This article originally appeared on Hardware Central.

The April release of the Intel 875P chipset was a very impressive one, and when coupled with the Pentium 4/3.0C processor, it opened a whole new door to high-end performance. The i875P was Intel's first workstation-slash-desktop performance chipset, and this showed clearly in the benchmarks, as the P4/3.0C used its 800MHz front-side bus and the i875P's dual-channel DDR400 memory controller to speed to victory. Intel is famous for this sort of dual-pronged attack, but never was it more evident.

The only problem was the limited appeal of this high-end hardware -- with i875P motherboards carrying a significant premium and the Pentium 4/3.0C being the most expensive desktop CPU on the market, it seemed only lottery winners need apply. Today, the picture is becoming clearer, as Intel has transitioned the 800MHz front-side bus, dual-channel DDR400, and even Hyper-Threading technology into a set of products with definite mainstream appeal and price tags to match. These include the i865 "Springdale" line of chipsets and the new Pentium 4/2.8C, 2.6C, and 2.4C processors, which add up to what may be Intel's most significant and anticipated desktop release to date.

The i865 Springdales into Action

Intel has made a fetish of releasing a dizzying array of chipsets, each hitting a specific market niche. This was obvious with the i845 series, which included a wide range of mainstream, integrated-graphics, and value models, with feature sets and price points to please any system builder. Springdale follows this pattern with three models: the i865PE for mainstream buyers, the i865G with integrated graphics, and the i865P for entry-level systems.

A direct evolution of the i845PE, the i865PE upgrades Celeron and Pentium 4 front-side bus support to 800MHz as well as 533MHz and 400MHz, while adding a dual-channel DDR400 (or DDR333 or DDR266) memory controller to the mix. The i865G is essentially the same thing plus integrated Intel Extreme Graphics 2; the latter is not really a big leap over the not-really-3D-game-worthy i845GE, but does make use of dual-channel DDR to make its shared-memory architecture a bit more powerful.

The last chipset on the list, the i865P, is the most confusing or let-the-buyer-beware member of the family: It's basically a watered-down i856PE, with support for only 400MHz- and 533MHz-bus processors and a dual-channel controller limited to DDR333 and DDR266 speeds. Supposedly, its lower price is its selling point, but judging by the motherboards we've seen, saving a few bucks on the i865P isn't worth the serious loss of performance features.

Otherwise, the Springdale chipset shares a great deal with its big brother, the i875P -- especially the i865PE, which boasts the same 800MHz front-side bus and dual-DDR400 support. If that were the end of the story, the more costly i875P would have a very short shelf life. To differentiate the two, however, Intel has reserved its Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT) for the i875P. Arguably less of a separate technology than a top level of quality-control inspection, this feature permits upgraded timings when using DDR400 memory. The real-world performance gain depends on the application, but remains a valid reason for hardcore enthusiasts to pay a bit more for an i875P motherboard.

As with the i875P, all i865-series chipsets share Intel's ICH5 or ICH5R Southbridge component, which include support for Serial ATA, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, 6-channel audio, and USB 2.0, with the ICH5R adding RAID 0 to the mix. This is a nice feature of the i865 line, ensuring that Springdale desktop buyers will get the same Southbridge feature set as workstation shoppers.

New P4s, New Performance

Providing a mainstream 800MHz-bus chipset is all well and good, but it'd be a pretty short ride if i865 customers needed to fork over the cash for the Pentium 4/3.0C processor. Thankfully, Intel has filtered the faster bus down to the more affordable new Pentium 4/2.8C, 2.6C, and 2.4C chips.

The main enhancements of these new D1 core revisions compared to their 533MHz-bus "Northwood" predecessors are support for the faster front-side bus and Hyper-Threading technology. Shoppers reading catalog listings will need to look sharp so as not to confuse the new chips with their same-clock-speed predecessors, or the Pentium 4/3.0C with the Pentium 4/3.06; the last is still the only 533MHz-bus CPU with Hyper-Threading.

For the most part, the new C-class CPUs challenge, if not surpass, the next-highest 533MHz-bus Pentium 4 when it comes to overall system performance. In other words, the Pentium 4/2.6C gives the Pentium 4/2.8 a good run for the money, as does the Pentium 4/2.4C to the Pentium 4/2.53.

Ironically, this also creates something of a problem concerning performance levels as they relate to core speed; for example, Intel currently has 400MHz, 533MHz, and now 800MHz versions of the 2.4GHz Pentium 4, but their performance is quite different. If the company continues to offer multiple CPUs with the same clock speed, it may be time for Intel to join AMD in the performance-rating camp.

As for would-be workstation racers, the i865PE falls behind the i875P due to the latter's Performance Acceleration Technology, but this is only a factor when using an 800MHz-bus processor and dual-channel DDR400. When tested with 533MHz-bus Pentium 4 chips, the race is close to even. Still, the i875P remains the big dog and the best performance base for Pentium 4 desktops.

A Release for all Seasons

The Springdale chipset family (well, at least two-thirds of it) is a superb release on its own, but when combined with Intel's three new 800MHz-bus Pentium 4 CPUs, it climbs to industry-shaking status. This is a platform that not only provides high-end workstation performance at a mainstream price, but can also make existing 533MHz- and even 400MHz-bus P4 models faster.