintentional rhyme) on the chipset was officially a "layout issue" involving motherboards built with 3 - RIMM slots. Intel insists that the problem was not related to the chipset nor the Rambus memory technology and thus made it very clear that motherboard manufacturers implementing the i820 chipset into their designs should opt for a 2 - RIMM memory configuration. Because this dramatic change was issued in a very impromptu fashion, many motherboard manufacturers at Comdex were displaying their i820 samples with 3 - RIMM slots while the actual shipping boards will feature 2.

The second problem with the i820 chipset turned out to be the utterly incredible cost of RDRAM. While we all expected RDRAM to be noticeably more expensive than PC100/133 SDRAM, we did not expect it to be retailing for over 5 times the price of PC133 SDRAM. With a 128MB RDRAM module going for around $1000, it is highly unlikely that a user would be able to fill more than two RIMM slots in the first place without resorting to auctioning off their car. The RDRAM approach is obviously very impractical for most users, which left motherboard manufacturers between a rock and a hard place, the latter being Intel's pressure to push forth the i820 platform.

RDRAM w/o the heatsink

The collective solution seemed to be to go for what is known as the "2 + 2" memory configuration on i820 boards. By making use of a fourth chip on an i820 based motherboard (the first three being the I/O Controller Hub, Memory Controller Hub and FirmWare Hub), the Memory Translator Hub enables the support for SDRAM on an i820 based motherboard. The "2 + 2" comes in to play when you look at the layout of memory slots on the board: 2 RIMMs + 2 DIMMs. A single MTH supports up to two DIMM slots, so in order to support 4 DIMM slots (which some motherboard manufacturers have decided to do) you must have two MTH chips. Keep in mind that these MTH chips do help to increase the cost of the board.

Obviously, Intel doesn't favor this approach because they are trying very hard to push the i820/Rambus platform into the hands of consumers. Realistically speaking, the inclusion of the MTH is about the only way to guarantee somewhat positive sales for the i820 due to the incredible price of Rambus. While there will be some that opt for the i820 + Rambus setup, the resulting price tag is entirely too high for a simple desktop workstation.

The inclusion of the MTH naturally degrades the level of performance of the setup simply because it is translating memory requests after they already reach the i820's Memory Controller Hub. The reason the requests are not intercepted directly is because the i820 does not natively support SDRAM. The performance of the i820 + MTH + SDRAM is noticeably slower than the simple BX + SDRAM solution we've been using since April 1998, and it costs more.

This whole situation would be much better if the i820 did have native SDRAM support, but that wasn't about to become a reality with Intel intent on making Rambus the next memory standard. In the future, the price of RDRAM will have to decrease in order for it to become an affordable option, and for Intel's sake, that better happen soon if the i820 is to become an accepted standard.

The question of whether or not the i820 would be featured on dual processor motherboards was answered when we saw quite a few dual i820 boards. We even saw some dual 820 boards with dual MTHs and 4 DIMM slots. In our minds this was a very disgusting picture, from a performance perspective that is, since anyone that would go after a dual CPU setup would definitely not want their memory performance hindered by an MTH.

On the Comdex show floor, the i820 had a huge presence among the motherboard manufacturers that we visited, outweighing all of the BX, Apollo Pro 133A and AMD 750 solutions combined. Unfortunately, this wasn't an indication of great demand for i820 products, rather a push from the guys upstairs to show off the i820 platform.

The first i820 boards will be falling into the $150 - $179 price range. This will put them at around the same level as the current crop of Athlon motherboards on the market. Adding on a single or dual MTHs onto the board helps drive that price up even further. Tack on the cost of RDRAM or subtract the performance penalty provided by the SDRAM + MTH combination, and all of the sudden those "expensive" Athlon motherboards become much more appetizing. Even more appetizing is your current BX setup that you were so eager to get rid of.

Going into the New Year expect to see a number of i820 based motherboards, and expect to be buying very few of them.



Intel's 840

64-bit PCI SlotsWhen Intel was left with the introduction of a new CPU but no 133MHz FSB chipset to run it on, they turned to the workstation/server level 840 chipset in order to provide the first benchmarks on October 25, 1999. Upon the release of these benchmarks, many people asked exactly where this i840 chipset came from, since the most talked about solution was the i820.

We actually expected the i840 to be featured on all dual processor boards, but it turns out that the i840 was a very difficult chipset to locate among the upcoming motherboards. We did bump into a few, but, for the most part, very little attention was paid to the chipset.

The i840 in its simplest form is a 3-chip solution like the i820 composed of the 82840 Memory Controller Hub (MCH), the 82801 I/O Controller Hub and 82802 Firmware Hub (FWH) the latter two we are already familiar with from the i820 and i810E platforms. The 82840 MCH provides support for dual RDRAM memory channels that increases the total peak memory bandwidth from 1.6GB/s of PC800 RDRAM on an i820 to 3.2GB/s of PC800 on an i840 board. This figure is very appetizing for high-end workstation users that are dependent on having a large amount of available memory bandwidth, but, at the same time, it is also a very expensive figure to back up with RDRAM.

The flexibility of the i840 chipset comes in the three chips that can be added to the initial 3-chip solution: the 82806 P64H, the 82803 MRH-R, and the 82804 MRH-S. The 82806 P64H is a 64-bit PCI Controller Hub that enables support for 33/66MHz 64-bit PCI slots.

AGP ProThe MRH-R is a RDRAM based Memory Repeater Hub that converts each memory channel into two memory channels for greater memory capacity. We were not able to get final figures on performance downsides, if any, to using the MRH-R.
The MRH-S is, as you can probably guess, a SDRAM based Memory Repeater Hub that acts as the MTH for i840 based motherboards. The performance penalty for using the MRH-S should be the same on i840 boards as using an MTH on an i820 board.

The majority of 840 boards came equipped with an AGP Pro slot (right) rather than the AGP 4X slot found on the i820 boards. The difference between the AGP Pro specification and the AGP 4X specification lies in the amount of current delivered to the AGP slot. The AGP Pro slot calls for four times the electrical power of the standard AGP connector through the use of a physical extension onto the AGP slot, as can be seen to the right. This allows AGP 1X, 2X and 4X cards to be used in an AGP Pro slot while not allowing for AGP Pro cards to be used in anything but an AGP Pro slot. The AGP Pro transfer rates are still the 1.06GB/s we were given with the AGP 4X interface.

With the cost of an RDRAM based i820 system already high enough, one can only guess as to how costly an RDRAM based i840 system would be. It seems like the best option for servers and high end workstations is to stick to the BX/GX/NX platforms that have been running for the past year and a half and wait until the i840 matures a bit (and prices fall) before journeying into that arena.

For mission critical applications such as web/database serving where one crash can mean tainting your company's image, it's best to stick with a tried and true solution. While the i840 has no apparent problems with the design, the old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it" can apply here as the BX/GX/NX platforms are perfectly viable options even for the demanding high-end market.



Intel's 810E

The i810E will take the place of the old i810 as we make the transition into 2000. The i810E offers very few improvements over the old i810. It adds support for the 133MHz FSB and a 133MHz Display Cache, but other than that it is the same old i810 we were used to.

It would make a lot of sense for a motherboard manufacturer to release an i810 based integrated solution at a lower cost than an i810E based integrated motherboard solution simply because the 133MHz FSB + DC will most likely not be features that potential buyers are looking for in a low-cost chipset solution. Unfortunately, after talking to a number of motherboard manufacturers, it seems like the wave of i810 parts is coming to a halt and, instead, it's easier to pick up i810E parts.

The 4 month lifetime of the i810 chipset is definitely disappointing; hopefully the i810E will stick around for a little while longer.

ALi's calming down

Aladdin TNT2Around this time last year, ALi was the talk of the town because they were to be the first company to produce a Super7 chipset. After being shown up by VIA in the Super7 arena (especially in compatibility issues) and after quietly disappearing when their Slot-1 product was left unexposed, ALi has assumed a much quieter role this year and into the year 2000.

We saw no huge mention of support for the Athlon platform with ALi chipsets (although they did have a mockup of an Athlon board) and, other than the Aladdin TNT2 (Slot-1/Socket-370 chipset with integrated TNT2 core), there was only one new desktop chipset solution that ALi had in the works for a 2000 release, the Aladdin 7. The Aladdin 7 resembles an Aladdin TNT2 with a toned down GeForce for its integrated video as it does feature on-board hardware T&L. While we have yet to see any motherboards based on the Aladdin 7, the solution should provide an interesting low-cost, high-performance path into the gaming market. The combination of hardware T&L support and slower CPUs should make an Aladdin 7 based system an easy to afford entry level gaming machine.


ALi's Athlon Chipset?



AMD's Chipsets

The AMD 750 will have a very small presence next year as the market turns to VIA for an Athlon chipset solution. Does this mean that AMD is departing from the chipset manufacturing scene? Not at all.

Contrary to what we expected AMD to do when they released the AMD 750, AMD will be keeping a prominent role in the manufacturing of chipsets for their beloved Athlon processor. While they won't be manufacturing the mainstream chipset solutions, they will make sure that there is a chipset solution available during times of transition from one major technology to the next. While AMD wasn't entirely clear as to what the next period of transition would be, they did indicate that the next AMD chipset solution would not be a multiprocessor solution.

After this next chipset solution is made available, we should be able to finally see a multiprocessor Athlon chipset from AMD in the latter part of 2000. While this isn't exactly what we were hoping to see, it is good to see AMD taking an active role in ensuring the success of the Athlon.

Click to Enlarge



VIA to the rescue

VIA will have a very strong year in 2000 as they have quite a few promising products scheduled for release.

One product which doesn't fit that category because it already has been released is the Apollo Pro 133A. With the i820 being out of the price range of many and the performance with SDRAM being less than desirable, the Apollo Pro 133A is left as the only chipset that offers support for the 133MHz FSB, Ultra ATA 66, and AGP 4X specifications. For those that absolutely must have one of the 133MHz FSB Pentium IIIs, the Apollo Pro 133A is a much more cost effective option than the i820/Rambus and a higher performing option than the i820 + MTH + SDRAM.

Quite a few manufacturers have been talking about their Apollo Pro 133A products, but we will finally see 133A based motherboards shipping in good quantities next year. A very attractive point about the 133A chipset is its cost, which should help keep boards based on the chipset well below the $159 mark of 820 based boards. Expect to see most 133A boards fall within the $100 - $120 range - not bad at all for a board that claims support for the 133MHz FSB, Ultra ATA 66, and AGP 4X specifications.

A fact we recently learned about VIA's North Bridges, including the 694X of the Apollo Pro 133A from above, is that they include built-in SMP support. While it is true that the BX chipset also supports SMP, it requires the use of an additional ASIC in order to take advantage of SMP. The 694X North Bridge, on the other hand, does not. If you couple the features we just discussed that the Apollo Pro 133A supports along with the low-cost of the chipset, a dual Apollo Pro 133A board could become a very affordable entry level path into the world of multiprocessing.

We weren't the only ones to think about this possibility as we managed to catch at least one demo of a dual Apollo Pro 133A based Pentium III system, so you can expect to see dual Apollo Pro 133A boards surface sometime in the first half of 2000. Stability issues are what is keeping manufacturers from releasing dual 133A boards right now. As you can probably guess on your own, making a dual processor board a stable one takes a considerably greater effort than toying with a single CPU board and thus very few manufacturers are up to the job. When these boards do hit the market, expect them to retail for no more than $130. For a dual processor board, that isn't bad at all.



VIA's Promedia

After the apparent success of the MVP4 on the low-end, VIA is working on yet another integrated chipset solution, this time for the P6 bus. The VIA Promedia chip will feature an integrated Trident video core, the same Blaze 3D core that was used in the old MVP4. The only difference between the Promedia and the MVP4 will be that the Promedia will be found on Socket-370 motherboards and potentially on Slot-1 boards.

Following the Promedia will be none other than the Promedia 2. The Promedia 2 will be the next step in VIA's line of integrated chipset solutions that will integrate a higher performance video core onto the North Bridge. This video core will closely resemble the S3 Savage4 as; in fact, it is manufactured in part by S3. In the future, VIA mentioned that there would be a possibility of integrating the Savage 2000 core into a VIA North Bridge to further extend the life of the Promedia series.

Sometime next year we will also see the integration of the Savage4 core into a P6 chipset solution with support for an external AGP 4X graphics adapter as well. This chipset solution offers a low-cost video solution out of the box, with the option of upgrading to an AGP 4X adapter if the user's needs outgrow what the integrated video is capable of delivering. The on-board AGP 4X slot can be used alongside the integrated video to offer cost effective support for multiple display environments.

Double Data Rate

VIA will release a direct competitor and attractive alternative to Intel's 820/Rambus platform with a P6 bus compliant Double Data Rate chipset. This chipset will allow for support for Double Data Rate SDRAM (PC2100) that will provide an effective 2.1GB/s of memory bandwidth, 33% greater than the 1.6GB/s of PC800 RDRAM. Not only will DDR SDRAM provide for more bandwidth than RDRAM but it will also be a cheaper solution. At first, the market can be expected to pay a nice premium for DDR SDRAM but the cost per module will still be less than that of RDRAM. This price difference is partially due to the fact that manufacturers do not have to pay any royalty feels to Intel for using DDR SDRAM while they do with RDRAM.

VIA's workstation level DDR chipset will most likely be licensed from Micron as they already have a P6-bus compliant DDR chipset ready. A DDR version of the Apollo Pro 133A will be released shortly thereafter. For those of you that aren't aware of it, DDR SDRAM does feature a different pinout than regular SDRAM. A picture of a DDR SDRAM module is pictured below.

 




Micron's DDR Solution


Micron's DDR Solution: Take 2

In the somewhat near future, VIA will also announce support for DDR2, the successor to DDR SDRAM. While information on the standard still isn't clear, it is a JEDEC approved standard that will improve the efficiency of DDR, possibly by using technology similar to that of NEC's Virtual Channel SDRAM.



VIA's KX133 - The Athlon's Savior

In the first quarter of 2000, we will finally see the introduction and mainstream availability of the first non-AMD, Athlon chipset, the VIA KX133. The KX133 offers support for AGP 4X, Ultra ATA 66, and as the name implies, the PC133 specification. The support for the 133MHz memory bus also comes with support for VC133 SDRAM and paves the way for the move to the 266MHz effective operating frequency of the EV6 bus (133MHz x 2).

The KX133 chipset is complete and ready for shipping. VIA is geared up for high volume production of the KX133, so there should be no problem meeting the demands for the chipset. Right now VIA is helping the motherboard manufacturers that will be using the KX133 perfect their designs so that we don't get another repeat of the initial wave of Athlon motherboards into the market.

Although we'll most likely see a wide variety of manufacturers producing KX133 based motherboards there are four manufacturers in particular that will be leading the pack: AOpen, Biostar, FIC and Epox. Expect to see KX133 parts from all of those manufacturers in mass quantities before the end of the first quarter next year. Some KX133 samples have already been seen floating around, but, for the most part, the beginning of Y2K will mark the introduction of the KX133 chipset into the motherboard market.

Unfortunately, the first revision of the KX133 will not support DDR SDRAM; instead, VIA will release a successor to the KX133 with DDR SDRAM support. There will be two different pinouts of the KX133: one geared towards the 462-pin Socket-A and the other made for Slot-A. While VIA did not offer an in-depth explanation to us as to what the exact difference is, they did make it clear that there would be some difference between the two different pinouts of the KX133.

Following the KX133, we will see the release of the KM133, a Socket-A chipset featuring a Savage4 or maybe even a Savage 2000 core integrated into the North Bridge of the chipset.

On the topic of dual processor Athlon chipsets, VIA will not be producing one in the foreseeable future leaving AMD as the only option for a dual processor Athlon chipset in 2000.



Summary

We all expected another BX chipset from Intel with the 820. Instead, we were left with a cost burden that not even the largest budgets would like to carry. We expected enormous support for the i840 platform as the true successor to the GX/NX chipsets, yet we've seen less than a dozen working i840 samples in contrast to the piles of i820 boards that we've managed to take a look at. Intel is not starting off the trek into the New Year very strong and it will take quite a bit in 2000 for them to fend of the competition in the CPU market, let alone the chipset market.

ALi and AMD are going to be remaining fairly quiet as we make the journey into the New Year, but for different reasons. ALi simply has very little to implement into the market and AMD is going to go back to concentrating on CPU manufacturing for at least a few more months, until they're needed again in the chipset market.

Another relatively quiet player, NEC, will be emerging next year with their DDR RCC chipset. This is a solution we know very little about other than it is designed for use with DDR SDRAM in a workstation environment.

VIA is going to have the biggest arsenal as they march into Y2K. They will become virtually the sole supplier of Athlon chipset solutions with the KX133 and its derivatives. They will be providing a very attractive alternative to the i820 with their Apollo Pro 133A. They will be offering low-cost chipset solutions, in addition to high-end DDR solutions, to the market, all with relatively little competition until Intel gets their act together.

For the sake of the consumer, let's just hope that power really doesn't corrupt.

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