Intel P35: Intel's Mainstream Chipset Grows Up
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on May 21, 2007 3:45 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introduction
The introduction of the new P35 chipset today will likely be remembered as the time when Intel fully embraces the 1333 FSB. In the broad scope of events that would be a natural handle for the P35 introduction. However, Intel could have pushed P965 to officially support 1333 MHz for both FSB and memory speeds and called it a day with a suffix. Instead the decision was made to refine P965, improve a number of items in that existing chipset, and couple the new P35 Northbridge with a new spin on the Intel ICH Southbridge family to be known as ICH9/R.
Today is also the technology launch for the new Intel G33 Express chipset, a graphics chipset that replaces the 945G. Since the 945G replacement will mostly be of interest to OEMs like Dell and HP, we will not be evaluating the G33 chipset in this launch review. We will talk briefly about what is new, but reserve board testing to the new P35 Express chipset motherboards that will be of greatest interest to our readers.
With the incredible confusion surrounding today's introductions, perhaps it is worthwhile to talk about what was supposed to happen in the series 3 Chipset launch. The P35/G33 OEM launch was scheduled for May 9th, which was the time OEMs were to receive those new chipsets. The Performance launch is today, May 21st, when reviewers can first talk about performance of the new boards. The official product launch will not happen until Computex which begins on June 4th.
Still to come sometime in the 3rd quarter is the introduction of the X38 chipset, which replaces 975x, and the launch of G35, which will replace G965. The G35 will likely be of interest to mainstream readers, and we plan full coverage of that launch. There will also be a new value G31 chipset that replaces the current 946GZ and the 946GC. All of these new chipset launches are considered by Intel to be the transition to 3 series chipsets, which will pave the way for Intel's move to the 45nm CPU architecture.
| Intel 3 Series Chipset | |||
| Chipset | Launch | Replaces | Segment |
| X38 | Q3 '07 | 975X | Extreme |
| P35 | June 4th '07 | P965 | Extreme |
| Q35 | Q3 '07 | Q965 | Business |
| Q33 | Q3 '07 | Q963 | Business |
| G35 | Q3 '07 | G965 | Mainstream |
| G33 | June 4th '07 | 945G | Mainstream |
| G31 | Q3 '07 | 946GZ, 946GC | Value |
The current Q series may not be familiar to some readers. It and the upcoming Q35 and Q33 are chipsets targeted at the business market. AnandTech readers will likely be most interested in today's P35 chipset and the upcoming X38 chipset that will replace 975X. Set-top builders will also be interested in the G35 that will be introduced next quarter.
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Wesley Fink - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
Early boards will be expensive, just like always. The prices will likely drop to the same levels as current P965 boards they replace, with a broad range for P35 boards from basic to "Asus Commando" level gaming boards. It is too early to be discouraged.Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
I'm willing to bet we'll see them replacing the older boards quickly too. If intel and other manufacturers really want DDR3 to go through, you'll see DDR2 boards disappearing quickly. Its like what happened to s939. Basically the same chips were used for AM2, but the boards and chips quickly dried up and disappeared. The same can be said or PCI-e. In the beginning there wasn't much of a real world benefit, just the theoretical bandwidth increase. Because developments in AGP ceased, we might never know if the switch was necessary.Comdrpopnfresh - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
If something other than NAND flash could be used, it would be very interesting to see a pci-e 1x board that can house DDR2 memory for use in turbo memory. That way, when people upgrade their ~35 boards to DDR3 when performance and price changes, the DDR2 can be used further. This would make a lot of sense too, because unlike Gigabyte's i-RAM device and logical ramdrives, the high speed, low latency properties of RAM could be used for turbo memory as a way around the 8gb limit of RAM on these cards. And since they are not used for storage, merely access, no redundancy on power supply is needed as with the i-RAM. Someone should start development on this...Comdrpopnfresh - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
Why would the TDP on the P35 higher if it has no integrated video? Will third-party manufactures implement their own SLI into the P35 given that the reference model only had on x16 pci-e slot? Also, when can we expect to see pci-e2 and more than 4 dimm slots on intel mobos?yacoub - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
Including a jumper to change the strap setting for the fsb is a nice feature on the MSi board. A little disappointed in the memory comparison test that that board had the lowest bandwidth and most latency. Is that something BIOS updates can improve or is that generally hardware (i.e. board design related)?Gary Key - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
It is all BIOS tuning in regards to the MSI board. Our first results with the board had the memory performance being equal to the 945P boards. Two BIOS releases later and the improvements have been remarkable. I think MSI is about two BIOS spins behind ASUS and Gigabyte now. Gigabyte finally caught up but ASUS still has the better feature set and options in my opinion.michal1980 - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
hardocp, seems to take a 180 different outlook on these boards. so werid.skaterdude - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
What's so weird? Kyle is an extension of AMD's marketing department. He has not cared for Intel in a very long time, at least since he was caught cheating on some Intel benchmarks and was hung out to dry for it. Personally, it is alright to have a favorite company to root for but to do so in such an open and bias way is wrong if you are not running a company specific website. I would not have an issue at all if it was called HardAMD, at least you know what you are viewing is not tainted by free trips, booze, products, and general hostility against a company.
Back on subject....The P35 is a nice upgrade and it may not set the world on fire but it appears Intel listened and improved on a chipset they could have let ride for a lot longer. DDR3 will be interesting and at least the kinks will be worked out by the time X38 and the new processors get here. If I had not already bought a 965 board then P35 would have been the one. I am still miffed about not having a native IDE port as JMicron just plain sucks most of the time.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
the P35 does not have native IDE either, and why use an IDE drive anyway?Spoelie - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
ahum, AMD biased? After reading some of their recent gpu reviews, I thought it was the other way around... Check yourselfanyway, not a worthy upgrade, but a worthy new board. Which is what you could reasonably expect.