New enhanced i850e chipset announced by Intel!

[mjrand]

Anybody know anything about the enhanced i850e chipset? It apparently works with dual channel RDRAM.

Does that mean I have to buy new ram or will the current pc1066 do dual-channel already?

Also I've already seen new mothboards out based on the new i845 chipsets. Are there any new motherboards out yet based on the new enhanced i850e chipset?

Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/27470.html

 

[teng029]

Dual channel RDRAM I believe is 32bit RDRAM, or RIMM 4200 (1066) and RIMM 3200 (800). Dual channel RDRAM offers the same(?) or greater bandwith than the current 16bit RDRAM. It also means that they do not have to be installed in pairs. Since Intel took so long to validate dual channel RDRAM, only one vendor (Samsung) has been producing the 32bit modules for public consumption. Kingston, was also supposed to be making the dual channel RAM but has yet to make it available. In fact, only one motherboard manufacturer has made a 32bit RDRAM board, which is the Asus P4T533. Such as it is, this board is far from Asus' best effort. The current revision is problem plagued and very few are actually stable. It also uses the non-enhanced version of the 850E, which apparently already supports 32bit RDRAM; albeit unofficially.

As for this "enhanced" version, I'm certainly curious about what they improved on.

 

[mjrand]

Are you sure it refers to 32bit RDRAM because the new Intel motherboard D850EMVR is based the the new enhanced i850e chipset but appears to be using 16bit RDRAM?

 

[PowerMacG5]

teng029, you are mistaken. Dual Channel RDRAM is 16-bit RDRAM, installed in pairs for a total of 32-bits per channel. In the PC1066 case, each bank per channel offers 2.1 GB/s bandwith, for a total of 4.2 GB/s per channel. Dual channel RDRAM (16-bit) must be installed in pairs of identical DIMMS. 32-bit RDRAM does not have to be installed in pairs. Each DIMM of RIMM4200 has a total bandwith of 4.2 GB/s. The only motherboard to currently use RIMM4200 or RIMM3200 is Asus's P4T533. PC1066 RDRAM can be used on all Intel 850E chipset motherboards except for the P4T533. All that 32-bit RDRAM is, is two 16-bit DIMMs put onto one DIMM. It offers relatively little benefit, aside from the fact that 32-bit RDRAM does not need to be installed in pairs.

mijrand, all that the enhanced 850e chipset is, is Intel firs "officially" supported PC1066 chipset. It is also the only "official" RDRAM based chipset to support the future hyperthreading technology. The new RDRAM motherboards from Intel are all 16-bit dual channel RDRAM motherboards.

 

[teng029]

You are correct, dual channel RDRAM is 16bit (the very reason they have to be installed in pairs). I got em confused. In any case, I guess what that press release was saying is that Intel finally officially supports the PC1066 RDRAM with its new "enhanced" 850E chipset. I mistakenly thought they were supporting 32-bit RAM.

Of course, now I'm wondering if Intel is going to officially support 32-bit RDRAM anytime soon.

 

[ssmithBH]

It's my understanding that the "upgrade" to the chipset allows for support of hyperthreading and P4 processors beyond 2.8G. Only the Asus board supports the 32-bit RDRAM, and not very well (not stable at standard speeds).

I just ordered the Gigabyte GA-8IHXP MB yesterday from newegg.com and its already shipped. UNFORTUNATELY, I have also discovered that a problem with a batch of Kingston PC1066 16-bit sticks has caused them to recall all PC1066 RDRAM. Kingston says that only the Toshiba or Hitachi chips in the RIMMs are supported by a number of MB manufacturers.(?) They further state that they are taking orders now for the next "batch" but that it will be 4-6 weeks until delivery!!! That has lead to a dearth of stock of PC1066 RDRAM in general.

I called Gigabyte this morning; they are going to contact Kingston and call me back.

I'll pass on anything I learn.

Scott

 

[senior guy]

Originally posted by: mjrand
.... Are there any new motherboards out yet based on the new enhanced i850e chipset?

Yes, Intel's D850EMVR (an improved version of the D850EMV2). The main difference between the new board and the prior version is that the new BIOS recognizes/implements PC1066 without the alerts of the previous BIOS, as well as Intel's enhanced Hyper-Threading. Regarding the latter, the D850EMVR's power regulation section has been beefed up to handle the soon-to-be released 3.06GHz and subsequent P4's.