Request: Summary of current chipsets

keybaud

keybaud

keybaud

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30 Dec 2006
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Can anyone point me to an existing thread/article or write a brief description of the currently available chipsets for the Intel Quad core CPUs.

I'm after building a new PC and I'm a bit out of touch with the latest technology. In fact, the last board I got very serious with was an Abit BP6 (BX Chipset!) where I replaced the capacitors and voltage regulators to improve the board's stability!

I have had a number of other PCs since then, but I've scrounged unwanted ones off friends or even dragged them out of skips at the local tip. I'd like to thank the guy that threw away his PC a few years ago. If only he'd known that the CPU temp sensor was faulty and the reasonn that it kept crashing was because the sensor was insisting that the CPU had gone from -5 degrees to 94 degrees (yes, it was that flakey!). A simple selection in the BIOS (turn the damned thing off) and the machine was sweet as a nut.

Anyway, I digress, pointers to latest chipsets much appreciated...
 
For anyone else that is interested, here is what I've dug up so far:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=2157619

P35 and X38 are both 90 nm
P45 and X48 will both be 65 nm (I presume P43 will be too).

http://compare.intel.com/pcc/showch...3,34470,36521,29001&familyID=10&culture=en-US

The only listed difference between the P43 and the P45 is that the P45 supports two X8 slots or one x16, whereas the P43 only supports one x16. i.e. if you don't care about Crossfire or SLI then the P43 is all you need.

X48 is the only chipset that supports two X16.

X48 is the only chipset that officially supports 1600 FSB, but it does not support DDR2 at all, onlyDDR3.

X38, X48 and P35 support up to 8 GB RAM, whereas P43 and P45 support up to 16 GB.

P35 and X38 are the only chipsets that support ECC.

I am also intrigued by the plethora of heat pipe solutions for the new chipsets when they are on a smaller die than the old ones, so they should produce less heat. Is this a new marketing con trick?

Comments on OCing P45:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/12/will-you-overclock-intel-s-p45/1

Comments on chipset Crossfire/SLI capability:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3033168
 
I quoted from Intel's chipset comparison page, but manufacturers can add extra functionality to a motherboard, so a chipset may do more than it is officially listed as supporting.
 
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