Next Generation Motherboard Platforms - Part 2: Intel's 820

Intel is the largest motherboard manufacturer in the world. Their boards make their way into some of the biggest OEMs and are used on a daily basis by people that don't have the slightest clue what a motherboard is. They are used by corporations, families, teenagers and adults, and the one thing they can do they do very well. What is that one thing? Run reliably.

You will never see an Intel board that is full of performance tweaking features, nor will you ever see an Intel board that values expansion over everything else. Instead, the primary concern Intel has when designing and producing a motherboard is whether or not it operates reliably and they've consistently made quality their top concern.

The VC820 is no different from their usual approach to manufacturing motherboards. The board makes use of only a handful of capacitors but they get the job done. The four capacitors located behind the SC242 (Slot-1) connector are manufactured by nichicon and they feature a 3300uF rating. For reference purposes, these capacitors normally feature a 1000uF or 1500uF capacitance rating; only the AOpen AX6BC Pro Gold featured a set of 2200uF caps.

The board itself implements a number of features that we will definitely want to see in future motherboards. The steps Intel is taking with the VC820 are in the right direction and are mostly for the greater good of the industry. First, let's talk expansion…

The VC820 features five PCI slots, and not a single ISA slot. A year ago a move like this would have been considered drastic, but now, it is appreciated. Not including any ISA slots removes the cost of an ISA bridge from the cost of ownership but it also forces the industry to kill a standard that has been strung along for entirely too long. The PCI bus is the interface of today, and prolonging the death of the ISA bus will only mean having to provide for the standard in future motherboard designs. The ISA-less motherboard design will be one that will dominate the i820 realm.

The three RIMM slots on the VC820 is a tricky situation. It is highly likely that Intel won't stray from the 3 RIMM setup although that is the root of their current problems with RDRAM. The experience with the BX chipset is that most people do not need four memory expansion slots, and with DRAM being offered in higher density chips it seems like the most cost effective solution for Intel or any motherboard manufacturer producing a single processor motherboard is to invest in 3 RIMM slots.

For quite some time we've always wondered why no motherboard manufacturer made a standard front panel connector for their motherboard and pushed case manufacturers to support it. A design like this would be a relatively cheap feature to implement (just adhere to a standard instead of randomly placing your front panel connector pins) and it would definitely be a push in the positive direction for the consumer. It seems like our wishes have come true as the VC820 is among the first boards to feature this standard front panel connector (see right) that looks very much like the old serial port connectors of the pre-ATX days. We have yet to see a case that features a single standard connector that would take advantage of this, but it is only a matter of time before this trend catches on and we have a little feature to look forward to.

The presence of the AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) slot on the VC820 is expected, especially since Intel has been pushing for the use of AMR heavily since the release of the i810 chipset. Our major problem with the implementation of AMR on the VC820 is that it occupies a slot position on the back of your case, one of 7 on a standard ATX case. What we would have liked to have seen is the AMR slot shared with a PCI slot, much like the last ISA slot was shared with the first PCI slot on older motherboards. This would give users the opportunity of either using a PCI modem/audio device or taking advantage of the on-board audio/telephony codecs with the AMR slot. The Tyan S2054 (i810) was the first board we'd seen that took advantage of this shared AMR slot idea, and we expect it to become a more popular way of implementing AMR without giving up the possibility of having a total of 6 PCI slots. Too bad Intel didn't go this route with the VC820.