Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on July 19, 2006 6:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Chipsets
At launch the only chipsets available for Conroe are from Intel. These consist of an updated 975X that must clearly state it is "Intel Core 2 Ready". There is also a brand new Intel 965 chipset, and all 965 chipset boards will support Conroe.
NVIDIA has also shown Conroe chipsets, but they will not be launched for at least several weeks. NVIDIA chipsets will support SLI on Conroe, first as dual X8, which is being shown today with the ASUS P5N32-SLI, which is an updated nForce4 chipset board for Conroe. There are not any NVIDIA nForce 500 boards available at this time that support Conroe, but they are reported to be coming in early August - in both dual X8 and dual X16 flavors.
ATI is also launching chipsets for Conroe. RD500, which supports dual X8 PCIe slots, is expected in early September. We are told the pricing will be very attractive, offering a multi-GPU solution at a mainstream price. Later this year RD600 will be launched, with full support for dual X16 PCIe on Core2 Duo.
On the low-end, some vendors have managed to rework some boards with the VIA P8T880 chipset to support Conroe. Those updated boards are already starting to appear and an ASRock version is included in this Buyers Guide. However, the VIA PT880 PRO chipset does not fully support PCIe graphics, and the boards are a hybrid supporting AGP 8x and PCI Express 4X. PCIe graphics performance is compromised in this solution, but it does allow the use of a low-priced board for Conroe with an older AGP card or low-end PCIe video. Finally, we are awaiting delivery of budget to value performance boards based upon the Intel 945P, 946PL, SIS662, and ATI RS600 chipsets.
Intel P965 Express
At launch the only new chipset for Conroe is the Intel P965 Express. The labeling is a bit confusing since we have had the high-end Intel 975 chipset available for over 6 months. Intel's usual practice is the lower numbered chipset pair is mainstream, while the top chipset is aimed at the Enthusiast. P965 Express is supposedly different because it features a new, faster, and lower latency memory controller than the 975, and it is the only current Intel chipset to support the new ICH8R south bridge.
This would lead us to believe that the P965 Express is the natural choice for Conroe, but there are some other odd things about the P965 architecture that tell us it will still be second choice for many Conroe buyers. The 975X for Conroe has two X8 PCIe slots that support ATI CrossFire: The 965 has at most an X16 PCIe slot and an X4 PCIe slot and does not support CrossFire. At present no Intel chipset supports NVIDIA SLI, and only the 975 chipset can support CrossFire.
In addition we have found that in real-world testing the 975X is still faster than P965 with the current immature BIOS revisions. What's more, the P965 often does not support the overclocks we see on 975X chipsets, and the P965 boards we test in this roundup do not allow higher multipliers to be selected with X6800 Core 2 Duo processors; the 975X boards for Core 2 Duo allow multipliers both above and below the rated multiplier to be selected on X6800.
Intel claims P965 Express is the chipset with the improved memory controller, but our latency measurements in the Core 2 Duo launch review last week showed the 975X also fares very well with the new memory intelligent pre-fetch design used for Conroe. Where P965 Express does appear to have a distinct advantage is in the use of the ICH8 south bridge.
ICH8 increases total USB ports to 10 and High Speed (3Gb/s) SATA 2 ports are increased to 6. The additional USB and SATA2 ports are welcomed, but ICH8 may become more famous for what it eliminated. There are no IDE ports at all on ICH8, which means the only support for optical drives is SATA2. Since SATA2 optical drives are still very hard to find and more expensive than IDE optical drives, most manufacturers are including an additional chip like the JMicron JMB363 PATA/SATA controller to add the missing IDE support.
At launch the only chipsets available for Conroe are from Intel. These consist of an updated 975X that must clearly state it is "Intel Core 2 Ready". There is also a brand new Intel 965 chipset, and all 965 chipset boards will support Conroe.
NVIDIA has also shown Conroe chipsets, but they will not be launched for at least several weeks. NVIDIA chipsets will support SLI on Conroe, first as dual X8, which is being shown today with the ASUS P5N32-SLI, which is an updated nForce4 chipset board for Conroe. There are not any NVIDIA nForce 500 boards available at this time that support Conroe, but they are reported to be coming in early August - in both dual X8 and dual X16 flavors.
ATI is also launching chipsets for Conroe. RD500, which supports dual X8 PCIe slots, is expected in early September. We are told the pricing will be very attractive, offering a multi-GPU solution at a mainstream price. Later this year RD600 will be launched, with full support for dual X16 PCIe on Core2 Duo.
On the low-end, some vendors have managed to rework some boards with the VIA P8T880 chipset to support Conroe. Those updated boards are already starting to appear and an ASRock version is included in this Buyers Guide. However, the VIA PT880 PRO chipset does not fully support PCIe graphics, and the boards are a hybrid supporting AGP 8x and PCI Express 4X. PCIe graphics performance is compromised in this solution, but it does allow the use of a low-priced board for Conroe with an older AGP card or low-end PCIe video. Finally, we are awaiting delivery of budget to value performance boards based upon the Intel 945P, 946PL, SIS662, and ATI RS600 chipsets.
Intel P965 Express
At launch the only new chipset for Conroe is the Intel P965 Express. The labeling is a bit confusing since we have had the high-end Intel 975 chipset available for over 6 months. Intel's usual practice is the lower numbered chipset pair is mainstream, while the top chipset is aimed at the Enthusiast. P965 Express is supposedly different because it features a new, faster, and lower latency memory controller than the 975, and it is the only current Intel chipset to support the new ICH8R south bridge.
This would lead us to believe that the P965 Express is the natural choice for Conroe, but there are some other odd things about the P965 architecture that tell us it will still be second choice for many Conroe buyers. The 975X for Conroe has two X8 PCIe slots that support ATI CrossFire: The 965 has at most an X16 PCIe slot and an X4 PCIe slot and does not support CrossFire. At present no Intel chipset supports NVIDIA SLI, and only the 975 chipset can support CrossFire.
In addition we have found that in real-world testing the 975X is still faster than P965 with the current immature BIOS revisions. What's more, the P965 often does not support the overclocks we see on 975X chipsets, and the P965 boards we test in this roundup do not allow higher multipliers to be selected with X6800 Core 2 Duo processors; the 975X boards for Core 2 Duo allow multipliers both above and below the rated multiplier to be selected on X6800.
Intel claims P965 Express is the chipset with the improved memory controller, but our latency measurements in the Core 2 Duo launch review last week showed the 975X also fares very well with the new memory intelligent pre-fetch design used for Conroe. Where P965 Express does appear to have a distinct advantage is in the use of the ICH8 south bridge.
ICH8 increases total USB ports to 10 and High Speed (3Gb/s) SATA 2 ports are increased to 6. The additional USB and SATA2 ports are welcomed, but ICH8 may become more famous for what it eliminated. There are no IDE ports at all on ICH8, which means the only support for optical drives is SATA2. Since SATA2 optical drives are still very hard to find and more expensive than IDE optical drives, most manufacturers are including an additional chip like the JMicron JMB363 PATA/SATA controller to add the missing IDE support.
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Vidmar - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
One thing that really bugs me about some of the MB manufactures is that some never state the exact number of PCIe lanes that are actually available on that second PCIe 16x slot. Some do some don’t. Some state it while in SLI/Crossfire mode but not when in non- SLI/Crossfire mode.Right now I’ve got an nForce 4 SLI board that has two PCIe 16x slots, but when in non-SLI mode they are at 16x and 2x respectively. When in SLI mode they are both at 8x respectively.
The problem with this is that (at least on this board) you cannot install anything but a video card in the second PCIe 16x slot when in SLI mode.
I’ve got an PCIe 8x SCSI raid card (LSI 320-2e) that I’m trying to use in the second PCIe slot at 8x, but this board won’t even acknowledge that its there while in SLI mode. And when running in non-SLI it only runs at 2x and becomes a bottleneck for this workstation.
So if its possible to provide some details as to what exactly a board can do on the second PCIe 16x slot in both normal and SLI/Crossfire mode, that would be most helpful!
For example on the ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe in your review it doesn’t state this information either way. But on the Intel 975XBX you do have that information.
So what does the second PCIe slot run at in non-Crossfire mode on the ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe?
Also do you happen to have a SCSI PCIe card you can test in the second slot (or any PCIe card for that matter) and see if the BIOS can recognize the card while in SLI/Crossfire mode? That too would be helpful for people who don’t care about multiple GPUs, but want to create large array workstations.
Thanks!
PS: nice article.
supremelaw - Thursday, July 20, 2006 - link
Excellent points! Constant change is here to stay :)On our ASUS P5WD2 Premium with i955X chipset,
we are now faced with that very same problem:
we don't need 2 video cards, because we do
mostly database development. And, we want
to dedicate the second "universal" x16 slot
to a high-performance PCI-E RAID controller.
(Santa Claus is going to bring me an x1900
PCI-E video card anyway, and that should
easily last me for another 20 years, min!)
Our consultant highly recommends the Areca model,
but it only performs best in x8 mode. On the
other hand, our ASUS User Manual states that
the second "universal" x16 slot can only run
in x4 mode, maximum.
That limitation was a single line of text
in that User Manual, but it is not mentioned
in any of the other specs for our motherboard.
His recommendation: switch to a server motherboard,
so we can use the Areca RAID 6 controller (not a bad
idea, actually).
So, I think we'll have to settle for the Promise
PCI-E model EX8350, which is also limited to x4 mode,
but it now supports RAID 6 too.
It only took about 4 hours of research to confirm
this limitation, however :)
Such specs should be better documented, for sure!
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/">http://www.supremelaw.org/
Missing Ghost - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I find it weird that the pcie card does not work in 8x mode. I see no reason why it wouldn't work...the sli pcb that you flip around only redirects the lanes AFAIK.vhx - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Too bad the motherboards cost more than a decent Conroe processor. Kind of sad to see the features lacking until you get into the $250 price ranges. You can spot an AMD AM2 motherboard with the same features for around $130ish, which makes this 975X chipset rediculously expensive compared to the newer AM2's. The TForce P965 looks like a great alternative for the price, although based on the 965P. Hmm upgrading to Conroe will be more expensive than I thought.... /sigh. What to do.Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Wait, that is right, wait until the motherboard suppliers are in full production in August. There will be a large variety of motherboards available by the end of August that will make up the $50~$150 range with chipsets from the 945P to nF570SLI being sold. We will also start seeing the G965 boards in late August for those that want a mATX form factor, decent graphics,and the ability to upgrade later. If you need a board now, it will cost you. ;-)
JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Not to mention getting the Core 2 CPUs. :) I would expect prices to drop significantly within a month or so.
jonp - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
Jarred,Please say more about your comment on pricing.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3377">http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3377
says:
Thanks, Jon
multiblitz2 - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I was waiting for the 965 as HDMI/HDCP-support is a must have for my new HTPC. Does 975 support this in the same way as the 965 ?araczynski - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
great article!looking forward to additional mobo's appearing (and more importantly - prices dropping) beforei build my next rig.
i personally refuse to pay over $150 for ANY mobo, no matter the features. but i do realize that the initial price gouging is to milk the early adopters. i figure by early october prices should be just right for all the nice toys.
araczynski - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
i know this is a dead horse, by why in the world can't these manufacturers make models that throw out some of these legacy 'extras' they keep putting on the boards?onboard sound, parallel ports, floppy connectors, etc...