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Intel's
i875P/i865P Canterwood/Springdale chipsets have all
the markings of a second coming; the second coming of the
"BX". Intel's 440BX was a chipset for the Pentium 3,
that reigned supreme years ago, as the premier
motherboard platform to couple with a high end Intel CPU.
Back in the day, there were so many incarnations of
motherboards built on the
440BX, that it even scaled beyond its targeted life
span and host bus speed, with some motherboard
manufacturers characterizing the chipset up to a 133MHz
system bus, while it was only designed to run at 100MHz.
Yes, the BX was the place to be back then. VIA and a
few other competitors stepped up to take shots at the "Big
I" but at the end of the day, it was all surface noise.
Since then,
the Pentium 4 has had a bit of a tough road with respect
to chipsets.
Intel's i850(E) chipset was saddled with an ever
controversial and expensive RDRAM memory interface and it
ultimately hindered the P4's pervasiveness in the
mainstream, allowing AMD's Athlon to take off within the
enthusiast markets. Realizing this, Intel
re-targeted its sights on DDR technology and released the
i845, which was a step in the right direction from a cost
standpoint, but didn't quite have the gas to compete toe
to toe with RDRAM's impressive memory bandwidth. As
such, once again VIA, SiS and other chipset manufacturers
tried to fill the performance void, with solutions of
their own, some more promising than others. Still
it's a tall order, to compete in the high end, especially
when no one knows how to build Pentium 4 chipsets, like
the manufacturer of the CPU, Intel.
However, with
the advent of Intel's Canterwood chipset, released a few
short weeks ago, Performance PC Enthusiasts, System
Integrators and OEMs alike, all have something to cheer
about. Finally we have a high performance Dual
Channel DDR chipset for the Pentium 4, with an extremely
high level of integration and it's built by Intel.
Today, we'll
take a look at two new motherboards built on the i875P "Canterwood"
chipset, in a side by side comparison. Two of the
top Enthusiast Motherboard OEMs, Abit and Asus, will be
showcased here. Let's strap in, boot up, lock and
load.
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Specifications & Features of Abit IC7-G and Asus
P4C800 |
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Canterwood driven features and performance |
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Abit IC7-G
- Processor
- Supports Intel® Pentium® 4 Socket 478 processors
with 800/533MHz FSB only
(400MHz FSB not supported)
- Supports Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology
- Chipset
- Intel® 875P / ICH5 RAID
- Supports Intel® CSA Gigabit LAN
- Supports Dual Channel DDR 400 with ECC function
- Supports Performance Acceleration Technology
(PAT) function
- Supports Advanced Configuration and Power
Management Interface (ACPI)
- Memory
- Four 184-pin DIMM sockets
- Supports 4 DIMM Single/Dual Channel DDR 400
memory (Max. 4GB).
- Supports configurable ECC function
- AGP
- Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP
PRO 8X/4X (0.8V/1.5V)
- Serial ATA and Serial ATA RAID
- 2 channel Serial ATA 150MB/s data transfer rate
with RAID function (0) via South Bridge
- 2 channel Serial ATA 150MB/s data transfer rate
with RAID function (0/1) via Silicon Image PCI
Chip
- Audio
- 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board
- Professional digital audio interface supports
24-bit S/P DIF optical In/Out
- 2 SPDIF Connectors On Backplate
- Media XP (Optional)
- Supports card reader function for Memory Stick?,
Secure Digital? and Type I/II CompactFlash?
- Supports Wireless Remote Control and S/PDIF Out
/ Mic In / Headphone Out / USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394
- Gigabit LAN
- On board Intel CSA (Communication Streaming
Architecture) Gigabit LAN
- IEEE 1394
- 3 channels (one on backplate)
- Supports IEEE 1394a at 100/200/400 Mb/s transfer
rate
- USB 2.0
- Supports 8 USB2.0 ports (4 on backplate)
- System BIOS
- SoftMenu? Technology to set CPU parameters
- CPU, Memory, and AGP voltage adjustable
- Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio. Fixed AGP/PCI
frequencies
- Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
- Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface
(ACPI)
- Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI)
- Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS
- Internal I/O Connectors
- 1 x AGP PRO, 5 x PCI slots, 1 x IrDA
- 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
- 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100 Connectors (via
ICH5)
- 4 x Serial ATA 150 Connectors (via ICH5 and
Silicon Image Cntrl)
- 2 x USB 2.0 headers, 2 x IEEE 1394a header
- 1 x CD-IN, 1 x AUX-IN
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Asus P4C800 Deluxe
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What can you
say about the i875P chipset and its companion ICH5
Southbridge? Plain and simple, it's got it all.
Serial ATA w/ RAID 0 support, Legacy ATA100, a 10/100/1000
LAN interface with Intel's CSA (Communication Streaming
Architecture), 6 Channel Audio, USB2.0, AGP8X and Dual
Channel DDR DRAM support up to 400MHz DDR. Drop in
an 800MHz capable System Bus (533 and 400MHz supported as
well) and you've got just about everything you could want
in a high performance P4 implementation. Of course,
Motherboard OEMs, like Abit and Asus, will continue to
innovate and enhance this base architecture, adding more
bells and whistles, as well as performance optimizations.
We tested Intel's D875PBZ, a nice, stable but shall we
say, "conservative" Canterwood board direct from Intel, in
our
launch article. The boards coming in now form
various Taiwanese manufacturers, are darn impressive
frankly. Let's have a closer look at two of them.
First up, Abit's IC7-G...
Up Close and Personal
With The Abit IC7-G
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