The Intel ICH9R South Bridge is an excellent solution for home servers. Intel ICH9R Southbridge is an excellent solution for home servers Type of memory used

The new Southbridge, which replaces the ICH8, is a truly new generation with impressive performance and impressive capabilities.

Let's look at its properties:

Up to 6 PCIEx1 ports;
up to 4 PCI slots;
4/6 (4 for ICH9, 6 for ICH9R) SATA II 3.0 Gb/s ports with support AHCI mode and NCQ function * ;
the ability to organize a RAID array (only for ICH9R) levels 0, 1, 0+1 (10) and 5 with the Matrix RAID function;
12 USB 2.0 devices (on two EHCI host controllers) with the ability to individually disable;
MAC controller Gigabit Ethernet and a special interface (LCI/GLCI) for connecting a PHY controller (i82566 for implementing Gigabit Ethernet, i82562 for implementing Fast Ethernet);
support Intel Turbo Memory;
High Definition Audio (7.1);
harness for low-speed and outdated peripherals, etc.

The letter R at the end of the abbreviation means support for Raid, and not just a simple one, but 5 with the Matrix RAID function, which means that one set of disks can be used in several RAID modes at once - for example, on two disks you can organize RAID 0 and RAID 1, and for each the array will be allocated its own part of the disk.

Many will find it useful new feature Intel Rapid Recover Technology, which allows you to quickly resume system operation in the event of a failure hard drive or data corruption. And taking into account the above, ICH9R will allow you to simultaneously install, for example, Raid 5 as the main one and in addition to it (on the same disks!) a Raid 1 DSLR for separate security support operating system.

Also now the south bridge supports eSATA and selective disabling of SATA ports, up to 12 USB 2.0 ports and Intel Turbo Memory technology, which is worth special mention.

Intel Turbo Memory allows you to install a 512 MB or 1 GB NAND flash memory module into one of the PCI-E slots to use it as a cache for the operating system, which can significantly reduce the number of accesses to hard drive, thereby significantly speeding up loading applications and opening files.

Thanks to such an impressive collection of advantages, they have gained well-deserved popularity as a platform for low-cost server solutions such as VPN servers, WEB servers and file servers small organizations.

*Wikipedia says - NCQ (English Native Command Queuing - hardware command queuing) is a technology used in SATA devices starting from SATA/300 to improve performance. Supported devices NCQ are able to accept several requests simultaneously and reorganize the order of their execution to achieve maximum efficiency (performance) taking into account the internal architecture of the device (minimizing the number of head movements and waiting for the desired sector on the track). NCQ increases the performance of tasks related to random reading, processing data from two or more sources, and simultaneous operation of several programs.

New chipsets get updated south bridges.
Quite comparable to its northern brothers, ICH9 has a number of evolutionary improvements compared to ICH8, and also supports (only ICH9R) one technology that can be considered revolutionary.
Let us briefly list the main functional characteristics of the new family of south bridges:

Up to 6 PCIEx1 ports;
. up to 4 PCI slots;
. 4/6 (4 for ICH9, 6 for ICH9R) Serial ATA II ports for 4/6 SATA300 devices (SATA-II, second generation of the standard), with support for AHCI mode and functions like NCQ (for ICH9, this mode is guaranteed to work only under Windows Vista), with the possibility of individual shutdown, with support for eSATA and port splitters;
. the ability to organize a RAID array (only for ICH9R) levels 0, 1, 0+1 (10) and 5 with the Matrix RAID function (one set of disks can be used in several RAID modes at once - for example, RAID 0 and RAID can be organized on two disks 1, each array will have its own part of the disk allocated);
. 12 USB 2.0 devices (on two EHCI host controllers) with the ability to individually disable;
. Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller and a special interface (LCI/GLCI) for connecting a PHY controller (i82566 for Gigabit Ethernet implementation, i82562 for Fast Ethernet implementation);
. Intel Turbo Memory support;
. High Definition Audio (7.1);
. harness for low-speed and outdated peripherals, etc.

ICH9R traditionally differs from ICH9 in the presence of support for RAID arrays, as well as two extra SATA ports.
Special versions of the southbridge ICH9DO (Digital Office) and ICH9DH (Digital Home) are based on the ICH9R, but the first of them offers additional functions of Active Management Technology 3.0, Trusted Execution Technology and Virtualization Technology, and the second - Viiv Technology (the positioning of both of these variations is obvious) .

Minor evolutionary changes include the increased number of USB 2.0 ports to 12, the implementation of the eSATA function and port splitters (which is relevant specifically for external eSATA connectors) for chipset SATA ports, and SATA connectors are now (like USB, starting with ICH8) subject to individual customization shutdown.

An alternative to creating RAID arrays for data safety may be a new Intel technology Rapid Recover Technology, which allows you to create a disk image on another hard drive, quickly update it without touching unchanged files, and quickly restore data if the first hard drive is damaged.

The southbridge still integrates a Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller, but we haven't seen it used in any i965-based boards - apparently for regular desktop systems network controller from Marvell, Broadcom, Realtek and others like them, connected via bus PCI Express turns out to be cheaper.

At the same time, users corporate systems vPro will certainly appreciate the functions of the proprietary Intel controller.
It would be strange to expect the return of PATA support after abandoning it in ICH8, and it really did not happen - Intel considers this issue closed despite the abundance of problems with “replacements” for chipset PATA.

The most intriguing thing about the new series of south bridges is the support for Intel Turbo Memory technology (under development known as Robson Technology).
Its essence is to install a module with a certain amount of NAND flash memory on the board (to begin with, it is planned to produce variants with 512 MB and 1 GB).

Basically, apparently, the module will be installed in the PCIEx1 slot, although in principle other connection options are possible (for example, to the contacts for an external USB port).
Benefits from Turbo Memory will be received by: Windows users Vista, and unlike, say, USB key fobs with flash memory, the module integrated on the board can be used by the new Microsoft OS for both ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost.

Briefly, in the first case, we get the opportunity to use a flash drive as cache memory for a hard drive - for linear read-write operations there cannot be much gain here (flash memory slower than hard disk), so the benefit of ReadyDrive will be observed during regular operations of exchanging small portions of data, which are typical for reading and updating a page file (access time for flash memory is noticeably less than that of a hard drive).

An additional advantage is the reduction in the number of accesses to the hard drive (data is merged onto the disk in batches during idle moments, and reading is not performed at all if the necessary data is available in the Turbo Memory cache), which saves energy - of course, this is a real benefit only for mobile devices devices.

ReadyBoost expands the available memory for pre-reading and caching data (from the hard drive), and although with RAM Flash drives cannot compete in terms of speed, yet reading not from the hard drive, but from flash memory with its low random access time allows you to noticeably speed up loading applications and opening files (numbers are called up to 2 times).

The disadvantage of Turbo Memory is the potential fragility of flash drives, the best of which are characterized by a number of rewrite cycles on the order of a million (possibly several million), which, even taking into account some capacity reserve, can lead to loss of drive capacity long before the end of the PC’s service life, in which it is installed.

Heat dissipation.
The heat dissipation of the new chipsets deserves special mention.
Despite being manufactured using the same 90nm process technology and more complex logic, the 3x series chipsets consume noticeably less power than their predecessors: P35 - 14.5 W (P965 - 19 W), G33 - 16 W (G965 - 28 W) .
Moreover, the difference is so noticeable that it can be easily determined even by touch, although the chipset heatsinks for those P35 boards that we saw are no longer larger.

This is a very pleasant trend, because after the hot i965 and scorching nForce 600i, it seemed that we would soon have to develop new standards for chipset cooling devices.

Driver AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.9.2 Optional

A new version AMD drivers Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.9.2 Optional improves performance in Borderlands 3 and adds support for Radeon Image Sharpening technology.

Cumulative Windows update 10 1903 KB4515384 (added)

On September 10, 2019, Microsoft released a cumulative update for Windows 10 version 1903 - KB4515384 with a number of security improvements and a fix for a bug that broke Windows operation Search and caused high CPU usage.

All three chipsets provide a comparable feature set, and you won't notice much of a difference in performance unless you do some in-depth benchmarking. RAID support for the three chipsets is the same; each of them issues a visual alert if one of them hard drives will fail. All three chipsets lack professional features such as alarm notification. e-mail, since this requires a local installation of the mail server.

nVidia nForce 6 is without a doubt the most attractive chipset for Intel-based computers in terms of functionality. It provides a rich set of features including six SATA ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports with many tasty features. And all this with a very user-friendly interface. But this does not mean that nForce 6 is best choice for each.

Although the Intel ICH7-R southbridge has been on the market for more than a year and a half, it provides very decent performance. It is inferior to the newer ICH8 and nForce 6 MCP in terms of I/O performance, but this is still not a reason to change the system to ICH7. Intel chipsets with ICH7 and ICH8 support Matrix Storage technology, which allows you to install multiple RAID arrays on one set of hard drives.

ICH8 was a real surprise, although technical specifications it's not very different from the ICH7: there are 10 USB 2.0 ports instead of eight, and six Serial ATA ports instead of four. But the performance of this southbridge has increased. Transfer performance slightly exceeds the ICH7 in almost all tests, with the Southbridge winning most I/O tests and our USB 2.0 throughput test. The ICH8 is the only bridge in our testing that provides superior transfer speeds, even when connected to two high-speed devices simultaneously. USB devices 2.0. And taking into account the fact that motherboards based on P965 and ICH8 are cheaper than products based on nForce 680i SLI, choosing one or another chipset becomes more difficult.

For the last six months, the newly minted Intel platform for LGA775 processors supporting the most modern technologies like DDR-II and PCI Express receive completely polar ratings from consumers. Dissatisfaction is mainly caused by the fact that, in total, state-of-the-art components do not have high enough performance to warrant significant bonuses, given the hefty costs of purchasing new hardware that is almost incompatible with the previous generation. Reasons for dissatisfaction include the high latency of current DDR-II memory, the slight difference between graphics performance under PCI-E x16 and AGP 8x, core and system bus clock speeds comparable to the previous generation of Pentium 4 processors, and much more.

In turn, opponents emphasize the real novelty of the platform, the great potential for its development, especially against the backdrop of the exhausted capabilities of the same DDR-I or AGP. Yes, they agree, at the current stage the possibilities inherent in theory are implemented in practice in a somewhat “raw” form, however, this is only the beginning and in any case there will be no return to the old, as well as alternatives, and prices are already gradually becoming more civilized view. As for the further evolution of the platform, please, nothing stands still, and the recent announcement Intel processor Pentium 4 EE 3.46 GHz with the new 925XE Express system logic supporting a 1066 MHz system bus is direct proof of this.

Need I once again mention which way the wind is blowing: very soon support for FSB 1066 MHz will migrate from Extreme (Xtreme) Edition versions chipsets and processors into mass platforms, DDR-II 667 memory will receive certification and support, the market will be saturated with affordable video cards, and finally it will be possible to talk about the transition from Socket 478 to Socket 775. Those who want something new right now will have to to spend significantly without clear prospects, who wants to purchase with an eye to a subsequent upgrade, it is wiser to wait six months. But one way or another, if we are talking about processors from Intel, in any case you will have to work with the LGA775 platform.

Okay, the nightingales are fables... Today we will talk about exactly what awaits us in 2005, namely the new generation of Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets with a series of ICH7 southbridges, replacing, respectively, the current Alderwood/Grantsdale (i925X/ i915) with ICH6, as well as about new processors and a little about the corresponding system wiring of new PCs.

Everyone knows Intel's penchant for giving beautiful names current work projects. There was also a new name for the platform based on Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets, although, like almost all of the company’s current projects, the idea is being promoted within the framework of the “digital home” concept. So, for 2005, Intel plans to promote the East Fork (EF) strategy, which, in addition to the traditional set of processors and system logic, will be related to the development network controllers and related software.

It cannot be said that the new chipsets are designed exclusively for work in desktop PCs; such a clear division in Intel's chipset strategy has long since disappeared. The same Lakeport will appear in the third quarter of 2005 as part of mobile platform Napa ( new version Centrino) called Calistoga, with an ICH7-M southbridge and will be tailored for processors with Yonah/Merom cores, support for DDR2-667 memory and the Serial ATA-300 interface. It is already known that specific versions of the Lakeport chipset will work with server versions of the Xeon series chips. Today we will not delve into these jungles and will limit ourselves only to options for desktop PCs.

Judging by the known this moment According to rumors/leaks, the release of new versions of chips with the Prescott core will be completed this year; the older one with a maximum frequency of 3.8 GHz for the NetBurst architecture will remain the Pentium 4 570J, which has an 800 MHz FSB, 1 MB of L2 cache and support for the NX bit. The next core, Prescott 2, which will be implemented in the Pentium4 630, 640, 650, 660 and 670 models, at first will differ little from its predecessor - the same frequency barrier (3.8 GHz), the same socket (LGA775), the same FSB (800 MHz) and the same technical process (90 nm), only the L2 cache will be increased to 2 MB, support for EM64T instructions, EIST (Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology) technology and possibly Vanderpool/LaGrande will appear. Although I strongly doubt the latter, the time for hardware and software support for these technologies has not yet come.

By mid-2005, the release of a 2-core processor with the Smithfield core is being prepared. The processor will be available in three versions. One, for the performance systems sector, will be supported by the Glenwood chipset, the other two versions for mainstream systems will work with the Lakeport chipset. In the second half of 2006, Smithfield will move to the 65 nm process technology.

For now, we will have to be content with Pentium 4 series processors with the Prescott core and for some time with the Prescott 2 core. But the Glenwood and Lakeport chipsets with the ICH7 south bridges, which will be presented very soon, may well outlive all versions of Prescott, and maybe even and the NetBurst architecture. :)

Glenwood/Lakeport North Bridges

If we think from the point of view of generational continuity, then the Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets can be called direct evolutionary heirs of the Intel 925/915. There are changes, but they affected mainly clock frequencies. Now each of them (not just the new i925XE) will support FSB 1066 MHz. For the first time, support for 2-channel DDR2-667 memory will debut, and the south bridges will acquire standard support for Serial ATA 300.

Expected characteristics of the new generation of chipsets

Chipset Glenwood Lakeport-G Lakeport-P

The integrated controller's support for 2-channel DDR2-667 will increase the peak performance of the memory subsystem from 8.5 GB/s for DDR2-533 to 10.8 GB/s. Please note that the notorious Turbo memory operating mode, which gives about 3% - 7% performance gain, first introduced in the i875P (PAT) chipset and then migrated to the Intel 925X, will also remain in the new Glenwood version.

Support for "flagship" chipset system bus 800 MHz is not a tribute to compatibility with older Pentium 4 or Celeron processors. Rather, it is aimed at supporting the first processors with the Smithfield core, which, due to the 2-core architecture and related issues of increased power consumption, will initially still only support 800 MHz FSB. And, as has already been repeatedly stated in print, with lower clock frequencies than modern P4s.

As for the replacement for the Intel 915, both chipsets expected at the time of announcement will support the PCI Express x16 slot (and no AGP!). Two versions will remain traditional - the discrete version Lakeport-P and Lakeport-G with built-in graphics core, but nothing has been heard about the GV/GL variants yet. Not surprising, since even the i915GV/GL appeared recently and differ mainly in system integrators. They say different things about the graphics integrated into Lakeport-G, but it looks like it will be either the current DirectX 9 core GMA 900 with clock frequency 333 MHz, or its “overclocked” version. As for ADD2 expansion cards, which can support a second display with CRT, LCD, TV and HDTV formats, there is talk of further expanding the feature set and video output capabilities with something like ADD2+.

At the stage of launching a new generation of chipsets, Intel is finally and irrevocably abandoning support for DDR1 memory. In return, DDR2-667 certification appears, manufacturers promise samples of which by the first quarter, and mass quantities by the second quarter of 2005, right in time for the start of deliveries of boards to Glenwood/Lakeport. The step, of course, is bold, since the cost of DDR2-533 modules is still slightly higher than the prices for DDR400. However, perhaps Intel believes that by the time Lakeport chipset deliveries begin, prices for DDR400/DDR2-533 will already be equal.

As shown in the table above, the older Glenwood chipset supports up to 8GB of memory in 4 slots. By the time boards appear on it, along with modules on chips with a capacity of 256 Mbit and 512 Mbit, versions on 1 Gbit chips will be quite widely available. Nothing is known yet about support for EM64T (AMD64) instructions, but most likely systems on the Glenwood chipset will be designed for 64-bit instructions.

South bridges ICH7

The new ICH7 family of southbridges, upon closer inspection, are also improvements to the ICH6 with the same 2.0 Gb/s Direct Media Interface (DMI) interbridge connection. As you know, by adding and/or combining RAID and Wi-Fi support, it was assumed that in addition to the basic ICH6, versions ICH6R, ICH6W and ICH6RW would appear on the market. It ended with the last two remaining on paper, and the public, puzzled by the integration wireless networks into a desktop PC, I had to buy external ones Wi-Fi devices or kits from manufacturers with an included PCI card.

Meanwhile, the East Fork strategy will still support Wi-Fi, at least in part of the digital home platforms. So far, Intel does not promise new south bridges with Wi-Fi support. There are already some leaks coming from manufacturers in Taiwan on this topic; they say that when the first samples of chips with the Smithfield core appear, a special IEEE802.11a/b/g Caswell 2 module will be presented. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end will do without integrating elements of wireless controllers into the south bridge, it is already hot enough without it. :)

The list of new south bridges includes five versions of ICH7. This refers to the basic ICH7, ICH7DH (Digital Home, basic for family entertainment PCs), ICH7DO (Digital Office, SOHO-class digital office), ICH7DE (Digital Enterprise, something very productive with support for RAID levels 5, 0, 1 and 10 , for enterprises) and the trivial ICH7R, with support for RAID levels 0, 1 and 10.

New south bridges of the ICH7 series:

Of course, the first thing that catches your eye is the increase in the number of PCI Express x1 slots (or buses, that is, lanes) from four in ICH6 to six in some versions of ICH7. For advanced producers motherboards this fact will allow you to make your own versions of SLI motherboards on Intel desktop chipsets.

Another improvement is more interesting: now there is support for Serial ATA 300 (Serial ATA II) with the same number of integrated ports. And the most significant difference between the new south bridges and each other is the set of RAID levels that changes from version to version. True, RAID5, which appeared for the first time, will be typical only for the ICH7DE version.

Only the ICH7DE southbridge is planned to support Intel AMT (Intel Active Management Technology) software technology. This cannot be described in a nutshell, technology implies new level active management and control of enterprise resources, from operational diagnostics and administration to planning resource development strategies, etc. Even such miracles as remotely turning on client PCs, upgrading the operating system, data recovery and much more will be available. AMT was talked about a lot at the latest Intel Developer Forums in San Francisco and Moscow; those who are interested can read briefly about this technology. I haven't delved into this in detail yet, but according to Intel management, implementing AMT could give the company an annual 10% cost savings on enterprise resource management.

EnergyLake technology, which will appear as part of the ICH7DH southbridge for “digital homes”, involves development on the currently pressing topic of energy saving. I don't know the details about this technology yet.

But we can already say that simultaneously with the new Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets, two LAN chips for the PCI Express bus will debut: Tekoa with support for Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-T) and Ekron with support for Fast Ethernet (100BASE-TX). The Tekoa chip with the PCI Express bus, among other things, is interesting in terms of reduced power consumption compared to the previously promoted Northway GbE chip, as well as support for iAMT technology.

Rest functionality the ICH7 family is practically known to us from the previous generation. Of course, Intel HDA (High Definition Audio) technology will be fully present with support for 7.1 audio codec, Dolby Digital/DTS systems and VoIP (Voice-over-IP) technology. Eight USB 2.0 ports will remain unchanged.

A few words about what will follow the Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets in the future. The Internet is already telling scary tales about the Broadwater North Bridge paired with ICH8. The chipset will support the mythical Allendale/Millville chips with DSB 800/1066 MHz, the new DMI bus with throughput 1 Gb/s in both directions, 2-channel DDR-2 533/667 and DDR3-800 memory, and its integrated version will have fourth-generation Intel graphics. However, all this is still in the eerie prospect, since the release of Broadwater is not planned until the end of 2006.

In conclusion, we can guess a little about the timing of the start of deliveries of Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets and motherboards based on them. Rumors from Taiwanese OEMs say that trial shipments of new A0 stepping chipsets will begin towards the end of the 4th quarter of 2004, that is, before the New Year. I would not be surprised if the East Fork strategy, complete with new chipsets and processors, will be announced with pomp at the spring Intel Developer Forum, which traditionally will be held in February. So, if nothing goes wrong, the first samples may appear in the news and reviews before March, and we will see enough mass samples of boards at the CeBIT exhibition. All that's left is to survive the winter. :)