Intel 440BX

Intel 440BX

The Intel 440BX, also known as the i440BX, is a chipset from Intel, supporting Pentium II, Pentium III, and Celeron processors. It was released on April 1998.

Features

The i440BX chipset originally supported Slot 1 and later Socket 370 Intel P6-based processors in single and SMP configurations at speeds of up to 1 GHz (and potentially up to 1.4 GHz with certain unsupported modifications).

History and rise to fame

The Intel 440BX is the third Pentium II chipset released by Intel, succeeding the 440FX and 440LX. With the new 100 MHz front side bus, Pentium II CPUs were able to scale better in performance by reducing the difference between processor clock and bus speed. The previous 66 MHz bus had become a serious bottleneck and dated back to the first Pentium "Classic" chipsets.

The 440BX had two closely related chipset peers; the 440ZX and 440MX. 440MX is a mobile chipset for laptops, although a number of notebooks did use 440BX. 440ZX is a cost-reduced version of 440BX. It has a lower maximum RAM limit resulting from having support for only 2 RAM banks. The 440ZX-66, designed for Intel Celeron processor, is limited to 66 MHz FSB speed. [ [http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/mature/450_440.htm Intel Chipsets Mature Products - Mature 450 and 440 Chipset Families ] ]

The 440BX became one of Intel's most popular chipsets. Enthusiasts enjoyed its overclockability, with the chipset capable of running the front-side bus at speeds ranging from 66 MHz to well over 133 MHz, in stark contrast to the 440LX's struggle to top 75 MHz. A common overclock involved the pin-40 hack, or using an ABIT BH6 or Asus P2B, and setting the bus speed on a 66 MHz Covington or Mendocino-core Celeron to 100 MHz. The Mendocino-core Celeron 300A became a "sweet spot" for overclockers, with nearly 100% success rates at reaching 450 MHz on a 100 MHz FSB, allowing it to equate to a much more expensive Pentium II at 450 MHz. Other popular overclocks included the SL2W8-stepping Deschutes-core Pentium II that could often run to 450 MHz at 100 MHz FSB, and the SL35D Katmai-core Pentium III 450 MHz which could frequently manage 600 MHz on a 133 MHz FSB. The later Pentium III Coppermine-core processor was easily overclocked and performed well on 440BX motherboards. Finally, the unsupported Tualatin-core Pentium III could be used with an adapter and various modifications, with varying degrees of success.

Ironically, the 440BX offered better performance than several of its successors. The i810 and i820 chipsets were unable to best the 440BX at the 100 MHz FSB speed. The i820 was plagued with a requirement for high cost RDRAM to reach good performance, along with a string of reliability issues involving an SDRAM-to-RDRAM memory translator hub. And, unofficially, the 440BX could often be taken to 133 MHz FSB. Enthusiast motherboards, such as the Asus P3B-F and Abit BH6/BF6/BE6 series, were equipped with BIOS options to set the board to this unofficial speed. With a 133 MHz FSB, the 440BX could even match the later i815 chipset, which was designed to accommodate the final Tualatin-core Pentium III. Unfortunately, running a 440BX above 100 MHz FSB resulted in the AGP video card being forced to run on an overclocked AGP bus, as the 440BX only had "2/3" and "1/1" bus dividers. Some video cards were tolerant of this, such as various early NVIDIA GeForce cards, but more than a few were quite unstable with a 35% AGP overclock. [ [http://www.tomshardware.com/1999/06/22/preview_of_intel/page2.html Preview of Intel's Upcoming 'Camino'-Chipset |Tom's Hardware ] ]

Still, the later i815 was considered the best Pentium III chipset because it offered a better feature set and very similar performance relative to the 440BX. Not only did the i815 support a proper "1/2" AGP divider for the 133 MHz FSB clock rate, AGP 4x, and Ultra DMA 100, but the later revisions also directly supported the Tualatin Pentium III.

The success of the 440BX chipset has caused various software emulation and virtualization packages to use it as part of their virtual system. VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC present the Intel 440BX chipset virtually to hosted virtual machines, due to its broad compatibility.

ee also

*List of Intel chipsets

References

External links

* [http://arstechnica.com/paedia/celeron_oc_faq.html Celeron overclocking FAQ] at Ars Technica, by Frank Monroe
* [http://tipperlinne.com/p2bmod Asus P2B-D modification guide]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Intel 440BX — Intel 82443BX (440BX northbridge) en una placa madre Abit BF6 El Intel 440BX, también conocido como el i440BX, es un chipset de Intel que soporta CPUs Pentium II, Pentium III y Celeron. Fue lanzado en abril de 1998. Contenido …   Wikipedia Español

  • Intel 82443 — The Intel 82443 is a northbridge microchip from Intel. It was released on April 1998. Its used mainly in Intel 440BX chipsets. ee also*List of Intel chipsetsExternal links* [http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/273219.htm 82443BX Host… …   Wikipedia

  • Intel 8xx-Serie — Die Intel 8xx Serie ist eine Familie von Northbridges – von Intel als Memory Controller Hub (MCH) bzw. Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) bezeichnet – die zusammen mit einer Southbridge, dem I/O Controller Hub, einen Chipsatz für x86… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Intel-800-Serie — Die Intel 800 Serie ist eine Familie von Northbridges – von Intel als Memory Controller Hub (MCH) bzw. Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) bezeichnet – die zusammen mit einer Southbridge, dem I/O Controller Hub, einen Chipsatz für x86… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Intel 82371 — The Intel 82371 (also known as PIIX, PCI IDE/ISA Xcelerator) is a family of southbridge microchips from Intel. The 82371EB model (also known as PIIX4E) is used mainly in Intel 440BX and 440GX chipsets. Other models are the 82371AB (PIIX4) and the …   Wikipedia

  • Intel Pentium 2 — Intel Pentium II Produktion: 1997 bis ? Produzent: Intel Prozessortakt: 233 MHz bis 450 MHz FSB Takt: 66 MHz bis 100 MHz L2 Cachegröße: 256 KB bis 512 KB …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Intel Pentium II — <<   Intel Pentium II   >> Logo des Intel Pentium II Produktion: 1997 bis 2001 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Список кодовых имён продукции Intel — Intel по сложившейся традиции даёт кодовых имена своим разработкам на базе интегральных схем по географическим названиям (так как они не могут быть зарегистрированы в качестве торговой марки кем либо ещё) городов, рек или гор, находящихся… …   Википедия

  • Intel-Chipsätze — Das ist eine Liste mit Motherboard Chipsätzen von Intel. Sie sind dabei in drei Hauptkategorien aufgeteilt: Die, die den PCI Bus zu Kommunikation benutzen (400er Reihe), die, die sich über spezielle Hub Links verbinden und die, die über PCI… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Список кодовых имён Intel — Intel по сложившейся традиции даёт имена разработкам на базе интегральных схем по географическим названиям (так как они не могут быть зарегистрированы в качестве торговой марки кем либо ещё) городов, рек или гор, находящихся недалеко от фабрик… …   Википедия

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”