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So, looked through bit-tech's preview of the Gigabyte GA-P45-DS5 and it looks awesome. Talk about excessive amounts of SATA love.

I wanted to know what the differences were between the ICH10 southbridge the P45s are using and the ICH9s the P35s are using, if any. So far, all I've noticed is that it seems to support x8/x8 electrical support for two x16 slots, rather than the x16/x4 config the ICH9 was using. Were there any improvements to the onboard RAID support (which was already great to begin with)?

EDIT:

Well, my Google-sense can certainly use work. It looks like the ICH10 removes PS/2 and LPT port support and adds a 10Gb Ethernet controller, a Wireless Ethernet controller, some sort of hardware firewall, and generally relieves more stress from the CPU.

x8/x8 vs x16/x4 vs x16/x16 has nothing to do with the southbridge.

Flying Fox wrote:

x8/x8 vs x16/x4 vs x16/x16 has nothing to do with the southbridge.

Ah, thats through some sort control chip that sits between the slots right?

Kurotetsu wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

x8/x8 vs x16/x4 vs x16/x16 has nothing to do with the southbridge.

Ah, thats through some sort control chip that sits between the slots right?

That's just the northbridge (P35 vs P45). The southbridge controls stuff like SATA and other peripherals. The northbridge usually has the memory controller and the graphics (AGP, PEG) interface.

Flying Fox wrote:

x8/x8 vs x16/x4 vs x16/x16 has nothing to do with the southbridge.

Not exactly. In the x16/x4 scenario the x4 is provided by the southbridge. This leads to throughput/latency issues as the data has to pass through the DMI interface from the ICH to the MCH. Not an ideal case for high performance dual graphics cards.

Speaking of the ICH10 etc., has anyone actually seen an Intel ICH integrated NIC implemented on a board? Even Intel themselves don't seem to use it. Hopefully integrated wifi ups the average quality of 802.11 hardware/software. Crappy wifi drivers are the bane of my existence.

Regarding PS/2 I wish legacy ports would either be dropped wholesale or given definitive support. Currently they seem to be in a state of limbo. That's what you get for having no real body dictating hardware support I suppose.

crazybus wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

x8/x8 vs x16/x4 vs x16/x16 has nothing to do with the southbridge.

Not exactly. In the x16/x4 scenario the x4 is provided by the southbridge. This leads to throughput/latency issues as the data has to pass through the DMI interface from the ICH to the MCH. Not an ideal case for high performance dual graphics cards.

Oops, forgot about that x16/x4 hack.

crazybus wrote:

Speaking of the ICH10 etc., has anyone actually seen an Intel ICH integrated NIC implemented on a board? Even Intel themselves don't seem to use it.

I thought it's the PHY chip that is not Intel. Of course if the board has 2 NICs one has to be a full chip.

crazybus wrote:

Hopefully integrated wifi ups the average quality of 802.11 hardware/software. Crappy wifi drivers are the bane of my existence.

That's why I like a separate wireless NIC.

crazybus wrote:

Regarding PS/2 I wish legacy ports would either be dropped wholesale or given definitive support. Currently they seem to be in a state of limbo. That's what you get for having no real body dictating hardware support I suppose.

As long as I can plug my Model M I'm happy.

Flying Fox wrote:

crazybus wrote:

Speaking of the ICH10 etc., has anyone actually seen an Intel ICH integrated NIC implemented on a board? Even Intel themselves don't seem to use it.

I thought it's the PHY chip that is not Intel. Of course if the board has 2 NICs one has to be a full chip.

From what I've found, all that's on the ICH9 south bridge is the MAC. The PHY is still on a separate chip. There are several Intel boards, in this case, that do use the integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet adapter.

titan wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

crazybus wrote:

Speaking of the ICH10 etc., has anyone actually seen an Intel ICH integrated NIC implemented on a board? Even Intel themselves don't seem to use it.

I thought it's the PHY chip that is not Intel. Of course if the board has 2 NICs one has to be a full chip.

From what I've found, all that's on the ICH9 south bridge is the MAC. The PHY is still on a separate chip. There are several Intel boards, in this case, that do use the integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet adapter.

That's the thing, I think the MAC is more important?

is there a real difference between the 2 tips of southbridge 10 and 9?
and the PCI Express 2.0 and 1.1?

titan wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

crazybus wrote:

Speaking of the ICH10 etc., has anyone actually seen an Intel ICH integrated NIC implemented on a board? Even Intel themselves don't seem to use it.

I thought it's the PHY chip that is not Intel. Of course if the board has 2 NICs one has to be a full chip.

From what I've found, all that's on the ICH9 south bridge is the MAC. The PHY is still on a separate chip. There are several Intel boards, in this case, that do use the integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet adapter.

Yeah even with the onboard ethernet controller you need a the PHY interface, but my point was that mobo manufacturers usually throw on a full marvell/realtek et al ethernet controller. If Intel actually uses the integrated NIC with just a PHY chip then I hadn't noticed it.

crazybus wrote:

Yeah even with the onboard ethernet controller you need a the PHY interface, but my point was that mobo manufacturers usually throw on a full marvell/realtek et al ethernet controller. If Intel actually uses the integrated NIC with just a PHY chip then I hadn't noticed it.

If you take a look at the Intel board, you'll see the specifications states which PHY chip they're using. Then, read up on that chip and you'll find that it doesn't handle MAC at all. It's just a medium, so to speak.

bogbox wrote:

is there a real difference between the 2 tips of southbridge 10 and 9?

Tips?

bogbox wrote:

and the PCI Express 2.0 and 1.1?

Not sure if the PCIe lanes from the southbridge will be 2.0, but the PEG x16 lanes will be. Then again who will notice the difference?

One thing I'd like to know, is why this wasn't implemented on the X48. If I recall, the X48 still uses the older ICH9 southbridge, whereas the P45, the cheaper mainstream board, is using the newer ICH10. Doesn't that seem kind of backwards? I mean, don't get me wrong, its great they're bringing out the new stuff for the sensible buyers, it just looks weird to me.

Intel did the same thing with the 975x w/ICH7R vs the P965 w/ICH8. Realistically the differences between the parts were minimal. I imagine the ICH10 wan't ready for the launch of the X48? Intel soft launched a 400mhz fsb cpu so they needed a chipset to coincide.

crazybus wrote:

Intel did the same thing with the 975x w/ICH7R vs the P965 w/ICH8. Realistically the differences between the parts were minimal. I imagine the ICH10 wan't ready for the launch of the X48? Intel soft launched a 400mhz fsb cpu so they needed a chipset to coincide.

And this time the difference is even smaller since PATA is already gone.