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Intel 815 and 815E Chipset

Sep 1, 2001

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Intel 815 and 815E Chipset

Introduced in June of 2000, the 815 and 815E chipsets are a mainstream PC chipset with integral video that is also upgradeable via an AGP 4x slot. The 815 chipsets are designed for Slot-1 or Socket-370 processors such as the Celeron or Pentium III. These are the first chipsets from Intel designed to directly support PC133 SDRAM memory, allowing for a more affordable solution than other chipsets using RDRAM memory. Like the other 8xx series chipsets from Intel, the 815 uses hub architecture which provides a 266MB/sec connection between the main chipset components, that does not share the PCI bus like the prior north/south bridge designs.

Although there are two 815 chipsets including the regular 815 and the 815E, the only difference between them is in which I/O Controller Hub is used. When the 82815 Graphic/Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) is combined with the 82801AA I/O Controller Hub (ICH), the result is called the 815 chipset. When the same GMCH is combined with the 82801BA I/O Controller Hub (ICH2), then the result is called the 815E. The ICH2 provides an additional Universal Serial Bus (USB) controller, dual Ultra ATA/100 controllers and support for a LAN/Modem/Sound card via the integrated CNR (Communications and Networking Riser) interface.

Along with the 820E, the ICH2 is most notable for providing ATA/100 support, allowing 100MB/sec drive performance. Of course there are few drives that can really take advantage of this much throughput, but in any case, the chipset won't have a bottleneck here. The other notable feature is having two USB controllers and 4 ports on board. This allows double the USB performance by splitting devices up over the two ports, and can allow up to 4 connections before a hub is required.

Another important feature of the 815 is the integration of a fast Ethernet controller directly into the chipset. The integrated LAN controller works with one of three new physical layer components from Intel and enables three distinct solutions for computer manufacturers. These include:

Enhanced 10/100Mbps Ethernet with Alert on LAN technology
Basic 10/100Mbps Ethernet
1 Mbps home networking

These physical layer components can be placed directly on the PC motherboard (additional chips) or installed via an adapter that plugs into the Communications and Networking Riser (CNR) slot. The CNR slot and cards allow PC assemblers to build network-ready systems for several different markets.

Although the 815 features essentially the same built-in AGP 2x 3D video that comes with the 810 chipset, the difference is upgradeability. With the 815, the video can be easily upgraded by adding a Graphics Performance Accelerator (GPA) card, or an AGP4X card for maximum 3D graphics and video performance. The GPA card is essentially a high performance video memory card that works in the AGP 4x slot, and which improves the performance of the integrated video by up to 30%. For even more performance, one can install a full 4x AGP card in the AGP 4x slot, which will disable the integrated video. By having the video integrated, very low cost systems with reasonable video performance can be assembled. By later installing either the GPA or a full 4x AGP card, one can improve video performance up to 100% or more.

Another important feature of the 815 chipset is the support of PC133 memory. The 815 will also use PC100 memory if the higher performance type is not available. With the PC133 support, Intel has also officially set a standard for PC133 memory that is higher than most other PC133 memory currently on the market. This will no doubt create some confusion. To meet the Intel PC133 specification, the memory must support what is called 2-2-2 timing. These numbers refer to the number of clock cycles for the following functions to complete:

Precharge command to Active command
Read command to Data Out
Active command to Read Command

Most PC133 memory on the market takes 3 cycles for each of these functions, and would therefore be termed PC133 3-3-3 memory. Note that the faster PC133 2-2-2 can be used in place of the slower 3-3-3 variety, but not the other way around.

As a result of the tighter cycling timing, PC133 2-2-2 offers a lead-off latency of only 30ns (nanoseconds), instead of the 45ns required by PC133 3-3-3. This results in a 34% improvement in initial access.

With the improvements in the 815 chipset, it will likely be a popular chipset for the mainstream PC market that doesn't wish to pay the higher prices for RDRAM memory. The 815 is designed to essentially replace the venerable 440BX chipset.

Tables 1 and 2 provide specific details on each of Intel's chipsets, including the 815 chipset.

Note - Most Intel chipsets are designed as a two-part system, using a North Bridge and a South Bridge component. Often the same South Bridge component can be used with several different North Bridge chipsets.

Table 1.1 Celeron and Pentium II/III Motherboard Chipsets (North/South Bridge architecture)

Chipset	440FX	440LX	440EX
Codename	Natoma	none	none
Date Introduced	May 1996	Aug. 1997	April 1998
Part Numbers	82441FX 82442FX	82443LX	82443EX
Bus Speed	66 MHz	66 MHz	66 MHz
Supported Processors	Pentium II	Pentium II	Celeron
SMP (dual CPUs)	Yes	Yes	No
Memory Types	FPM/EDO/BEDO	FPM/EDO/SDRAM	EDO/SDRAM
Parity	Both	Both	Neither
Maximum Memory	1 GB	1 GB EDO/512 MB SDRAM	256 MB
Memory Banks	4	4	2
PCI Support	2.1	2.1	2.1
AGP Support	No	AGP-2x	AGP-2x
South Bridge	82371SB (PIIX3)	82371AB (PIIX4)	82371EB (PIIX4E)

Table 1.2 Celeron and Pentium II/III Motherboard Chipsets (North/South Bridge architecture) continued...

Chipset	440BX	440GX	450NX	440ZX
Codename	none	none	none	none
Date Introduced	April 1998	June 1998	June '98	November '98
Part Numbers	82443BX	82443GX	82451NX 82452NX 82453NX 82454NX	82443ZX
Bus Speed	66/100 MHz	100 MHz	100 MHz	66/100 MHz¹
Supported Processors	Pentium II/III, Celeron	Pentium II/III Xeon	Pentium II/III Xeon	Celeron, Pentium II/III
SMP (dual CPUs)	Yes	Yes	Yes, up to 4	No
Memory Types	SDRAM	SDRAM	FPM/EDO	SDRAM
Parity	Both	Both	Both	Neither
Maximum Memory	1 GB	2 GB	8 GB	256 MB
Memory Banks	4	4	4	2
PCI Support	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.1
AGP Support	AGP-2x	AGP-2x	No	AGP-2x
South Bridge	82371EB (PIIX4E)	82371EB (PIIX4E)	82371EB (PIIX4E)	82371EB (PIIX4E)

Table 2.1 Celeron and Pentium II/III Motherboard Chipsets (Hub architecture)

Chipset	810	810E	815⁴	815E⁴
Codename	Whitney	Whitney	Solano	Solano
Date Introduced	April '99	Sept. '99	June '00	June '00
Part Number	82810	82810E	82815	82815
Bus Speed	66/100 MHz	66/100/133 MHz	66/100/133 MHz	66/100/133 MHz
Supported Processors	Celeron, Pentium II/III	Celeron, Pentium II/III	Celeron, Pentium II/III	Celeron, Pentium II/III
SMP (dual CPUs)	No	No	No	No
Memory Types	SDRAM (PC100)	SDRAM (PC100)	SDRAM (PC133)	SDRAM (PC133)
Parity	Neither	Neither	Neither	Neither
Maximum Memory	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB
Memory Banks	2	2	3	3
PCI Support	2.2	2.2	2.2	2.2
PCI Speed/Width	33MHz/32-bit	33MHz/32-bit	33MHz/32-bit	33MHz/32-bit
AGP Support	Direct AGP	Direct AGP	AGP 4x	AGP 4x
Integrated Video	AGP 2x²	AGP 2x²	AGP 2x³	AGP 2x³
South Bridge	82801AA/AB (ICH/ICH0)	82801AA(ICH)	82801AA(ICH)	82801BA(ICH2)

Table 2.2 Celeron and Pentium II/III Motherboard Chipsets (Hub architecture) continued...

Chipset	820	820E	840
Codename	Camino	Camino	Carmel
Date Introduced	Nov. '99	June '00	Oct. '99
Part Number	82820	82820	82840
Bus Speed	66/100/133 MHz	66/100/133 MHz	66/100/133 MHz
Supported Processors	Pentium II/III, Celeron	Pentium II/III, Celeron	Pentium II/III Xeon
SMP (dual CPUs)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Memory Types	RDRAM (PC800)	RDRAM (PC800)	RDRAM (PC800)
Parity	Both	Both	Both
Maximum Memory	1 GB	1 GB	4 GB
Memory Banks	2	2	3x2
PCI Support	2.2	2.2	2.2
PCI Speed/Width	33MHz/32-bit	33MHz/32-bit	66MHz/64-bit
AGP Support	AGP 4x	AGP 4x	AGP 4x
Integrated Video	No	No	No
South Bridge	82801AA (ICH)	82801BA(ICH2)	82801AA(ICH)

Note the 440ZX is available in a cheaper 440ZX-66 version, which will only run 66MHz
Note the 810 chipsets have integral AGP 2x 3D video which is NOT upgradeable via an external AGP adapter
Note the 815 chipsets have integral AGP 2x 3D video which IS upgradeable via an APG 4x slot
Note the only difference between the 815 and 815E are in which I/O controller hub (south bridge) is used

SMP = Symmetric Multiprocessing (Dual Processors)
FPM = Fast Page Mode
EDO = Extended Data Out
BEDO = Burst EDO
SDRAM = Synchronous Dynamic RAM
Pburst = Pipeline Burst (Synchronous)
PCI = Peripheral Component Interconnect
AGP = Accelerated Graphics Port
SIO = System I/O
PIIX = PCI ISA IDE Xcelerator
ICH = I/ ICH = I/O Controller Hub

Note - Pentium Pro, Celeron, and Pentium II/III CPUs have their secondary cache integrated into the CPU package. Therefore, cache characteristics for these machines are not dependent on the chipset but are quite dependent on the processor instead.

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