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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."
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.
I remember the old ZX81 I built from a kit clocked its Z80 at 3.58MHz, so it could generate the synced television picture directly from the processor.
With 2.4GHz, I'm sure there will be wireless experiments by attempting to use the CPU as a DSP.
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.
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)
do they have any memory bandwidth issues? i mean, i'd be a shame if intel's new found speed was useless
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
who cares what the FSB is at this stage. untill we have SDRAM that supports this "bandwidth" it will not help out total system performence.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
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.
I have an AMD 1.4 GHz and its too damn hot. I had to create a wind tunnel in my case to keep it cool.
IS the noise really worth it?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I liked it when the processor and RAM cycle didn't resemble the videocard race. I wish they could build around all the RAM I just bought instead of a processor upgrade requiring new MOBO's, RAM, and more patience then ever. Then again it's sooo fast. Me want... doom 3 ain't gonna run on this old p3-450. Damnit, I'm gonna cry now.
*yawn*
I'm running a 900 mhz Duron right now, and have been for a year and a half.
I do some pretty heavy photoshopping, media work, and compiling. I've never felt that I was being slowed down significantly by my processor.
I upgraded to 1GB RAM, and that improved things, but I just don't feel the need to go out and get the latest processor any more, the need is simply not in the applications.
Maybe if I were playing games or ripping DivX, but really it seems that for the vast majority of the home market, the technology has vastly outpaced the need, even the latest-greatest MS OS can't justify the need for this kind of iron.
Though I guess this means that the next computer I buy will be that much cheaper, since "low end" systems (with slight boosts to hard drive and memory) are now all that I need.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
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!
This might have been funny if the writeup above (not to mention the article and common sense in general) didn't say that its 133x4. So I have to ask, are you a moron?
when the clock speed of the latest chipsets is faster than the clock speed of your processor, motherboard, and memory. Combined.
Why does Intel boost the FSB speed and then turn around and bork it with old crap on the southbridge?
Specifically:
ICH2 South Bridge connected to the MCH via Hub Link 1.0 with 266MB/sec bandwidth;
AND
ATA/100, USB 1.1 and AC'97 sound support.
ATA/133 and USB 2.0 are pretty much the standard now on Socket A motherboards.
Intel killed this motherboard line before it was even made...
I didn't see any mention of SMP support in either article for the new chipset. Does the P4 even support SMP? What are the current MB offerings for SMP?
AMD Thoroughbred reviewed here
.13 process
Also for now this should only concern the Overclocking community because of the ability of this chip to run at higher clock speeds due to the
Rapid Nirvana
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.
One or the other has to come out first, may as well be this. Sure it's chicken and egg, but necessary. Saying this won't help total system performance is like saying Watt's improvements on Newcomen's steam engine were no biggy until iron rails came into play. Improvements come in steps, lots of tiny steps, always has, always will.
Infuriate left and right
I guess my 8088 laptop running at a blazing 3.77 MHz is out of date now :-)
What OS do you want to abuse today?
This should increase the speed at which Windows XP crashes dramatically. I can probably fit 1.5 times as many crashes in during the same period of time as on my old motherboards.
I thought that was funny... Or, at least, not worth modding down.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Measuring the performance of a CPU using megahertz is like comparing the speed of 2 vehicles based on horsepower alone. For instance, would you say that a 5500 pound muscle car with 300 horsepower is just immediately faster than a 300 pound motorcycle with only 100 horsepower? When you look at the 1/4 mile numbers, you'll find a nasty surprise. The motorcycle will beat the crap out of the car any day. When comparing CPUs, you need to look at the end results, which in this case are benchmarks. Whether they be synthetic, or my preferred method: FPS. I find it interesting that an Athlon XP 2100+ running at 1.73 gHz can run Wolfenstein .1 frames faster than the p4 at 2.53 gHz. That alone should tell you that you're looking at the wrong number. If you're going to blame anyone, blame intel for creating the p4 the way they did, which resulted in them being able to clock it faster, but without actually making it faster. They're the ones with the nasty PR, if you ask me. AMD is just trying to compensate for the general uninformed masses.
Nicodemus
Personally, I'm waiting for the 933 Mhz bus. Script kiddies everywhere would be dying to get their hands on a new "133x7" pentium.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
That's funny--I thought 4x133=532. A good clue the math is wrong is that multiplying with an even number should not generate an odd number.
Buying RAM is a bit confusing now. Athlons have 200MHz FSB and 266MHz FSB. What kind of DDR should I use with each? There is DDR1600, DDR2100, DDR333, and some other stuff. Now there is this intel chip with 533MHz FSB. Is there an easy rule to remember what number after the 'DDR' coresponds with the number before the 'FSB'?
It gets so confusing, building your own systems is becoming less appealing.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
AMD has processors that run at 1.8ghz, so 533mhz is nothing! Oh wait, it said fsb. :-)
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
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!!!!
The ICH doesn't put ATA transactions on the PCI bus. There's a separate bus between the MCH and ICH, over which the USB, AC'97, IDE, etc. transactions go. So the PCI throughput is independent of the IDE throughput (to a certain extent--the PCI traffic headed to memory/CPU does go over this MCH-ICH link though.) But the maximum throughput over this link is greater than the maximum throughput over PCI alone.
That's funny--I thought 4x133=532
It's not a digital world and we can't forget analog electronics and real numbers. The frequency is 133.33...
Bus speeds are catching up with Apple's CPU speed. I guess that CPU cache will become less important :-/
Been spending too much time by the memepool, have we?
Ceci n'est pas une sig
533MHz is not an attempt by anyone to deceive you. It is a genuine number indicative of the throughput the bus provides. Nobody (educated, at least) is claiming the bus clock runs at 533MHz, only that 533 MHz is simply the rate of transfer. The clock rate is effectively multiplied by 4 at each end of the transfer and used to synchronize the transfers. This is analogous to your system clock running at 100MHz, yet your core claims to run at 1GHz.
How can this be? The core has an internal multiplier (called a PLL) that allows the core to run at a higher speed. This allows the board to run at a lower speed which results in less board noise, less switching (so lower power), and also represents a common denominator reference so all devices don't need to run at the same high frequency. For example, the CPU might scale the reference clock by 10, but the chipset might not scale the clock at all.
Hertz (Hz) is merely a rate, and represents an inverse second (1/s) and is commonly used to indicate the rate of periodicity of a clock. However, Hz is used to indicate bandwidth of a modem, for example. A 48K modem transfers 48 kilobits of data, and can be said to transfer bits at a rate of 48KHz. In actuality, there are not 48000 individual bits transferred every second. Instead, there are 8000 individual symbols transferred each second, and each symbol provides 6 bits.
Best regards,
mega
Measuring the performance of a CPU using megahertz is like comparing the speed of 2 vehicles based on horsepower alone.
:)
I think RPM is a better analogy.
C//
But benchmarks and user experience also tend back up AMD's claims.
Yeah, "benchmarks != real world performance" or whatever, but it's more honest for AMD to try and provide the consumer numbers that reflect what they're meant to be equivalent to than simply list their MHz.
What do you expect them to do, sit there and take a PR hit for no good reason just because they don't have the clockspeed? MHz is a silly performance indicator, and AMD's XP naming series is a hack, but it's not like there's any other catchy bite size indicators waiting in the wings anyway.
Doesn't it make anybody wonder why clockspeeds rise with so small steps at a time? Why FSB and other buses always get only this kind of 100 -> 133 improvements? Why memory channels were only doubled and not quadrupled at once? Why consumer-level SMP mobos are mostly 2 fixed sockets and not 8 slots for processor cards and possibility to use riser cards after riser cards for extra processor slots infinitely :)
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
P4 vs. Athlon XP race is irrelevant. AMD need not take the speed crown again, they just need to keep their existing market share until Hammers hit stores. BTW, Athlon XP is still very fast, moreover it is avaliable now unlike benchmarked P4s. If you can't help lusting for even more speed, a dual athlon xp box is quite affordable unlike a dual P4 Xeon box.
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