Money for Nothing? Rambus Performance Falls Short

Intel's Latest Chip Set Chronicles

Filling a gap in its motherboard lineup, Intel has just released three new chip sets. The 815 and 815E support PC133 SDRAM and finally give a choice to mainstream users who want extra speed but don't want to pay Rambus's high premium. To shore up its 820 chip set line and satisfy high-end users, Intel has brought out the 820E, which lacks the memory problems of previous 820s.

Like the older 810 and 810E chip sets, the 815 and 815E have integrated graphics. That design saves money but, in the case of the 810s, left you with no real upgrade options. That's not true of the 815s. With those chips, PC vendors can offer three levels of graphics quality: standard integrated, integrated with a 4MB 3D graphics accelerator, and with a 4X AGP slot for a third-party graphics card.

Expect the 815 and 815E in midrange PCs from major vendors such as HP and Micronpc.com. Micron's ClientPro Cns, for example, will feature the 815E in a standard configuration with a Pentium III-667, 128MB of RAM, a 15GB drive, the 4MB 3D graphics accelerator, a 17-inch monitor, and Windows 2000. It will list for $1499. Look for other vendor announcements later this summer and fall.

The Rambus-only 820E lacks the memory translator hub that caused the recent recall of previous 820 SDRAM-based boards. It also features a new I/O Controller Hub 2, or ICH2, which replaces the 820's original ICH. The ICH2 supports high-end features such as the fast ATA/100 hard drive standard (up from ATA/66), full six-channel stereo sound (up from two channels), and four USB ports (up from two). The ICH2 also supports three integrated LAN options: two 10/100 ethernet options, and a 1-mbps home phone line alternative. It also offers a more flexible add-in solution for cards based on the Communication and Networking Riser specification. Like the 820E, the 815E includes the ICH2, while the lower-priced 815 uses Intel's original ICH.

No major vendors are expected to offer 820E PCs at the chip set's launch; you should see them in high-end PCs this fall.

The 815 chip set should have a long, successful life. The 820E, however, won't reside at the top for long. Intel's next-generation, 1-GHz-plus Willamette processor, expected in the second half of the year, will use a new chip set, code-named Tehama.