"Good news to consumers. Intel has changed its mind to give P965 to support the upcoming quad-core Kentsfield processors. Kentsfield is Intel’s first quad-core desktop processor for extreme users in which Intel pushed to appear no after than this year. In the original plan, 975X chipset is the only one supporting the new processors. But two weeks ago, manufacturers have received surprising news that Intel had changed its mind to give P965 a new pose.
However, the road to make P965 to support quad-core Kentsfield Processors is not that easy. Besides VRM (Voltage Regulator Module) 11.0, it also requires a set of GTLREF Voltage Dividers containing 124 Ohm Pull Up Resistor and a set of 210 Ohm Pull Down Resistor with 1 uF capacitor, which are used to connect pin G10 and F2 of the processor. As some of the P965 products are designed not following these rules, which is not supposed previously, it’s not all P965 products could give support to quad-core Kentsfield Processors. For those manufacturers which used 975X based design to make P965 products, fortunately, they are escaped from redesigning to give support. We suggest users better to ask whether it support Kentsfield before buying P965 product, expanding your upgrade ability.
Manufactures, on the other hand, are unhappy to the recent changes of strategy, like the ever-ended changes in the specification of chipset, also the weak memory performance in P965 and the late in driver development of G965.
The first Desktop quad-core processor is originally scheduled in 2007 Q1, yet it has been pushed earlier to 2006 Q4, according to the latest roadmap from Intel. It would be a member of Core 2 Extreme family for high-end users. While the official name has not been decided yet, the specification is confirmed to be using Socket 775, 65nm manufacturing process, clocked at 2.66GHz with 4MB L2 x2 Cache at 1066MHZ FSB, and supporting Enhanced Intel Speedstep, Intel Virtualization and Execute Bit Disable.
Kentsfield is a quad-core product based on Core architecture. It’s made from combining two Conroe core together, similar to dual-core Presler, where L2 Cache is separated for each code and the transfer between have to make use of FSB and the north bridge. The price is set at $999, following the traditional price for the most high-end Core 2 Extreme product. Its performance-to-cost would sure be in great advantage than AMD Athlon 64 FX-64, the high-end product from AMD releasing in Q4 also."
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