First, let's start with what Intel's now offering to the desktop market. The basis of all of these new technologies are their two new chipsets, the Intel 925X and 915G. Below you can see the block diagrams of these chipsets and you'll notice a lot of the new technology right off the bat.
925X 915G
Click To Maginfy Click to Maginfy
The differences between these two solutions are small. In fact, the only changes you'll see in the diagrams is support for DDR memory on the 915G chipset and the 915G's integrated graphics. Other than that, Intel claims to have enhanced the memory controller on the 925X over the 915G similarly to what they did between the 875P and 865PE chipsets. Other sites have shown that the real-world benefits of this are measurable but not significant. Honestly, you won't be seeing a lot of 915G boards in the mainstream PC market as they aren't significantly cheaper to manufacture and they manufacturers won't see much demand for the slower solution in the retail market. Many direct PC retailers though will most likely jump on the 915G though to save on the cost of an external graphics solution and save every cent on the chipset itself.
Intel D925XCV Motherboard LGA775 Processor Bottom
LGA775 Socket Open LGA775 Socket Closed
Above is the board that we'll be using and a look at the new Intel LGA775 socket. The D925XCV is Intel's top desktop board and a reference design for other 925X boards to come. This board shows off all of the new features of the 925X including the LGA775 socket, DDR2 memory, and the new PCI-Express bus. First, socket LGA775 is Intel's answer to bent pins on expensive chips and their way of adding 297 pins to Intel's chip. With LGA775 Intel has taken the pins and placed them into the socket rather than on the processor. Now you will simply find pads on the chip that the socket pins will push against to make the connection. The theory is that it's better to replace a $100 motherboard instead of a $400 chip. There have been some concerns over the sockets being more fragile than the processors ever were and that it's too easy to bend the pins. From our experience, if you're careful to only move vertically with the processor and that you don't slide it side-to-side, all works very well. We think this was a good move and that this will just require move care on the installer's end. With the new locking mechanism, the processor is very secure. The new push-pin installation for the heatsink is one of the best designs we've seen in quite some time. It's extremely easy to install and uninstall with little to no chance in damaging the chip.
