Over 15 years in this industry, I can't recall any time in which chipsets have been a more vital topic. Now that discussions about megahertz are fading into the past, all eyes are turned to features and upgrade paths. Last year was an amazing time for the introduction of new platform technologies, almost as if the PC industry had spent the last three or four years building up pressure that finally erupted in the form of sweeping design changes all at once. In every instance, each of these new technologies must be enabled in the chipset.

If you're not taking chipsets into consideration as part of the sales process, you may not be considering them during the purchasing and configuring processes either, and this would be a drastic mistake. White box success hinges upon creating an irresistible value proposition, and there's no way that a big OEM can effectively convey the subtle value contained in modern chipset features in a catalog or Web page.

As an example, I'll pick our usual whipping boy, Dell. On the page listing the various basic Dimension desktops for small business, systems run from $299 based on the Intel 845GV chipset to $1,589 for one based on the 925XE. Nowhere does Dell explain the difference between Intel Extreme graphics and the GMA 900 found in the 915G chipset and use that as an upselling vehicle. The word RAID doesn't even appear on the page. An 800 MHz FSB processor is offered on the 925XE chipset model, but there is not even a hint to indicate that the system has a clear upgrade path to future 1,066 MHz-based chips while the other models do not. You have the advantage here. You can execute on all of this upsell potential inherent in the chipset platforms, but only if you have the knowledge and take the time to communicate and demonstrate the value points.

"Arguably, chipsets deserve even more mindshare than processors," says Shane Rau, program manager, PC semiconductors with IDC. "They're essential to the form and function of the PC."

Each of the major chipset vendors has its own allure, but there is so much going on in the chipset space right now that tracking their market positions is nearly futile. Still, the most recent unit share numbers from IDC for the x86-based PC market, covering the third quarter of 2004, show the following: Intel at 63.1%, VIA at 17.0%, SiS at 9.2%, NVIDIA at 4.4%, and ATI in a virtual tie for fourth place at 4.3%.

So much has happened since the third quarter, though, that these numbers may have changed radically by the time you read this. The channel has finally embraced Intel's latest core logic. ATI at last has a high-performance chipset for the AMD market. NVIDIA is gearing up for a groundbreaking debut into the Intel platform, and VIA is pushing hard with enthusiast features its larger rival doesn't and probably never will offer. All of that market share is up for grabs, and this is the year that their war will expand to every corner of the system builder market.

The good news is that you stand to profit amidst all of their battling...if you understand the offerings well enough to capitalize on them. Let's make sure you're ready.

Intel

The phrase you'll hear tossed about by Intel reps is that the 925X (Alderwood) and 915P/G (Grantsdale) chipsets released in 2004 were the most fundamental change to hit the PC in a decade. And by and large, the claim is true. AGP gave way to PCI Express. Plain vanilla AC'97 audio stepped aside for 7.1 HD Audio. DDR2 came into its own, being mandatory on the 925X and optional on the 915 family. Socket 478 bowed out for the 775-pin Socket T. Serial ATA drive interface support and RAID support had arrived with the prior 865/875 generation in the ICH5R southbridge, but Intel used the ICH6R to introduce Matrix Storage, a novel way to have both RAID 0 and RAID 1 volumes on only two hard disks.

Matrix in particular is useful for illustrating a shift within Intel's development philosophy. According to Intel's Sunil Kumar, director of chipset and software marketing, the company now divides its time equally between silicon and software development. This may seem odd coming from a chip manufacturer, but Matrix makes the point. Intel already had SATA and RAID with the ICH5R, but the market uptake on the feature was fairly slow. Matrix RAID is a purely software-based innovation aimed at taking existing hardware technology and making it more robust and useful.

Of course, markets resist change just as much as people. Intel stated earlier in 2004 that it expected the 915 to comprise half of its shipping chipset portfolio by the end of the year. Adoption within the channel, though, was unusually disappointing. After an initial flurry of interest, board vendors and system builders seemed at first apathetic and then almost resentful of the transition. Numerous motherboard manufacturers arrived with hybrid designs, encompassing several of Intel's new platform changes but still holding onto as many of the old architectures as possible.

"Our goal was to leave the year with a greater than 50% mix with our new chipset solution versus the older generation," says Kumar. "We accomplished that goal, but the large OEMs exceeded our expectations while the channel lagged behind. Why is that? Every aspect of the platform went through a radical change. Because the peripheral vendors focus on supplying the large OEMs before the channel, that constrained parts such as DDR2 for system builders. PCIe cards were too expensive and stock was very slim initially. The channel ramp was slow for infrastructure reasons, not because of the chipset."

Now, heading toward March, Intel maintains that the channel is at a 50/50 mix, with the 915 and 925 balanced against the older 875, 865, and 845 designs. I was actually quite surprised to hear Kumar mention the 845 so prominently in his product mix, but apparently, even though Intel may wish it were otherwise at times, the company actively supports and promotes chipsets several years old in order to address the lower ends of the market. Just to draw the comparison for those not playing in this space, the 845 offers a 400 MHz bus speed, AGP 4X, DDR266, and only ATA/100 drive support. These are the kind of specs you would expect in a modern set-top box.

Another critical element in the move from 865 to 915 was the approximate doubling of performance in going from the somewhat unsuitably named Intel Extreme Graphics 2 to the Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900, based on a 333 MHz graphics core and equipped with fairly modern specs, such as DirectX 9 support, 2.0 pixel shaders, and a four-pixel pipeline. The press had a field day mocking IEG2. Nearly all critics were silenced by GMA 900. No, you'd never play DOOM 3 on it, but the fact was that the GMA 900 was finally good enough for Intel to drop the lame excuse of calling its integrated graphics a business solution fit for MS Office and Web browsing.

Since the initial Grantsdale (915G and IGP-less 915P) release, Intel followed with a few additional knock-off SKUs worth mentioning here for system builders who need to provide the most Intel features possible while still pinching every penny.

The 915GV is a carbon copy of the 915G save that it omits a dual display option because there is no PCI Express graphics (x16) slot. As an aside, the 915G's dual display option is enabled through Intel's Advanced Digital Display 2 (ADD2) x16 card. Appropriately acronymed, this must have been the single most overlooked feature of the Grantsdale platform. At a time when every discrete card above the value segment and even competing IGP products were riding the rising trend of dual monitor support, Intel's lack of promotion of this feature and corresponding $26 add-in card, which also supports DVI, LVDS, and TV output, is relatively stunning. Not that Intel made any more buzz about the original ADD for the 865G.

The 915GL replicates the 915GV but drops support for DDR2 modules and adds support for the Celeron D.

The 910GL takes matters one step lower by ditching the external graphics port, meaning the GMA 900 is the only graphics controller the user can ever have, barring the crazy choice to go for a PCI controller.

Finally, the graphics-less 915PL knocks memory support down from two DIMMs per channel to only one, yielding a 2GB RAM maximum. There is no DDR2 support, although there is an x16 PCIe slot.

Alderwood received a slight update later in 2004 with the release of the 925XE, which increased the maximum FSB speed from 800 MHz to 1,066 MHz. A handful of enthusiast motherboards hit the market with this chipset, but the XE generated little fanfare since there was only one CPU able to take full advantage of the improvement: the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46 GHz, which still has a street price of over $1,000 as of this writing. In late February, Intel announced a second 1,066 MHz part, the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73 GHz, which will cost $999 in 1,000-unit quantities. One can't help but wonder if the XE was an FSB test run for Intel's forthcoming chipsets.

Speaking of which, with Intel updating its core logic on a fairly regular annual basis now, ‘tis the season again for a chipset refresh. Whereas Intel was freely calling the 915/925 generation a revolution, the language this time around leans much more toward evolution. There are no major bus revisions this time around. The major features are being refreshed, not fabricated.

You will recognize the pattern by now. By the time you read this, IDF will be over and the details will be official. The 945P and 945G (collectively known as Lakeport) will be the mainstream offerings while the 955X (Glenwood) will sit at the high end. The biggest news here is that, in addition to all current LGA775 processors, both chipsets will support Intel's forthcoming dual-core CPUs (Smithfield) while the 915 and 925 will not. Both new chipsets will support a 1,066 MHz FSB as well as dual-channel 667 MHz DDR2. Whether the 945 will successfully be able to overclock this memory, unlike the 925X/XE, remains to be seen.

The 945G will sport Intel's next-gen IGP, the GMA 950. As of this writing, there is no information available on the GMA 950's performance, although historically Intel has demonstrated 50% to 80% improvement in its IGPs generation over generation. Intel will also offer the ADD2+ companion card for dual and digital monitor support. Company reps were careful to stress that the ADD2+ is only designed to enable dual head output, not anything resembling SLI functionality. The evolution behind ADD2+ is that the card can now enable multiple TV tuners for PiP-type implementations or designs such as a TV tuner plus LVDS (an integrated LCD display). Both new chipsets will support SATA2.

There will still be Matrix Storage, PCI Express x16 and x1, and HD Audio, and Sunil Kumar hints that Intel will have new software ready to better capitalize on the potential within HD Audio to help spur adoption and use of it.

True enough, considering the remarkable sound channel flexibility available within HD Audio for the past year, the market has seen few if any vendors deliver persuasive solutions based on these capabilities.

There will also be a feature emphasis aimed at businesses called Active Management Technology. All I could drag out of Intel on this point before IDF was, "Active management is a technology that is designed to help with IT's top challenges, such as locating and managing computer assets, reducing system maintenance costs, and preventing viruses and worms. The direction we are heading towards is Discover, Heel, and Protect. Users will ‘discover' PC assets as hardware and software assets and have that info written to non-volitile memory. They will ‘heel' systems through out-of-band diagnostics and recovery capabilities, and they will ‘protect' such that ‘off-hour' systems can be awakened for patches, etc."

Early industry buzz says that, as with the Springdale/Alderwood release, Intel will only show the 955X and 945G chipsets at launch, not the 945P. Despite Intel's continued assertions to the contrary, I and many other journalists confirmed first-hand that there was no significant performance advantage in the 925X over the 915P, and the 915P only topped the 915G by an average of two or three percent. Once again, Intel is maintaining that the 955X will have "memory optimizations" (called Turbo Mode) and that "the overall system performance benefits will vary by application and benchmark." This sounds like a prelude to a rehash of last year's 925X disappointment.

However, Intel learned its lesson and took steps to make its premium chipset story more about features than performance. In addition to handling ECC memory, the 955X will support up to 8GB of maximum memory versus 4GB on the 945. More importantly, it will be the only Intel desktop chipset of the near future to support Quad Thread. Initial Smithfield CPUs are not expected to offer Hyper-Threading. Rather, they will deliver two physical processor dies instead of two virtual processors on one die. The initial dual-core Extreme Edition chips, on the other hand, will deliver two-thread Hyper-Threading on each of their two dies, yielding four virtual threads, or Quad Thread. This will doubtless emerge as a key selling point in the server and workstation markets as Quad Thread-compatible applications begin to arrive.

Unofficially, early buzz on the Web out of Asia indicates that there will be five varieties of the new ICH7 southbridge. All support six PCI devices, four SATA2 ports, one PATA channel, eight USB 2.0 ports, HD Audio, and a 100Base-TX MAC. The ICH7 and ICH7DO (Digital Office) will offer four PCIe x1 slots and no RAID functionality. The ICH7DH (Digital Home), ICH7DE (Digital Enterprise), and ICH7R all support six x1 slots as well as RAID 0, 1, and 10. The latter two southbridges also offer RAID 5. Whether some of these designs remain vaporware, as the ICH6W and ICH6RW did, is anyone's guess, although one might think that the pull toward integrated wireless in the chipset would now be nearly inescapable.

Channel adoption of the new platforms should ramp considerably faster than the 925X and 915 since DDR2 and PCIe parts are now in ample supply. With the embracing of DDR2-667, the newer RAM format will finally be able to show a definite performance gain over standard DDR. Drives supporting the newer 300 MB/sec spec in SATA II may be in short supply in the first half of the year, but that's not a platform killer since SATA 1.0 drives with NCQ are now abundant and at near price parity with PATA. The only major variable left is whether Intel will have a full supply of 6xx CPUs available for the channel after feeding all of its Tier 1 OEM partners, but even this isn't a deal breaker since many high-end buyers will likely jump straight to the 8xx family of Smithfield chips. The price premium for dual-core over single-core is expected to be less than $100 in volume quantities, although introductory Smithfield chips will range from 2.80 to 3.20 GHz and still run on an 800 MHz FSB.

Lest we get too wrapped up in next-generation hoopla, it's important to note the cascade effect the new releases will have on today's mainstream products. Not only will the 915 and 925 parts see substantial price drops, but the move to a common technology bed in all segments save the lower value niches will have its own benefits.

"The great thing about Lakeport will be a uniformity of platform up and down the price stack," says Intel worldwide chipset channel marketing manager Chris Tobias. "Now, system builders won't have to worry about whether to keep AGP cards or DDR1. They will be able to streamline their inventory and the technologies they offer across the board."

Count on Intel to push information and sales strategies focusing on the new chips into the channel through various means. Chris Tobias notes that much of Intel's efforts will flow through its motherboard manufacturing partners in helping them to develop effective marketing campaigns based around the new features.

Intel's channel partner Web site will also be stocked with a slew of pertinent information, and shows such as the bi-annual Intel Channel Conferences will help educate channel partners on new product concepts as well as how to implement them from a hands-on standpoint.

VIA

For a long, long time, VIA was the undisputed king of chipsets on the AMD platform, so much so that the company just announced the shipment of its 100 millionth chipset for AMD. Now, however, the company is tripping on the heels of rival NVIDIA and its nForce offerings. This is a rough time for VIA, but the company has seen worse and is still here to tell about it. In fact, a careful study of VIA's chip lineup shows a portfolio able to rival and often surpass any competitor.

On the Intel side, VIA is not convinced that the sluggish uptake in the 915 and 925X chipsets was all about market infrastructure. Because of pricing issues, VIA believes that DDR will continue to outsell DDR2 through the end of 2006—and don't forget that VIA was the one who made the smarter call over Intel in the whole DDR vs. Rambus contest. Only the spendy 925XE chipset supports a 1,066 MHz FSB, and Intel in general is rather aggressive about pushing board partners into new technology formats whether they're ready to move or not.

VIA's new chipset family for the P4 is all about feature flexibility and allowing board partners to implement whichever component combinations they feel will best address market needs. There are three parts arriving through March and April, all of which are enabled with Hyper-Threading and dual-channel memory architecture. The PT880 Pro aims to tackle the value market still buying 865-based products. The PT894 is gunning for Grantsdale, and the PT894 Pro goes even further with some innovative graphics implementations. All three chips offer bus support from 533 MHz through 1,066 MHz as well as the choice of whether to support DDR1 (up to 400 MHz) or DDR2 (up to 667 MHz). In fact, VIA is set be the first vendor with product on the street officially supporting 667 MHz memory. All three chipsets feature VIA's 1,066 MB/sec Ultra V-Link path between the northbridge and southbridge, and the PT880 Pro gives board vendors the choice of implementing PCI Express or AGP—or both.

"For the white box market, our PT880 Pro is certainly one of the star products for the first half of this year," says Keith Kowal, marketing manager, chipset platform group, with VIA. "It's quite unique because it features both AGP 8X and PCI Express graphics connectors. You should see availability coming soon from several vendors, with Gigabyte being first off the blocks in mid-March."

As there is little to no price difference left between AGP and PCI Express cards, the PT880 Pro emerges as an excellent choice for buyers wanting to preserve their existing AGP investments. And here's the kicker: VIA's DualGFX allows for the use of two graphics cards simultaneously to provide two-, three-, or four-head video output. PT880 Pro owners can achieve this functionality across the AGP and PCIe interfaces. Similarly, the StepUp technology in the PT880 Pro allows for DDR and DDR2 modules to co-exist on the same motherboard. For buyers upgrading from a Springdale-era configuration, there is no more economical chipset option. The primary potential hitch on this board is that it only offers a single x16 PCI Express connection. There is an option for another two x1 connections to the southbridge, but this requires using the forthcoming VT8251, which is currently not listed as a companion option for the PT880 Pro.

The PT894 is an 18-lane PCIe northbridge to which the VT8251 can add another two lanes. There is no AGP option here, which positions the chipset as a 915P competitor. The PT894 Pro differs in that it adds the ability to run two PCIe graphics slots for multiple monitor support, a feature VIA calls Video GFX. Given the current state of the market with DDR2 pricing and the preponderance of 800 MHz FSB CPUs, it seems likely that the Pro will be the more persuasive of the two parts in luring Intel buyers.

We'll cover SLI in the NVIDIA section below, but it's worth noting here that VIA is not advertising Video GFX as an SLI implementation.

"We have two chipsets that support dual graphics, the PT894 Pro and the K8T890 Pro for AMD. Both of these chipsets are technically capable of supporting SLI. However, there are some business issues in play regarding NVIDIA's drivers. NVIDIA drivers do a chipset ID, and if they don't recognize an NVIDIA chipset, they don't enable SLI support. We're working with NVIDIA on that."

These three P4 chips are reaching the market several months after originally forecasted, but the feature sets are on par with or superior to Intel's 945—at least they are if the Web rumors about this core logic triad being dual-core-compatible turn out to be true. The challenge VIA faces is in the southbridge. The PT880 Pro uses the VT8237. The PT894 accommodates either the VT8237 or the VT8251, which is also the chip paired with the PT894 Pro.

In all but two regards, the VT8237 is a standard issue legacy southbridge, with native support for only two SATA devices and 10/100 Ethernet. The chip's advantages are in RAID and audio functionality. Unlike the ICH5R against which it was designed to compete, the VT8237 adds RAID 1 and JBOD support on top of RAID 0. Tack on VIA's external SATAlite chip with its additional two SATA ports and the user can also get RAID 0+1. More importantly, RAID setup is done through Windows or Linux, not the BIOS. This allows for arrays to be created on the fly rather than in the BIOS and during initial OS installation, a feature whose convenience can't be overstated.

The other hot button for the VT8237 is VIA Vinyl integrated 5.1 surround sound with VIA's Six-TRAC codec chip. Six-TRAC delivers 20-bit audio (the same as Intel's HD Audio) with a 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio on a motherboard. Stepping up from Six-TRAC to VIA's Envy24PT enables 24-bit/96kHz digital output. However, as with Intel's audio implementation, board vendors are free to use whichever audio codec chip they wish, and some opt for inferior quality solutions, especially ones that only deliver CD-quality, 16-bit sound with a considerably lower SNR. This is an important point to watch since the codec is a discrete part not integrated into the chipset itself.

The VT8251 is still unreleased as of this writing, but the chip is expected to deliver support for SATA II, onboard RAID 5 courtesy of four SATA ports, two integrated PATA controllers, AHCI and NCQ, and HD Audio (7.1 and 24-bit/192kbps output). The chip will also offer two x1 PCI Express lanes. Additionally, VIA's implementation allows for the use of a SATA port multiplier, which, according to VIA, will enable up to 60 hard drives on one SATA connection. Also noteworthy is that the VIA Stylus audio driver will integrate QSound technology, which is by far the best surround scheme I've ever heard short of Dolby Digital or DTS.

On the AMD side, VIA states that it still owns 80% of the K7 market and nearly half of the K8 market. The flagship chipset on this front is the K8T890, announced last September. This is VIA's only K8 part supporting PCI Express, and it delivers an x16 graphics connection in addition to four x1 links. Paired out of the gate with the VT8237 southbridge (despite the block diagram showing a VT8251), the K8T890 supports DDR400, VIA's Ultra V-Link connection, and single/dual Opteron, Athlon 64/FX, and Sempron processors on an asynchronous bus architecture.

When assessing the value of VIA's chipsets, it's important to remember that VIA adheres to a modular approach it calls V-MAP designed to minimize platform costs and design times. This is why functions such as high-end audio and Gigabit Ethernet are delivered through discrete VIA chips. At first glance, one might compare the K8T890 against a modern nForce chip and ask, "Well, where is VIA's Gigabit Ethernet?" You have to remember to tack on VIA's GbE chip, tally up the platform cost, and then ask which delivers superior value.

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