 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Introduction.The past year has been somewhat troublesome for Intel as regards its chipset strategy. First there were the numerous problems with the high-end i820 chipset, ranging from an data corruption problems stemming from 3 Rambus RIMM sockets, through to stability problems associated with the SDRAM compatible Memory Traslation Hub (MTH). Meanwhile at the low-end of the PC market, Intel was having a large amount of success with its i810 series of chipsets, which featured an integrated graphics controller in the shape of the i752, but no AGP port. This situation was rather worrying for Intel as it left the company with a poorly recieved high-end chipset, and a rather restricted low-end chipset that had to try and fill the performance hungry middle-ground in the fiercely competitive PC market. To make matters worse for Intel, rival chipset manufacturer VIA was agressively pushing its Apollo Pro 133A which offered PC-133 SDRAM compatibility along with an AGP port. Intel suddenly found itself with a fight on its hands in the chipset market. What it needed was a competitive mid-to-high-range chipset. Luckily for Intel, it did have a solid chipset design in the shape of the i810 series. The logical move for Intel was to add an external AGP 4X port to the chipset which would enable motherboard manufacturers to add an AGP slot. Couple this to the addition of PC-133 SDRAM support, Intel could now offer the PC market what it wanted in the form of the i815. AOpen meanwhile have long built a range of highly successful motherboards based upon Intel chipsets. Recent years saw a number of well received boards from AOpen based upon the highly popular i440BX chipset. Recently AOpen have also made a number of boards based upon the VIA Apollo Pro133A. The launch of the i815 chipset though meant that Intel had a new flagship core logic with which motherboard manufacturers could use after two years of the BX chipset, and this was an opportunity which AOpen could not pass over. The simple fact of the matter is, there are a number of people (and companies) who will simply not accept a chipset that is not designed by Intel, despite the praise which may be lauded upon rivals such as the VIA Apollo Pro 133A. The question is; is the i815e the chipset to satisfy these people, and is the AOpen AX3S Pro the board up to the job? Intel i815e.The Intel i815e is Intel’s latest chipset for its P6 family of processors. Unlike previous P6 based chipsets such as the i440FX, LX and BX, the i815e hails from the budget i810 family of chipsets launched in 1999. Like the i810, the i815e is based upon Intel’s Integrated Hub Architecture (IHA) which abandoned the old principle of North and South bridge controllers for the motherboard’s core logic. The i815e is based upon the i815 Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH), which looks after the CPU, memory and the integrated i752 graphics controller. The other part of the i815e, is the I/O Control Hub (ICH2), which looks after the PCI bus, E-IDE controller (not via the PCI bus as with the i440BX), BIOS and Audio and Modem codecs.
The i815e is the first Intel chipset to offer users the full combination 133 MHz Front Side Bus support, PC-133 SDRAM, AGP 4X and U/DMA-100 Hard Disk
compatibility all in one package. With the i820 and Rambus falling from favour within Intel, the i815e found itself being tasked with the job of reclaiming
market share from VIA and proving to be a worthy sucessor to the hugely popular i440BX.
Other Motherboard Pages:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
