Every computer purchase, every motherboard upgrade, every CPU buying decisions comes back to the same thing: the system chipset. If the CPU is the brain of your PC, the chipset is its heart. It controls the flow of bits that travel between the CPU, system memory, and the motherboard bus. Efficient data transfers, fast expansion bus support, and advanced power management features are just a few of the things the system chipset is reponsible for. 

Intel's Slot 1 CPUs are currently the fastest CPUs available for PCs and Slot 1 is a CPU interface patented by Intel. This is why there is no other CPU manufacturer producing Slot 1 CPUs currently. Slot 1 offers Intel's GTL+ bus protocol, known from the Pentium Pro CPU, which hosts the so called dual independend bus (DIB), which means that the Slot 1 CPUs have one bus which they use to communicate with the memory and system devices like the PCI and AGP bus and another bus for communication with the second level cache, which is built into the Pentium II CPU cartridges. GTL+ is particularly helpful for multi CPU systems and is a protocol that is patented by Intel as well. This means to other chipset manufacturers that they have to license the GTL+ protocol from Intel if they want to design their own Slot 1 chipsets.

Current Slot 1 CPUs are the Pentium II in the two flavors of 66 and 100 MHz front side bus (FSB) and the Celeron, which is nothing else than a Pentium II core without the second level cache and only designed for 66 MHz FSB.

The Intel® 440LX AGPset introduced Accelerated Graphics Port capability to the Intel architecture PC platform. This popular chip set provides a fundamental building block for balanced platform performance in a wide variety of Pentium® II processor-based desktop systems.

This chip set is a great solution for designers who wish to improve performance in volume desktop PCs, especially with data or memory-intensive applications such as multimedia graphics and video that require concurrent data transfers within the system.

The Intel 440LX AGPset also supports a manageable client or server in networked business computing environments to reduce the total cost of ownership.

The Intel 440LX AGPset introduced Intel's Quad Port Acceleration optimization for the Pentium(r) II processor. Enhanced features include distributed arbitration and support for up to four outstanding transactions from the CPU in the buffer.

Designed with a feature set tuned for the Basic PC market segment, the Intel® 440EX AGPset balances the Intel® Celeron™ processor system performance. The result: a new generation of cost-effective PCs with the added performance feature of the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP).

Based on the core technology of the Intel® 440LX AGPset, the Intel 440EX AGPset allows designers to easily implement support for popular multimedia computing graphics and applications on volume-priced Basic PC platforms. The Intel 440EX AGPset helps deliver the popular multimedia computing applications such as 3D graphics, DVD-ROM applications and video on the Basic PC platform. The chip set complements AGP even further by supporting 66-MHz SDRAM for improved memory performance.

Good Performance and Low Cost of Ownership

The Intel 440EX AGPset is also ACPI-compliant, providing the cost-of-ownership advantages of advanced power management to small business and home office PCs.

Support for Ultra DMA/33 allows designers to implement the latest high-speed disk drives. The 440EX AGPset also brings Universal Serial Bus (USB) capability to the Basic PC market segment.

Intel's BX chipset is the first PC chipset that is offering a system or front side bus that runs at 100 MHz and therefore enables a higher memory bandwidth as the common 66 MHz FSB used to.

Intel® 440BX AGPset

The Intel® 440BX AGPset is the first chip set to deliver 100-MHz system level bandwidth to unleash the full performance of the Intel® Pentium® II processors at 350-MHz or 400-MHz. In addition, the Mobile Intel® 440BX chip set is the first chip set to bring Pentium II processor performance to mobile systems.

The Intel 440BX AGPset improves system performance by increasing the bandwidth of the system bus from 66MHz to 100MHz.

Highest System Performance through Technology Innovation

The chip set features Intel's Quad Port Acceleration (QPA) to improve bandwidth between the Pentium II processor, the Accelerated Graphics Port, 100-MHz SDRAM and the PCI bus. QPA combines enhanced bus arbitration, deeper buffers, open-page memory architecture and ECC memory control to improve system performance.

Ultimate Design Flexibility

The Intel 440BX AGPset provides developers with maximum design flexibility by delivering one chip set for both 66MHz and 100MHz system designs. Now, one basic motherboard design supports all Pentium II processor speeds from 233MHz to 400MHz. This flexibility can save engineering resources while maximizing use of investments in BIOS, software development and compatibility testing.

Closing the Gap Between the Desktop and Mobile

The Intel 440BX chip set architecture supports Mobile Intel Pentium II processor performance—bringing desktop-like performance to mobile PCs. It also enables mobile systems to benefit from advanced power management and Wired for Management capabilities, allowing mobile platforms to function much like desktop systems when connected to a network.