Intel D975XBX (Bad Axe)

[Sandog]

2006 is right around the corner and a lot of people are getting excited about Intel. Rumors have been good about its future chips plus there has been a lot of news about the 975X chipset. All the board makers are using it in top end boards and it really seems to be catching peoples eye. It is really no different than the current D955X chipset except that the board will supposedly run SLI/Crossfire. This may be what is causing so much interest. Also Intel appears to be in an upswing mood which is giving people more confidence in them and increasing their popularity. I think a lot more people will be interested in Crossfire and SLI once Intel gets into the game. I would feel more confident about using SLI/Crossfire now and also believe that ATI and NVidia are getting their cards to work better in this configuration. There should also be some nice cheap cards that don't use a lot of power that one could use in a SLI/Crossfire setup.

[ATINUT]

That's why I decided on a couple of X1600XT's for my Crossfire setup, as they won't require a boatload of power to run on this board. I read a report someplace, not sure where off hand that the Presler chips are supposed to be coming out within the next couple of weeks.

[Intel_User]

I could see in the articles now: "Intel's Netburst architecture goes out with a bang, not a whimper".

Sandog: I have not said anything about 955 not supporting DDR2-667. DDR2-667 is the OFFICIAL highest speed grade supported by the chipset. In fact, even the 945 supports DDR2-667. DDR2-667 is indeed tested by Intel(you said its not), and its officially supported. What I am saying is in regards to what you said about DDR2-800 support. Intel neither tested them or officially supports them on 955 or 945, but will on Broadwater(maybe 975X).

Broadwater will probably be a new chipset generation going on 90nm, so it may have a better memory controller performance than 975X. But then 975X has enthusiast options like dual PCI-E.

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by Intel_User

Sandog: I have not said anything about 955 not supporting DDR2-667. DDR2-667 is the OFFICIAL highest speed grade supported by the chipset. In fact, even the 945 supports DDR2-667. DDR2-667 is indeed tested by Intel(you said its not), and its officially supported. What I am saying is in regards to what you said about DDR2-800 support. Intel neither tested them or officially supports them on 955 or 945, but will on Broadwater(maybe 975X).

Broadwater will probably be a new chipset generation going on 90nm, so it may have a better memory controller performance than 975X. But then 975X has enthusiast options like dual PCI-E.

Dude you have me totally confused and I am tired of arguing about this. You said 2 pages back that you weren't too sure the 975X chipset would support 667/1333FSB because the data sheets only showed 400/533. Now you bring 800FSB and 955X into it. I offered an explanation on what I thought official support meant which I added Intel MIGHT not have validated 667, then I DID show you a link that they have been testing it. I have said all along that 667 is supported on the 975 chipset. I have been told so and I have read it all over the place. I was pretty sure at the beginning of the thread I mentioned all the great things about this board which I always do and 667 was one of them. Maybe in all the thousands of right things I say in this forum board one is not a right recollection.

Edited: for politeness.

[Sandog]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28267

Not so sure you will see this posted on the front page news here at ABXZone or if it is it will be with a lot of anxiety. I am going to make it my credo not to rub AMD fans the wrong way next year and I am sure Intel won't either (with words). This is, well, amazing. An Intel Celeron equals an AMD FX chip clocked at 3.0GHz (FX-59 if there was one) in a very popular benchmark. The AMD chip is probably OC to the hilt and so is the Celeron (5GHz). Thing is, hahaha, the AMD FX-53 cost about $1K originally and the Celeron probably costs less than $200. Where have we seen this before?

I translated and pasted from the French site a couple of paragraphs on this story. Interestingly the author said he could have OC higher. This is a great indicator of what Cedar Mill might become only it has 2MB of L2 cache vs. the Celeron's 512kB.

"We had l’occasion recently to d’avoir under the hand, thanks to taiwanaises sources met at the time of Computex, Celeron D 356 core Cedar Mill, thus engraved in 65 Nm. Its frequency d’origine is 3.3 GHz to a FSB of 533 MHz (133 MHz quad pumped) while the size of its L2 mask is of 512 KB. We n’avons not been able to resist l’envie to share with you our first impressions.

First observation, this processor seems to heat less than the generation of Prescott. With squanderer INTEL Box, the temperature is assembled to 50°C in burn. One will need more thorough tests to confirm it however. But most interesting is the capacity d’overclocking of this processor. We l’avons indeed made function with a FSB of 200 MHz is a frequency of 5017.6 MHz. This overclocking was carried out while passing Vcore from 1.3 to 1.45 volts and by using a ventirad INTEL. We could go up even higher with a more powerful ventirad. All this is of good omen by hoping that Pentium 4 Cedar Mill, which will be equipped with 2 Mo of L2 mask, are also powerful in overclocking. While waiting, we deliver the score to you Super pi 1M to 3.33 GHz and 5 GHz."

Source

[bingo13]

Originally Posted by Sandog

Here's another Intel page on the Extreme platform mobo D955XBK. The D975XBX will be tweaked D955XBK with Crossfire.

http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/extreme.htm

More than a little tweaked, you will get 2.1V+ on the voltage and something higher than DDR2-667 just to start.

[bingo13]

Originally Posted by Sandog

2006 is right around the corner and a lot of people are getting excited about Intel. Rumors have been good about its future chips plus there has been a lot of news about the 975X chipset. All the board makers are using it in top end boards and it really seems to be catching peoples eye. It is really no different than the current D955X chipset except that the board will supposedly run SLI/Crossfire. This may be what is causing so much interest. Also Intel appears to be in an upswing mood which is giving people more confidence in them and increasing their popularity. I think a lot more people will be interested in Crossfire and SLI once Intel gets into the game. I would feel more confident about using SLI/Crossfire now and also believe that ATI and NVidia are getting their cards to work better in this configuration. There should also be some nice cheap cards that don't use a lot of power that one could use in a SLI/Crossfire setup.

CrossFire is officially supported on the 975X platform and runs very well. NVIDIA SLI is not officially supported as there is not an agreement between NVIDIA and Intel. You will not be able to run SLI on the board without certification from NVIDIA. However, as shown in the Anandtech article the chipset will unofficially support SLI with non-approved drivers. SLI is still not sanctioned by NVIDIA on the i975X platform yet.

[Sandog]

Great news bingo13, you seem to know it all about this board. Could you please tell us when the NDA will be lifted so you can tell us everything? It is very good news about SLI since it appears to be hardware capable on the board and only needs drivers. If all it takes is drivers then those will come out I bet whether NVidia likes it or not (bootleg maybe). This is wonderful news. So the D975XBX is capable to do both SLI and Crossfire.


I knew VDDR would be going higher than 2.08V like on the D955XBK mobo. I would like to see 2.2V really. Anyway I am hoping the NDA will be lifted on the D975XBX Dec 27th when the Presler chips debut. There will be a whole new line of single and dual core chips to OC the heck out of. Intel fans should be able to have a lot of fun with these chips until the Conroe comes out. Oh, and then there is the Crossfire and maybe SLI to play with later. We are in for a good year next year I can feel it. More than wanting this hardware for myself I can't wait until some of the veterens in here try a new dual core system next year. You will be totally happy at how smooth and fast these systems rock.

[bingo13]

Originally Posted by TQ

You know, I was serious about my previous question...

I am not one for going all out on a case so take my comments with this mind.

I really like the bigger cases again due to CrossFire/SLI requirements.

I typically use the Thermaltake Shark and Cooler Master CM Stacker.
I have used the Antec P180, really liked it but there are too many power supplies and motherboard designs to screw up the power supply at the bottom of the case concept.

However, my favorite full tower case right now for the money is the Gigabyte 3D Aurora. I have bought three of them to date. It is a personal choice but the case just works for what I need done.

My favorite mid-size case choices that still work with SLI (tight fit) are the Thermaltake Tsunami and my old stand by, the CoolerMaster ATCS, now WaveMaster due to the new front bezel.

[JimTram]

I can see why you bought three ( I read a review). A bit more snazzy than my 1080AMG.


"However, my favorite full tower case right now for the money is the Gigabyte 3D Aurora. I have bought three of them to date. It is a personal choice but the case just works for what I need done."

[Intel_User]

Originally Posted by Sandog

Dude you have me totally confused and I am tired of arguing about this. You said 2 pages back that you weren't too sure the 975X chipset would support 667/1333FSB because the data sheets only showed 400/533. Now you bring 800FSB and 955X into it. I offered an explanation on what I thought official support meant which I added Intel MIGHT not have validated 667, then I DID show you a link that they have been testing it. I have said all along that 667 is supported on the 975 chipset. I have been told so and I have read it all over the place. I was pretty sure at the beginning of the thread I mentioned all the great things about this board which I always do and 667 was one of them. Maybe in all the thousands of right things I say in this forum board one is not a right recollection.

Edited: for politeness.

DDR2-667 IS supported, and I have brought 955 because 955 supports DDR2-667 too.

What's NOT supported by both is: 1333FSB support. Base clock is quadrupled by Pentium 4 bus, so 1333FSB has a base clock of 333, not 667. Supporting dual channel DDR2-667 does NOT mean it will support 1333FSB, as EVIDENCED by 945/955.

[Intel_User]

Broadwater, as far as I know, is Dual channel DDR2-800, with 1066FSB support.

I believe 975X by THEN will have 1333FSB, but currently, IT DOES NOT. Go read the datasheet again.

It mentions that Intel has OFFICIALLY validated AND supports DDR2-667 on BOTH 955 and 975.

They however, DO NOT MENTION ANYWHERE, that 1333FSB is supported, and that may be where you are confused at.


What do you think "Conroe supported with platform refresh means"??

[Sandog]

It's quite possible there will be a refresh especially if Conroe doesn't show up until the end of 2006. I'm not sure if Conroe is going to debut at 667 CPU FSB but possibly because this may be one of the reasons the chip rocks. If the Broadwater chipsets come out with 667 CPU FSB support than the D975XBX will have to get it.

[Intel_User]

It's quite possible there will be a refresh especially if Conroe doesn't show up until the end of 2006. I'm not sure if Conroe is going to debut at 667 CPU FSB but possibly because this may be one of the reasons the chip rocks. If the Broadwater chipsets come out with 667 CPU FSB support than the D975XBX will have to get it.
Yesterday 08:55 PM

Do you assume that Conroe is using DDR bus for 1333FSB?? Because it CANNOT be 667FSB for desktops whatsoever. You are either assuming 667x2 FSB(which is why you refer it as 667FSB, or you are getting FSB confused with RAM speeds, since there is DDR2-667, and DDR2-667 is dual channel.

Pentium 4's bus implementation uses quad-pumped signals. Meaning 800FSB has actual clock of 200MHz, and 1333FSB has actual clock of 333MHz. It would make sense for Conroe FSB clock to be 333FSB or 1333FSB, since they are both correct somewhat, but 667 is WRONG. 667FSB can only mean the laptop implementation, which you are definitely not talking about here, and other meaning would mean that Conroe would have 2666FSB, which is not it either.

[Intel_User]

I talked about Woodcrest, the Xeon variant of Conroe performance at some other site.

On second thought, Conroe may happen to be overhyped than it is. Considering how Yonah is slightly disappointing in performance, if the trend continues, Conroe will be slightly disappointing too. Don't wait for future CPU that will come in a year so, because if it turns out to be disappointing, its gonna be pretty bad.

The trend with semiconductor industries, especially computers is that nothing revolutionary really happens. I bet next year is gonna be as boring and slow as this year is. It would very much surprise me if Conroe indeed beats AMD in performance like AMD does over Intel. I sort of doubt it.