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Intel Moves To 533MHz FSB

homerj79 writes: "Intel has launched an upgrade 850 chipset and faster Pentium 4's today. The new chipset, dubbed the 850E, supports a 533MHz (133MHz x 4) front side bus, as do the processors. Supporting processors come in speeds of 2.53, 2.4 and 2.26GHz. The 2.4GHz part is denoted as supporting the new FSB by a 'B' tagged to the end of it. And it appears as if the new chipset gives the P4 a performance boost in most apps over the previous 400MHz FSB chips and the Athlon XP." Meanwhile, back at the other processor ranch, firemoth writes: "Today OCAU has something special - They've gotten their hands on 3 AthlonXP CPU's based on AMD's new "Thoroughbred" core. This is the .13 micron process, of course, with lower voltage. This article compares them to the older Palomino core in both speed and temperature.. and they throw one into a Vapochill supercooling case and see just how fast it can go."

9 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. i850E doesn't officially support PC1066 RDRAM by questionlp · · Score: 5, Interesting
    According to Anand's article on the new 533Mhz FSB P4's and the i850E chipset (which provides official support for the 533Mhz, aka quad-pumped 133Mhz, FSB), that Intel isn't officially supporting the use of PC1066 RDRAM modules which would allow the memory bus and the processor FSB to run in tandem.

    Although quite a few Samsung PC800 modules will run at PC1066 speeds without any problems, but if any installed modules are not capable of running at the higher speed, the memory bus will get capped at the current max of 400Mhz (or 3.2GB/s).

    I guess for now, the new processors don't really, really need the higher memory bandwidth, but as the processor speeds start to hit 3+ Ghz, the extra amount of bandwidth will become more important.

  2. Where are the i845E based motherboards? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Can't believe that Intel isn't supporting the ICH4 with the i850 (ICH4 adds USB 2.0 support among other things.) This is reported at Tom's Hardware I believe. Intel's ass backwords manner of support for PC1066 RDRAM stinks too.

    So when are i845E boards coming out? Why didn't Intel announce that and the i845G today? Probably some stupid contractual thing with Rambus I suppose.

    Sure do hate it when marketing and politics overrule good engineering. Intel should be building ATA-133 and Firewire/IEEE1394 support into their chipsets as well. And the i845E should have support for DDR300.

    What a bunch of losers.

  3. 533 Mhz?! by adam613 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So Intel put the P4 on a quad-pumped bus to get the clock speed to look better. When AMD put the Athlon on a double-pumped 133 MHz bus and said it had a 266 MHz bus speed, nobody believed it. Now even Socket A motherboards admit that they run at 133 MHz now. What gives with Intel doing this? Am I missing something that's supposed to impress me?

    (if I am, please tell me, because otherwise I will be buying an AMD processor for my new computer)

  4. Any reviews using DDR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Are there any reviews or benchmarks available for the new CPUs using 266MHz DDR memory? It looks like RDRAM is not the most popular memory, but Intel is only allowing reviews that use RDRAM and not DDR. Onquiring minds want to know how a normal P4 config compares to a normal Athlon config.

  5. Re:Athlon XP, PR rating schemes (= bad) by colmore · · Score: 2, Interesting

    clock speed != performance

    write that 1000 times

    if AMD has to fudge numbers to sell an equivalent product, that's the fault of the largely ignorant market, not AMD.

    read any of their literature, they're very honest and upfront about what they're doing.

    --
    In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
  6. Re:2.4GHz clock speed by BeBoxer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, I don't know either. I work with 802.11b stuff a fair amount, but I'm no R/F engineer. Still, I can't help but imagine this becoming an all to common occurence:

    D: Greetings, Dell tech support.

    A: Hi, this new desktop you sold me is junk.

    D: What model is it?

    A: The new 2.4GHz P4, with the integrated wireless ethernet and wireless bluetooth keyboard.

    D: And what seems to be the problem?

    A: Every time I try to make a call on my 2.4GHz cordless phone, the computer crashes! And when I surf the web, my phone rings! And everything I type is ending up in my Palm's ToDo list! Then while I was upstairs heating my coffee in the microwave, it caught on fire!

    I mean really, how much stuff can we possibly cram into the 2.4GHz band anyway? Interesting times anyway.

  7. RTFA by Strog · · Score: 1, Interesting
    If you look at the benchmarks a little more closely you will notice some things. The Athlon XP 2100 is right behind the 2.4Ghz/533Mhz models and ahead of the 400Mhz bus ones. All this on a chip running 1.733Ghz.

    When the Thoroughbred core CPUs starting cranking up the clock speeds then even the fastest P4 will have to look up. The P4s were benchmarked with RDRAM motherboards which aren't available yet but will be here soon. If you want a fast system that is here now then get the Athlon or spend some more money and get a P4 that is going to be close to the same performance.

  8. put the damn RAM on the CPU by Easy2RememberNick · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When, do you think, will we see processors with the main memory built in? I mean you may as well stuff it when you get it, it'll make it cheaper because we'll all get the same thing. Or is that just too far fetched an idea? ie. The new 2.5GHz with 4GB RAM right on the CPU. Hunh? Maybe it'll get rid of all this crap surrounding buying or trying to match RAM to...whatever!!!!

    1. Re:put the damn RAM on the CPU by Squalish · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Done. Gamecubes use a unified base of SRAM(what modern proc's use as cache) for the proc AND the vid card. Dimms will not be on the proc chip in the forseeable future purely because of size.

      --
      People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation