Return To Castle Intel: 16 Years Of Motherboard History

Return To Castle Intel: 16 Years Of Motherboard History
For you trivia buffs, the original Batman TV series debuted in 1966. Twenty-seven years later, Intel delivered the “Batman” motherboard, the first commercial release from the company’s motherboard group. Prior to Batman, Intel had merely produced reference boards for major OEMs and MNCs (multi-national corporations). The trouble was that the CPU group would launch a chip but there were no motherboards on the market to support it. Intel was stuck in a chicken-and-egg conundrum, and the best solution was to release both items together. Marketing-speak for this is “time to market,” or TTM. Batman was Intel’s first TTM board, and it was meant to accelerate the adoption of Pentium.

Those rectangular chips near the CPU socket are cache, because L2 had yet to be integrated into the processor. And the big, square chips? No, those aren’t part of the chipset. They’re for I/O.

Return To Castle Intel: 16 Years Of Motherboard History

Return To Castle Intel: 16 Years Of Motherboard History
Last month, we took you deep into the hidden recesses of Intel’s Hawthorn Farm facility, where the company’s enthusiast motherboards are designed and refined. On our way out of the building, we walked down a long hallway that ends with the metal detector gate one passes through when entering the building. This hallway is lined with dozens of mounted, framed motherboards—a veritable walk-through museum documenting Intel’s many years of motherboard innovation.

As tech enthusiasts, we tend to be amnesiacs. There’s just so much good stuff to focus on now, and even better stuff coming soon, that we forget where we’ve been and the massive effort that went into moving through those stages. Walking this hallway, we felt a bit like archeologists or perhaps sudden visitors to the Galapagos Islands, granted a rare glimpse at the sweep of natural evolution. Some fits of creativity grew into the technologies we have today. Others blossomed for a moment and died ingloriously.

At the end of our last visit, we got about half-way down this hallway, then stalled in our tracks. After nearly two decades in the hardware business, it was impossible not to stop at each frame with a “I remember that!” or a “Oh, what was that called again?!” We wanted to stay for hours. So on a return visit with a camera and tripod, we did. Sure, we had to shoot the boards under poor lighting and through the high-glare glass of their frames, but it turned out well in the end.

What follows are our picks for the best dozen of the mobo brood, the ones that stood out as having exceptional historical significance. We had a blast taking this walk down memory lane and rediscovering our roots. Hopefully, you will, too.

History of Intel motherboards

Hardware geek heaven: a pictorial history of Intel motherboards

If you’ve been computerizing a long time, you’ll probably remember the days of putting together systems with 4MB of RAM, freaking out about the Turbo button, and you may remember a few of these motherboards. During a tour of Intel’s mobo-designing facility, Tom’s Hardware encountered a hallway filled with framed motherboards, the way you might find platinum records displayed in Atlantic Records or whatnot. Being slightly nerdy, they decided to stop and take a trip down random access memory lane. (See what I did there?)
Now I’m no old salt when it comes to hardware, but I do appreciate some of the changes going on. The size of certain components, the layout, the addition of stuff like PATA and SATA ports, etc. This is for hardcore tech nerds only, people. Lots of capacitor porn.

The History of Intel

Intel was founded on July 18, 1968 with one main goal in mind: to make semiconductor memory more practicle. Intels first microprocessor, the 4004 microcomputer, was released at the end of 1971. The chip was smaller then a thumbnail, contained 2300 transistors, and was capable of executing 60,000 operations in one second. Shortly after the release of th 4004 the 8008 microcomputer was released and was capable of executing twice as many operations per second then the 4004. Intels commitment to the microprocessor led to IBM's choice of Intel's 8088 chip for the CPU of the its first PC. In 1982, Intel introduced the first 286 chip, it contained 134,000 transistors and provided around three times the performance of the other microprocessors at the time. In 1989 the 486 processor was released that contained 1.2 million transistors and the first built in math coprocessor. The chip was approximately 50 times faster then Intels original 4004 processor and equaled the performance of a powerful mainframe computer. In 1993 Intel introduced the Pentium processor, which was five times as fast as the 486, it contained 3.1 million transistors, and was capable of 90 million instructions per second (MIPS). In 1995 Intel introduced its new technology, MMX, MMX was designed to enhance the computers multimedia performance. Throughout the years that followed Intel released several lines of processors including the Celeron, the P2, P3, and P4. Intel processors now reach speeds upwards of 2200 MHZ or 2.2 GHZ.

Intel® High-Performance SATA Solid-State Drives and Caching

Intel® Turbo Memory with User Pinning

Overview

Intel® Turbo Memory with User Pinning

Enhancing system performance through memory innovation

Intel® Turbo Memory with User Pinning brings mobile and desktop systems performance to new heights through the innovative extension of Flash Memory architectures into computing platforms. User Pinning offers more options to the user to improve system applications launch time and responsiveness.

Product information
Download the product brief

User Pinning
The new User Pinning capability feature, via the Intel® Turbo Memory Dashboard, allows the user to choose and control which applications or files are loaded into the Intel Turbo Memory cache for performance acceleration. Custom pinning profiles can be created to pin applications or files that match the user's activity, such as PC gaming, office work, or home tasks

Download the User Pinning Basic Tutorial

Performance
Intel® NAND Flash Memory, working with the Microsoft Windows Vista* ReadyBoost* and ReadyDrive* technologies, adds a new low-latency, non-volatile memory cache between the system memory and the hard drive. This enables fast access to critical data and applications.

Fast application load times, hibernation and resume

Fast overall application responsiveness

Fast boot time

Quick access to frequently used applications and/or files from User Pinning

Enhanced data loss protection using RAID 1, 5 and 10

Platform compatibility
Intel Turbo Memory cards are compatible with Intel® Centrino® and Intel® Centrino® 2 processor technology for notebook PCs and Intel® Core™2 processor family with Series 4 chip sets for business desktop PCs and digital home media.

Be sure to ask for Intel Turbo Memory with User Pinning and Intel Turbo Memory Dashboard when purchasing your next Intel-based PC.


Related links
Watch the Intel® Turbo Memory overview animation
View customer testimonial: Lenovo

Intel® Solid-State Drives and Caching

Intel® Z-P140 PATA Solid-State Drive

Overview

Ultra-small, low-power storage solution with the right features and performance for mobile Internet devices, digital entertainment and embedded products

Right fit: smallest form-factor complete PATA solid-state drive (SSD) solution

Right capacity: meets the storage capacity requirements for mobile devices

Right performance: speed, power and solid-state reliabilit

Product information

Download product brief
Download datasheet

Features and benefits

Scalable capacity

2, 4, 8 and 16GB

Scalable capacity to meet storage needs for operating systems, applications and data. Please see your Intel sales representative for details on the extended density products

Standard interface

Interface to any platform using standard parallel ATA (PATA)

Small footprint

12 x 18 x 1.8 mm, 0.6 grams (400 times smaller and 75 times lighter than a conventional hard disk drive) for thinner and lighter mobile designs

Performance

Fast to boot, load and run applications (40MB/s read, 30MB/s write) with no mechanical latency and no moving parts

Low power

Extends battery life (idle 1.1mW, typical operating 315mW)

Fully solid state

No moving parts mean ultimate ruggedness for mobile designs

Designed for mobile computing

Ultra-small package-on-package BGA solution designed with ultra-mobile platforms in mind

Applies Intel computing experience to optimize solid-state technology for computing and storage

Intel® Solid-State Drives and Caching

Intel® Z-P230 PATA Solid-State Drive

Overview

Affordable and low-power storage solution for netbooks and nettops

The Intel® Z-P230 PATA Solid-State Drive (SSD) is an innovative storage solution for value mobile and desktop systems such as netbooks and nettops.

Four times smaller than a traditional 1.8" hard disk drive and as little as one-fourth the weight, the Intel® Z-P230 PATA SSD is designed to replace traditional hard disk drives in netbook and nettop systems.

The solid-state design means no moving parts, providing ruggedness that's perfect for mobile designs. And the Intel Z-P230 SSD's low power requirements translate to longer battery life.

The Intel® Z-P230 PATA SSD is now available in two sizes: 40-pin ZIF module (top) and a space-saving mini-card module (bottom).

Product information

Download product brief

Download datasheet

Features and benefits

Scalable capacity

4GB and 8GB

16GB available Q4 08

Standard interface

Standard 40-pin ZIF PATA (IDE) system interface or space-saving PATA (IDE) on mini-card version

Small footprint

38mm x 54mm x 3.2mm (ZIF version) or 30mm x 50.95 x 3.8mm (mini-card version) - one-fourth the volume of a standard 1.8" hard disk drive for smaller, more portable designs

Lightweight

Only weighs 11 grams (ZIF) or 8g (mini-card) for lighter, more portable designs

Low power

Extends battery life (idle 1.65mW, typical operating 314 mW)

Fully solid-state

No moving parts, so ideal for portable designs. 600G (2ms) shock tolerance

Intel® High-Performance SATA Solid-State Drives and Caching

Intel® X25-M and X18-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drives

Overview

High-Performance Storage for Notebook and Desktop PCs
The Intel® X25-M and X18-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive (SSD) brings a new level of performance and reliability to laptop and desktop PC storage.

Wait less. Do more.
Why wait for a traditional hard disk drive to spin up? Unlike traditional hard disk drives, Intel solid-state drives have no moving parts, resulting in a quiet, cool, highly rugged storage solution that also offers faster system responsiveness. And for laptop PCs, the lower power needs of Intel SSDs translate to longer battery life and lighter notebooks. Higher performance with more durability means you can be truly mobile with confidence.

Better by design
Drawing from decades of memory engineering experience, Intel Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drives are designed to deliver outstanding performance, featuring the latest-generation native SATA interface with an advanced architecture employing 10 parallel NAND flash channels equipped with multi-level cell NAND flash memory. With powerful Native Command Queuing to enable up to 32 concurrent operations, Intel Mainstream SATA SSDs deliver higher input/output per second and throughput performance than other SSDs on the market today - and drastically outperform traditional hard disk drives. These drives also feature low write amplification and a unique wear-leveling design for higher reliability, meaning Intel drives not only perform better - they last longer.

Two options. No worries.
Intel® Mainstream Solid-State Drives are available in either 2.5in (Intel® X25-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive) or 1.8in (Intel® X18-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive) standard hard drive form factors. And all Intel Mainstream SSDs are tested and validated on the latest Intel-based mobile and desktop platforms for your peace of mind.















Product information
Download product brief
View animation: "Intel® Solid-State Drives: Better by Design"
View customer testimonial: Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems

Technical specifications

Model Name
Intel® X18-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive
Intel® X25-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive

Capacity
80GB and 160GB

NAND Flash Components
Intel® Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND Flash Memory10 Channel Parallel Architecture with 50nm MLC ONFI 1.0 NAND

Bandwidth
Up to 250MB/s Read SpeedsUp to 70MB/s Write Speeds

Read Latency
85 microseconds

Interface
SATA 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s

Form factor
X18-M: Industry Standard Hard Drive Form Factor
80GB drive: 1.8in by 5.0mm
160GB drive: 1.8in by 8.0mm

X25-M: Industry Standard Hard Drive Form Factor
80GB drive: 2.5in by 7mm and 2.5in by 9.5mm options
160GB drive: 2.5in by 7mm and 2.5in by 9.5mm options

X25-M: 2.5in Industry Standard Hard Drive Form Factor

Compatibility
SATA Revision 2.6 Compliant. Compatible with SATA 3.0 Gb/s with Native Command Queuing and SATA 1.5 Gb/s interface rates

Life expectancy
1.2 million hours Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF)

Power consumption
Active: 150mW Typical (PC workload¹)Idle (DIPM): 0.06W Typical

Operating shock
1,000G / 0.5ms

Operating temperature
0°C to +70°C

RoHS Compliance
Meets the requirements of EU RoHS Compliance Directives

Product health monitoring
Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) commands plus additional SSD monitoring

Intel® High-Performance SATA Solid-State Drives

Intel® X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive

Overview

Extreme performance, reliability, and power savings for servers, storage and workstations
The Intel® Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive (SSD) offers outstanding performance and reliability, delivering the highest IOPS per watt for servers, storage and high-end workstations.

Reduce your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Enterprise applications place a premium on performance, reliability, power consumption and space. Unlike traditional hard disk drives, Intel Solid-State Drives have no moving parts, resulting in a quiet, cool storage solution that also offers significantly higher performance than traditional server drives. Imagine replacing up to 50 high-RPM hard disk drives with one Intel X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive in your servers — handling the same server workload in less space, with no cooling requirements and lower power consumption. That space and power savings, for the same server workload, will translate to a tangible reduction in your TCO.

Better by design
Drawing from decades of memory engineering experience, the Intel X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive is designed to deliver outstanding performance and reliability, featuring the latest-generation native SATA interface with an advanced architecture employing 10 parallel NAND flash channels equipped with single-level cell NAND flash memory for even greater overall performance and reliability. With powerful Native Command Queuing to enable up to 32 concurrent operations, these Intel SSDs deliver higher Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) and throughput performance than other SSDs on the market today - and drastically outperform traditional hard disk drives. These Intel drives also feature low write amplification and a unique wear-leveling design for higher reliability, meaning Intel drives not only perform better - they last longer.

Validated and tested by Intel, on Intel
All Intel® X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drives are tested and validated on the latest Intel-based server and workstation platforms, for your peace of mind.

Product information
View animation: "Intel Solid-State Drives: Better by Design"
View customer testimonial: Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems
View customer video: Espial IPTV Solution
Download product brief

Intel® Server chipsets

Intel® 3200 and Intel® 3210 Chipsets

Overview

The Intel® 3200 and Intel® 3210 Chipsets are designed for use with Intel® Xeon® processors 3000Δ sequence, in the LGA775 package in UP server platforms. The chipset contains two components: Memory Controller Hub (MCH) and Intel® I/O Controller Hub 9 (ICH9). The MCH provides the interface to the processor, main memory, PCI Express*, and the ICH9. The ICH9 I/O Controller Hub provides a multitude of I/O related functions.

The Intel® 3200 Chipset supports one PCI Express x8 port for I/O. Intel® 3210 Chipset supports two PCI Express x8 ports or one PCI Express x16 port for I/O.



















Features and benefits

Supports processors
Provides four execution cores in one physical processor helping increase system responsiveness and performance for multi-tasking. Also supports dual-core processors.

1333/1066/800 MHz FSB
Supports Intel® Xeon® processor 3000Δ sequence and processors in the LGA775 socket, with scalability for future processor innovations.

Supports Intel® 64 architecture
Runs 64-bit code and accesses larger amounts of memory while also capable of running existing 32-bit applications.

Memory Support for Dual Channel DDR2 800/667 with ECC support
Improved memory speed over previous generation and provides ECC for data integrity protection. Delivers up to 12.8 GB/s (DDR2 800 dual 6.4 GB/s) of bandwidth and 8 GB memory addressability for faster system responsiveness and support of 64-bit computing.

PCI Express* I/O Interfaces supports 1 x8 with the Intel® 3200 Chipset, and 2 x8 or 1 x16 with the Intel® 3210 Chipset
The Intel 3210 Chipset supports flexible I/O with 2x8 or 1x16 PCI Express, and the Intel 3200 Chipset provides a single PCI Express I/O x8 port . Also provides configurable Intel® I/O Controller Hub (ICH9R) 6x1 PCI Express ports to meet higher I/O server demands. Multiple interfaces eliminates the need for bridge solutions and reduces server bottlenecks.

Serial ATA* (SATA) 3 Gb/s
High-speed storage interface supports faster transfer rate for improved data access.

Intel® Matrix Storage Technology◊1
With a second hard drive added, provides quicker access to data files with RAID 0, 5, and 10, and greater data protection against a hard disk drive failure with RAID 1, 5, and 10. Support for external SATA* (eSATA*) enables the full SATA interface speed outside the chassis, up to 3 Gb/s.

Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology
Enables focused platform and software power management to lower average power consumption while maintaining application performance and improving acoustics.

PCI-X Interface
Support legacy PCI-X server adapters using the Intel® 6702PXH 64-bit PCI hub.

Supports Hyper-Threading Technology◊2
Delivers higher processing throughput and faster response times for multi-tasking, multi-threading workload environments.

Intel Mainstream desktop chipsets

Intel® 945GT Express Chipset

Overview

The Intel® 945GT Express Chipset, combined with the Intel® Core™ Duo processor, delivers innovative features and new benefits for both home and business at low power consumption. These features provide enhanced manageability, security and responsiveness to meet evolving business needs.

The Intel 945GT Express Chipset offers outstanding system performance through high-bandwidth interfaces such as PCI Express*, Serial ATA*, and Hi-Speed USB* 2.0, and the enhanced Gen 3.5 integrated graphics controller.

Features and benefits

Supports Intel® Core™2 Processor with Viiv™ TechnologyΔ
Get ready for a new kind of consumer entertainment PC that will change the way you enjoy entertainment at home. With a system based on the Intel® 945G Express Chipset*, control the music, movies, games, and photos you want to enjoy both from your personal entertainment collections and endless entertainment options from a wide range of Intel® Core™2 processor with Viiv™ technology verified service providers delivered right to your living room.

Gen 3.5 Integrated Graphics

Delivers richer visual color and picture clarity without the need for additional graphics cards. Also supports TV Out, LVDS, CRT and SDVO for increased flexibility, allowing users to maximize the Digital Entertainment experience.

Intel® Matrix Storage Technology◊2
Provides quicker access to digital photo, video/data files with RAID 0 and data protection against a hard disk drive failure with RAID 1.

Intel® Flex Memory Technology

Facilitates easier upgrades by allowing different memory sizes to be populated and remain in dual-channel mode.

Intel Performance desktop chipsets

Intel® Chipset X58 Express

Overview

Desktop PC platforms based on the Intel® X58 Express Chipset, combined with the Intel® Core™ i7 processor family, drive breakthrough performance and state-of-the-art technology to performance and mainstream platforms.
The Intel X58 Express Chipset supports the latest 45nm Intel Core i7 processor family at 6.4 GT/s and 4.8 GT/s speeds via the Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI). Additionally, this chipset delivers dual x16 or quad x8 PCI Express* 2.0 graphics card support, and support for Intel® High Performance Solid State Drives on ICH10 and ICH10R consumer SKUs.

Features and benefits

Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI) at 6.4 and 4.8 GT/s
Intel’s latest system interconnect design increases bandwidth and lowers latency. Supports the Intel® Core™ i7-965 processor Extreme Edition, Intel® Core™ i7-940 processors and Intel® Core™ i7-920 processors.

Intel® Matrix Storage technology◊2
With additional hard drives added, provides quicker access to digital photo, video and data files with RAID 0, 5, and 10, and greater data protection against a hard disk drive failure with RAID 1, 5, and 10. Support for external SATA (eSATA) enables the full SATA interface speed outside the chassis, up to 3 Gb/s.

Intel® Rapid Recover technology
Intel's latest data protection technology provides a recovery point that can be used to quickly recover a system should a hard drive fail or if there is massive data corruption. The clone can also be mounted as a read-only volume to allow a user to recover individual files.

Intel® Turbo Memory◊3
Intel's innovative NAND cache designed to improve the responsiveness of applications, application load times, and system boot performance. Intel® Turbo Memory, paired with the Intel® X58 Express Chipset, also allows the user to easily control the applications or data in the cache using the new Intel® Turbo Memory Dashboard interface, boosting performance further.

Connecting People and Information for Better Health

Intel in healthcare

Around the world, healthcare costs are rising. Too many people lack access to high-quality healthcare services. Paper-based workflows introduce errors and hamper productivity. Aging populations and swelling rates of chronic disease threaten to overwhelm even the most efficient healthcare systems.

Intel is delivering innovative leaps in digital technologies to help address those challenges.

We share the vision of healthcare leaders who recognize technology's potential to evolve healthcare toward more proactive, consumer-centric models of care as well as the potential to improve the quality, cost, and accessibility of healthcare services. In homes and hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, we collaborate with healthcare leaders to better connect people and information, and enable new models of care.

By helping individuals, families, and the extended healthcare community connect to the right information at the right time, we empower them to make better, more informed decisions—and accelerate the ability to radically improve health and healthcare.