Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
In the following sections, let's examine the popular chipsets used from the 486 to the
present.
Intel's Early 386/486 Chipsets
Intel's first real PC motherboard chipset was the 82350 chipset for the 386DX and 486
processors.Thischipsetwasnotsuccessful,mainlybecausetheEISAbuswasnotpopular
and many other manufacturers were making standard 386 and 486 motherboard chipsets
at the time. The market changed quickly, and Intel dropped the EISA bus support and in-
troduced follow-up 486 chipsets that were much more successful.
Table 4.10
shows the Intel 486 chipsets.
Table 4.10 Intel 486 Motherboard Chipsets
The 420 series chipsets were the first to introduce the North/South Bridge design.
Fifth-Generation (P5 Pentium Class) Chipsets
WiththeadventofthePentiumprocessorinMarch1993,IntelintroduceditsfirstPentium
chipset: the 430LX chipset (code-named Mercury). This was the first Pentium chipset on
the market and set the stage as Intel captured this lead and ran with it. Other manufactur-
ers took months to a year or more to get their Pentium chipsets out the door. Since the
debut of its Pentium chipsets, Intel has dominated the chipset market for Intel processors.
Table4.11
showstheIntelPentiummotherboardchipsets.Notethatnoneofthesechipsets
supports AGP; Intel first added support for AGP in its chipsets for the Pentium II/Celeron
processors.
