Intel Tualatin Processors and Motherboard Support? 132
IntelIntrique asks: "I became intrigued when I learned about the new P3 Tualatin processors with a 512K cache, but was disappointed to learn that they require specific new motherboards to support the chips (Intel claims voltage changes). However, HotHardware features a review where they use one of these new processors in an Intel D815EEA2 motherboard, one that Intel shows as not supporting the new processor. What gives?"
"I have an D815EEA2, and I'd love to grab one of these new processors, but not if it means buying a new motherboard. Is Intel trying to prevent existing motherboard owners from cashing in on this new super chip? Are there any other slashdotters who have tried these new P3's in older motherboards with success? I'm mainly concerned with people using the processors in Intel boards, since it seems as though Intel would be in a unique position to know what types of new chips might be around the corner, and build unofficial support into early board revs."
this caught my attention this morning (Score:3, Interesting)
NO via chipset support w/ that powerleap covertor (Score:1, Informative)
Of course...... (Score:2, Interesting)
Tualatin Processors (Score:5, Informative)
As far as motherboard compatibility, I think Intel didn't want the 512K version of the Tualatin (aka the Pentium III-S) to flow through the retail/desktop channels because in a lot of cases, it performed better than their lower end Pentium 4 processor line. That's also the reason why Intel has slowed/stopped production of Pentium 4 processors below 1.6Ghz and will halt production of the desktop version of the Tualatin and shift the current desktop Tualatin into the Tualatin-based Celeron (but without data pre-fetch and only at 100Mhz FSB). More information can be found at the regular sites: Anandtech, Aces Hardware, Tom's Hardware.
Re:Tualatin Processors (Score:1)
Also, I wanted to clarify that Intel will continue to produce the 256K version of the Tualatin Pentium III, but it will be re-labeled as a Celeron (I don't know if they are going to call it the Celeron III or the Celeron-T or what) and stop orders for the 256K desktop Tualatin either by end of this month or end of this year.
Re:Tualatin Processors (Score:2, Informative)
This post is right on the money - The reasons that Tualatin is not backwards compatible are for the voltage levels. There is also a differential clock compared to the Coppermine's single-ended clocking.
One more thing - there are some pins that are used on the Tualatin that are not used on the Coppermine. I believe that these pins were originally designated as No-Connect (NC) in the Coppermine. However, some board manufacturers pull them up to VCC or down to ground. That means that the chip could end up getting cooked if you tried it in a non-Tualatin motherboard.
Its really amusing to see how everybody can create such a conspiracy out of this. It's for engineering reasons, not some crazy marketing strategy that the Big Evil Company has cleverly crafted in a huge dark board room.
In closing - buy Tualatins. They are really solid processors that offer good preformance.
Re:Tualatin Processors (Score:1)
I'm personally thinking of going either dual Tualatin (512K version... so long as I find a decent motherboard that supports two of those and doesn't have a Via chipset) or a dual Athlon with the Tyan Tiger MP motherboard. I highly doubt that for what I do that I would need SSE2 or the high memory bandwidth that the Pentium 4 or the Pentium [4] Xeon would have.
Interestingly... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Thanx For the Link, But... (Score:1)
Date last revised: 31 March 1999
And they only talk about the 2.2.x kernels. Kinda old, man. There's been a lot of work done with the 2.4.x breeds (most back-ported to 2.2.x) that make SMP a God Send [sinfest.net] (TM).
Also:
AMD and Cyrix do not support SMP.
Hmmm... [amd.com]
Re:Interestingly... (Score:1)
Pinouts and timing different (Score:1)
Based on this using it in older motherboard should never work. If it does, that is very odd.
Re:Pinouts and timing different (Score:2)
Depends a bit, I suppose if those features are even implemented on the mother board. They may be unused on some boards, so in which case, you might just get away with it.
After that I'd need the spec sheets with pin outs, etc for both processors. Not that I have the time to pick it apart.
Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:3, Troll)
Personally I have ordered myself a Tualatin 1.2, I choose it over the P4 offerings.
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:1)
It still uses the aging FPU of the PIII. It will likely never be capable of reaching clock speeds as high as the P4.
Tualatin may hold its own against the current P4, but soon the P4 will also get a die shrink. Once the P4 reaches a high enough clock speed it *should* stop suffering from its own long pipeline.
I actually don't like the current P4, but I think it's a bit too early to write its epitaph.
Tualatin is a great chip, but it wouldn't make sense to call it P5.
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:1)
It really doesn't make sense from any point of view I can think of. What I think would have made more sense would have been for Intel to realize that they've got something good here with the tualatin (the benchmarks are impressive!) and took that ball and ran with it.
I don't claim to be a chip engineer, but from what I see in empirical analysis the tualatin is doing something right. Imagine if they would have paired it with rambus, or something equally as performance oriented. That would have been some chip! Instead, they've released it under the P4 and kept the clock speeds under the P4 and the prices above the P4.. why they would do such a thing is purely up to speculation, but it would seem that they don't want this new 'wonder child' to compete with their 'star player', the P4, even though it seems to have that ability.
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:1)
What I'd love to see is the Tualatin scaled past 1.2GHz and drop the low end P4's (without them gouging us for Tualatin - Ha ha).
Is that what you have in mind?
I'd also like to see Intel stop dragging their feet with DDR support.
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:1)
No idea how/if they will push SMT into IA64. Predication, prefetching and speculative store/restoring register windows should mitigate more pipeline stalls. But only time (or a fat red cover NDA) will tell.
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:1)
So, from a consumer point of view, using the only tools I have at my disposal, and my own sense of reason, it appears to me that this is what Intel is doing with the Tualatin. It's as though it could be great, but will never be so, because of a marketing decision. Perhaps, that was also the reason for requiring a new motherboard. I don't know, this is all conjecture.
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:2, Informative)
Basicly, what Intel proved is something we already knew, if you shrink the die (within reason) you can ramp up the clockspeed to previously unreachable speeds. Remember there first attempt at the PIII 1.13 Ghz?:)
Re:Why a not the P5 Tualatin? (Score:2)
I'm not really sure what USB2 is supposed to do, other than external HD's, but that just means I don't know which peripheral industry to invest in to take advantage of it.
Other than that, there's nothing wrong with new stuff.
--Blair
Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:2)
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:1)
As far as the board's support for the 1Ghz PIII processor, you may need to flash the BIOS for it to support the higher multipliers (and maybe voltage?). If you haven't checked out Tyan's website, (www.tyan.com [tyan.com], I would check it out and see if they have any more information available about your motherboard and support for higher speed Pentium III processors.
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:2)
Thanks for the suggesting, but I've already been checking that from a few months. They've had a beta BIOS up there for some time, but no comment about whether it supports anything above 850MHz.
Pre rev. F boards needed some re-soldering to make them work with the faster coppermine CPUs... if that's all takes for the ones faster than 850MHz with my board... maybe I'll get adventurous.
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:1)
Aren't most all x86 compatible processors made since about '99 factory clock-locked?
I thought that was what drove overclockers insane...
I know it means that I have to run the PCI bus on my BX board at ungodly rates.
If they are clock locked then you could set the multipler to 1x for all the processor cares.
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:1)
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:1)
I know I've set my processor for incorrect multipliers before (like 4.5 x 100) and while it shows 450 Mhz, all the CPU measuring programs suggest the CPU is running at 550 Mhz.
Unless the BIOS crashes when it can't figure out the higher multipliers, should it really be a problem?
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:2)
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:2)
I run a Tyan Tiger 133 (S1834D), and it's been stable since the day I got it (in case you're worried about issues with Via vs. Intel chipsets, since supposedly the BX was a rock solid mobo (and most attributed this to Intel's BX chipset, which is nice and all, but I think the real issue was that other mobo manufacturers didn't use Via's chipset correctly, or BIOS compatibility was weak). Hope this helps. =)
Re:Legacy support from Tyan Tiger 100? (Score:1)
Look more closely at the review (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Look more closely at the review (Score:1)
Not New Pins, changed ones (Score:1)
New Pinouts [tomshardware.com]
Blame via...heh. (Score:2)
No but seriously, tell me you can design a 40 million transistor chip that runs in gigaherts, and not make a design for it to be compatible with current motherboards out there? Talk about bad will. I was hoping to upgrade my serverworks-based workstation with 2 of these monsters, well seems like I'll keep the 800mhz... See intel? your plan on selling chipsets for what, 25$ each, costed you the sell of 2 processors, of what, few hundred bucks each?... I'm sure I am not the only one who'll react like this or turned his head towards the TigerMP platform.
Tualatin-Core Requires i815 B-stepping... (Score:2, Informative)
Abit ST6/ST6-RA, Abit VH6-T Asus TUSL2, Soyo SY-TISU
Some board makers have been using the i815-B but don't mention it in the board specs ; marketing hasn't caught up with production yet.
BTW, the newest Celeron 1.2GHz uses the Tualatin core; no hardware prefetch and it uses a 100MHz FSB, but it can overclock to 1.5GHz with at most a minor voltage jump and standard cooling.
may I ask why Intel? (Score:1)
I haven't upgraded my current systems yet, and even the newest one is a dual PIII b/c at that time the athlons weren't able to do dual - but now they have the MP and great boards (see the articles about the tyan tigermp).
So I don't understand why you would seek out the Intel...
Supporting != interoperating. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not "supported" because Intel didn't spend on the testing to ensure that it's supposed to work at levels that don't cost Intel a lot of returns.
They changed the voltages on the part to get some other benefit (lower power, more speed, better yield, whatever), and couldn't guarantee the old boards would work, so they designed a new board.
It's not that big a deal (unless you think it is) because people who pull their CPU and replace it are relatively few and far between.
--Blair
Re:Supporting != interoperating. (Score:2)
Believe it or not, there are a _lot_ of people who bring their PCs in for upgrades of various kinds, including CPUs and memory.
One of the only preventative factors is that CPUs often do require new motherboards.
Tualatin Chips (Score:1)
Just go AMD. (Score:1)
Tiny micro-ATX cases to go with that Tualatin? (Score:1)
Re:Tiny micro-ATX cases to go with that Tualatin? (Score:1)
The cases I have compiled that are close to your specs are:
- ElanVital MF-1:
- Yeong Yang YY-A101/2:
: 5.3"W X 13.3"D X 12.9"H
- Yeong Yang MiniNLX Low Profile YY-8201
- Yeong Yang FlexATX BOX YY-9301
- Deer Computer Company Flex ATX cases
- Interland Information Systems INC FlexATX
- Palo Alto Products PA-120 OEM 1/2
Suppliers? Yeh, I haven't found much.
cheers
Re:Tiny micro-ATX cases to go with that Tualatin? (Score:1)
I don't really care about the Tualatin, it just needs to be fast; I want to filter HTML in real time. Since I want it to be small, fast won't add much to the price.
Here are a few small cases I found google searching "micro atx cases". I haven't dealt with these companies. The first is still too large. The second is small but comes with a motherboard and CDROM (you add CPU, memory, and disk) for $255. The third also comes with a motherboard, etc. for $275.
http://www.apextechusa.com/cases/atx1400_case.ht ml g 10_0.html g 10_0.html
http://www.colorcases.com/store/index.html?catalo
http://www.colorcases.com/store/index.html?catalo
I'll keep looking or perhaps try changing the AT power supply in the tiny case I have to an ATX (and whatever other surgery is required).
Intel's recent naming (Score:3, Interesting)
For those of you not familiar with local geography, the Clackamas river flows into the Willamette river (a mile from my house), which flows north through downtown Portland into the Columbia, which of course flows into the Pacific. The Portland metropolitan area spans Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties. Multnomah Falls [stateoforegon.com] is the second highest year-round waterfall in the country. Most things in the Northwest have either Native American names (mmm, Tillamook cheese), or names that were brought from the east coast by Lewis & Clark, John McLaughlin and other settlers.
Sorry for babbling off-topic.
Re:Intel's recent naming (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Intel's recent naming (Score:1)
But by the same token, Tbirds would be named like Vesuvius, Mt. Saint Helens...Just as hot but shorter lived.
Heh, didn't Tom's Hardware have the "If the heat sync falls off 'review'. Ouch.
AMD makes damn good chips, as does Intel (tho the P4 fails to impress me at all) but AMD needs to look into baking chips. Then again they are cheap enuf as long as nothing else goes with it.
Heat syncs, and die shrinks, and heat spreaders...oh MY!!
IMO heat sync tech is going to hit a brick wall and procs as well, until the "tweakers" tech of waterblocks and supercooling will become commanplace.
Moose.
Re:Intel's recent naming (Score:2)
I seem to remember something of a complaint about a proposed "Volga" project.
Or how about naming projects after mountains, there's always the Urals.
Re:Intel's recent naming (Score:1)
I don't remember how to pronounce Puyallup myself. Not someplace I hear about often; I don't know that I've even been there. I do remember seeing it not too long ago and realizing that I didn't know how to pronounce it.
Care to enlighten us?
(YAK-ih-mah, spo-KAN, for those that didn't know)
As seen on HardOCP.com - P3, Tuys in Slot1 (Score:2, Informative)
There will be a few of you excited about this. Powerleap has put together an adapter that will allow you to stick a S370 Tualatin chip on your current Slot 1 mainboard. Looks as if some of you might have some server upgrade options that you did not before. w00t!!1
The PL-iP3/T(TM) [powerleap.com] employs patented technologies to adapt Slot 1 systems to the voltage and signal requirements of the new generation of Intel's Pentium III (FC-PGA2) and Celeron-II (FC-PGA2) processors. With the PL-iP3/T(TM), a typical* P-III system can reach speeds up to 1.26 GHz with the latest Pentium III-S CPUs (133 MHz FSB required), and up to 1.2 GHz when used with the latest Celeron-II CPUs (100 MHz FSB required).
Probably a web site mistake. (Score:2)
From the story:
"... HotHardware features a review where they use one of these new processors in an Intel D815EEA2 motherboard, one that Intel shows as not supporting the new processor. What gives?"
If I understand the table correctly, it is probably just a case of not having updated their web site. Intel is notoriously sloppy about things like that.
About a year ago I called and talked to an Intel employee about a huge mistake on their web site. He said it would be fixed immediately. Eight months later the error was still there. I called and talked to the same man again about the same error. He didn't realize I had called before. He told me again it would be fixed immediately. Again it was not fixed. This is just one example.
Be careful with the D815EEA2 motherboard. If you remove a removeable drive, it may re-configure the BIOS, without any warning, and boot from the wrong drive.
Be careful with the network adapter if it is built into the D815EEA2. It assumes that it is attached to a huge network. If it is attached to a peer-to-peer network, you may not be able to make it function. An Intel technical support person and I worked on this problem for more than an hour. The final answer was to buy a CNET network adapter for $12.00 and disable the network adapter on the motherboard.
Also, if you are running a Raid 0 controller like the Promise Technology FastTrak 100, the D815EEA2 BIOS has a very weird configuration. It is not obvious how you get the motherboard to boot from the Raid controller, because the way you select it is hidden.
What should be the Response to Violence? [hevanet.com]
who cares? (Score:1)
Re:who cares? (Score:1)
Heh. I like AMD's, I've been getting them for the desktops (my boss had been buying Celerons! Ack!). I'm completely happy with them. They take abuse well too (which is a requirement for our location, dust, heat, humidity). But for the server? I'm looking for Tueys. Twin Tualatins, please.
And what's next for this happy company? StongARMs...
Re:who cares? (Score:1)
The reason for the new Motherboards (Score:1)
The reason for the new motherboards is because the chipsets have to recognize a lack of voltage on pin AF36, so that they run the chip at 1.25v. Otherwise, they will run at 1.5v. That should answer all the questions.. yes the tualatins should run in older boards, however it will be at a higher voltage than specified. There are a bunch of other new pinouts (and not NEW pins), for full details, see Toms Hardware [tomshardware.com]
From a former AMD supporter (yes I'm trolling) (Score:1, Troll)
Their Irongate / AGP issues, which have been known for NINE FUCKING MONTHS now, are driving me back to Intel. I can't type 'startx' without first doing an emergency disc-sync in case the whole system locks hard. And it usually does. Well done AMD. I know support the more expensive and most likely technologically inferior Intel chips over your unstable crap.
What gives? (Score:1)
That simple... someone from intel broke into MS and stole Bill's marketing techniques.
SMP-ing Tualatins: Advice Requested (Score:1)
AUGH, yes, this has been driving me bananas.
I was seriously thinking about building myself a nice box with dual 1.26GHz Tualatins, but have been unable to find SMP mainboards that support Tualatins in an SMP setting.
Well, actually, that's not completely true...I did find a couple, but none of them use Intel chipsets. There are a couple with VIA chipsets, and one using ServerWorks. I would prefer a board built around an Intel chipset, but the problem is that the ONLY Intel chipset that supports Tualatin so far is the i815 series which, although reportedly a good performer, is severely crippled in a number of respects: 1) It officially does not support SMP, and 2) RAM is restricted to 4 banks of SDR SDRAM which cannot exceed 512MB total.
Despite the first restriction, I did find one SMP board built around the i815 chipset (quite an engineering feat, it would seem, considering they probably didn't get any help from Intel): the ACorp [acorp.com.tw] [acorp.com.tw] 6A815EPD. It looks like a good board, seems to be getting favorible reviews, and I could live with knowing that I was limited to 512MB. ;-) The only problem is that ACorp has yet to come out with a revision of this board based off of the i815EP "B stepping," which is the revision of the i815EP chipset that supports the Tualatin (I even e-mailed them, and they confirmed that they do not yet have a dualie board based off of i815EP B step).
And, naturally, most "respectable" mainboard manufacturers are not about to release an SMP board based off of a chipset that does not officially support it. And Intel has yet to release a chipset that supports both SMP and Tualatin (and this is not because Tualatin cannot SMP, because it can; see VIA, ServerWorks).
So, basically Intel is driving away my business.
I am now considering VIA and ServerWorks-based boards as options. Can anyone comment on the performance and stability of these chipsets (VIA Apollo 133 and Apollo Pro 266T, ServerWorks HE) as well as their compatibility with Linux? I've heard some negative things about each with respect to Linux compatibility, and am curious to know if these rumors have any basis in truth. Thanks.
-- Nathan [mailto]
Re:SMP-ing Tualatins: Advice Requested (Score:1)
continued... (Score:1, Troll)
Intel makes the p4 and charge 5x for the same performing Athlon. The P3s were reasonably priced, but intel had competition then. Now that the p4 is out, there is no Mhz competition so they jack the prices up.
AMD boards have previously been able to take a die shrink (The k6s went from
There is no real reason why intel couldn't have made the chip so it works with the old boards.
If the new P3s would have worked... it would have had the same performance of a 1.7 p4, and that would hurt P4 sales... intel doesn't want that. They are doing everything to make the P4 look like a great chip.
They are ripping you off, plain and simple.
Re:continued... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's especially unfortunate, bucause it'll be a long time if ever before we see another processor that is both as fast as the new P3, and uses only
Re:continued... (Score:1, Interesting)
Intel's looking a couple years out tho. Right now, the P4 is not compelling (to corporate buyers or gamer/homebrew types), but when it hits 4Ghz, it certainly might be. However, for Intel to get yields at those speeds, they need to have their P4 production lines up and running. Can't do that if they are dinking around making last decade's P6 chips for conservative customers.
Besides, sales are way down right now. Something's gotta go. Cram the P4 down the market's throat to keep it alive, and when the market picks up again, it might be fast enough to encourage a tidal wave of upgrades.
Another thing to consider is that motherboard compatibility for CPU upgrades only matters to
Re:continued... (Score:2)
I don't think that Intel is evil, I just think that their marketing department has made some mistakes lately.
Re:continued... (Score:1)
tell me about it... (Score:2)
And don't even get me started on what they tried (and are still trying) to pull off with Rambust...
Re:tell me about it... (Score:1)
I'm in a similar situation, and the way I look at it is this: it may be uncached RAM, but it's still faster than my hard drive, which is what I would be using if I were running as many programs as I am able to now.
Still, I'm kicking myself for not getting an HX chipset board, way back when. Oh well.
Re:tell me about it... (Score:2)
Nope. I've run linux on a board where the top end of the memory was uncached and it runs like a dog. This is mentioned in linux/Documentation/memory.txt. The 2.4.x kernels have the slram driver that will limit the kernel to only use the cached ram for normal purposes and treat the uncached ram as a block device. It's in the MTD section. This will allow you to use it as swap or as a ram disk. Patches exist for the 2.2.x kernels, but it appears that the web pages for them have disappeared.
Re:tell me about it... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:tell me about it... (Score:2)
Besides, Intel was making Pentium Pro systems for the higher end workstation customers (insert consipiracy theory if you'd like).
That's exactly why Intel crippled the TX chipset. The (earlier) HX chipset does not suffer from this problem.
Re:tell me about it... (Score:2)