Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Barry A. Watzman who wrote (47835)	2/14/1998 11:36:00 AM
From: Barry A. Watzman	Respond to of 186894

Looks like I found part of the answer to my own question (from Tom's hardware page): The BX chipset is designed to read out the front bus speed from the Pentium II CPU in the system, finding out if this CPU is designed for 66 or 100 MHz front bus. Thus the systems are supposed to only either run at 66 or at 100 MHz front bus, depending on the CPU thats used. This feature is the original spec of Intel and it depends on the motherboard manufacturer if we will have the chance of running a 66 MHz front bus CPU at 100 MHz by setting a jumper, or if we will have to face the fact that a 333 MHz Deschutes won't even run at 350 MHz. The board I tested was equipped with a special wire to fool the BX chipset, but that will most likely be removed in the final version. Looks as if die hard overclockers will need their good old soldering iron in the future.

To: Barry A. Watzman who wrote (47835)	2/14/1998 2:24:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

Barry - Re: "What are the clock multipliers supported in current PII's ?" For the Klamath/0.35 micron device, the clock multipliers are: System / Processor Core fo rPentium II/Klamath 1/2 = 2.0 1/4 = 4.0 2/7 = 3.5 2/9 = 4.5 Re: " What clock multipliers will be supported in the 350 MHz PII ?" I think the new Deschutes will support all of the above with the addition of a 1/5 = 5x multiplier and possibly a 2/11 = 5.5 multiplier. Re: "Will the BX chipset support only a 100 MHz clock, or both a 66 MHz and a 100" I think Intel will be marketing a version of the 440BX to work at 66 MHz as well as 100 MHz - just like the 440LX (66 MHz only) . The issue is not the speed of the chip set but the particular SDRAM timing and clock signals - they were fine tuned to work for 100 MHz SDRAMs - and the 440BX uses phase locked loops to generate internal clocks locked to the external clock speed - and still generate the proper 100 MHz SDRAM signal timings, "independent" of the prescribed input clock frequencies". I'm not sure these "scale exactly" from 100 MHz down to 66 MHz. Re: ". What do you think the chances are of successfully using a 300 or 333 MHz current PII at 350 MHz with a BX MB and a 100 MHz bus ?" The 300 MHz and 333 MHz Pentium chips are DIFFERENT chips, the former being a 0.35 micron Klamath and the latter being a 0.25 micron Deschutes. To run a 300 MHz at 350, the 3.5x multiplier is available but you might want to consider the heat dissipation issues. Allow for more cooling because that sucker is going to pump out over 40 watts (Peak) in my estimation. The 300 MHz part runs at 2.8 volts. To run the 333 MHz Pentium II at 350 Mhz - no problemo. This is the 0.25 micron/2 volt part. Heat should not be an issue - assuming proper heat sinks are used. Paul