Computex 2004 Early Bird Coverage: NV45 in the Flesh, New Chipsets, BTX Boards and more...
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 31, 2004 12:31 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Not launched, but everywhere: Intel's 9xx Chipsets
Although Intel isn't actually launching anything at the show, you'll find more Intel based motherboards on the floor than anything else. We found this to be quite interesting, especially after hearing how many problems motherboard manufacturers have had with the 915 and 925 chipsets thus far.
The majority of the problems seem to reside with the 925X and its support for DDR2 memory, which has been through numerous revisions.We believe that the 925X being shown off at Computex is the fourth incarnation of the chip, which is pretty bad for Intel, especially considering that even in its current revision the chipset does not support ECC - a planned feature for the chipset.
The other complaints we've been hearing about from motherboard manufacturers involves Intel's LGA-775 socket. Since the pins have been moved off of the CPU and onto the socket itself with the LGA-775 interface, motherboard manufacturers have been reporting extremely high failure rates with those sockets. The pins on the socket itself are spring-loaded, and installing a CPU obviously causes the springs to compress. What seems to be happening however is that after a handful of CPU installations, the springs don't want to spring back to their original position - resulting in premature socket failures. The problem does seem to be a solvable one, but we'll have to wait and see what the motherboards we get our hands on are like. You better believe that we'll be testing socket reliability as soon as we get LGA-775 boards and CPUs in house.
The other complaint we've been having is that of bent pins on the socket, but just like bent pins with CPUs, that seems unavoidable.
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SKiller - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
#13Except that BTX boards wouldn't fit in an ATX case even if they were on the "right" side. The connector layout and a number of other things are different. I think this may in fact help avoid confusion as you'll instantly be able to tell the difference.
Bozo Galora - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Good article, scooped everyone else, you rascal you.
jliechty - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
#17 - that's a feature of some Gigabyte motherboards. The second ("dual") BIOS chip is a backup in case the first one is damaged by a failed flashing attempt or a virus.#15, #19 - Those things have me interested also. Can't wait to find out what they're there for. :-)
Khronus - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
As for the NV45 only requiring 1 power connector, that's simply because PCI-X allows for more power to be drawn over the bus than AGP does.jcastro - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
What are those golden fingers on the SiS motherboard solutions for? My initial thoughts were that you could plug these mobos into some expansion slot, but that would be unrealistic now wouldn't it? But how awesome would that be? If you haven't noticed them before they are on the top left of the first picture and at the bottom left on the second picture, just right beside the PCI 32-bit slots. Someone tell me what's up with this? Thanks. - Johnshabby - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
So the nv40 refresh gets a 50mhz faster clock? Pffft.jsco - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
on the "intel's 9xx chipsets in the flesh" page in the first picture:there are two bios chips, and one of them is labeled dual bios. what is a dual bios?
what is connected to the green slot and has a heat pipe connected to it?
Monkeyboy0076 - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
I was kinda disappointed to see the moldy old parallel connector still on these new motherboards. I haven't used one of those for over 2 years, and I'm glad for it. I really wouldn't mind getting that large pink connector off of my motherboardnitromullet - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
In the top picture of the NV45, what is the connector directly above the heat sink fan?Pumpkinierre - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Just favours left handers with case windows. I pity those mobo makers. With all the different sockets, DRAM types, PCI-E/AGPs and peripherals, its a wonder they are not all getting treated for schizophrenia!