Intel P45 chipset spotted naked!

March 5, 2008 | 13:33

Tags: #bare #cebit-2008 #chipset #events #motherboard #naked #p45 #photo

Companies: #foxconn #intel #msi

OK, it doesn’t look too different from its P35 chipset on the surface but it might be of interest to some. It’s about the same size and should be the same TDP – we’ll know more when we talk to Intel directly.

MSI’s P45 Diamond model is pretty special – not only does it have more SATA ports than you can shake an armful of hard drives at (don’t, you’ll drop them!) – six native from ICH10R and no less than seven from a silicon image chipset and possibly one dedicated to eSATA duty, it also uses a PCI-Express lane splitter chip from IDT. This makes the single PCI-Express x16 lane into two x8s for proper CrossFire – no longer are we subjected to an imperfect x16 and x4. In addition there should also be CircuPipe cooling and Hi-C low profile capacitors.

Foxconn also showed off its P45 Digital Life ELA board with three PCI-Express x16 slots – two x8 from the same IDT splitter chip and the third at x4, as well as a very strangely placed northbridge plopped between the CPU and memory! The ELA nomenclature comes from the “Eagle Lake” codename Intel gave the P45 chipset – Foxconn are apparently proud of this because “it helped Intel design the Eaglelake”. It’s P45A-S is better looking with its black PCB, but it lacks the IDT splitter chip and now only has a PCI-Express x16 and x4 slots, even if the layout is a bit more traditional.

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