Intel Corporation confirmed today that its current mainboards will not support certain future processors by announcing design changes for its D875PBZ, D865GBF, D865GLC products. The first mainboards from Intel with support for Prescott processor will come next month.
The strangest fact is that Intel seems to had known the possible problems with Prescott support long ago, on the stage of its mainboard product design late last year!
Basically, the changes imply enhancement of the CPU VREG for future processor support. The enhancement involves load line changes for future processors, new (G)MCH VTT support as well as support for dual load lines (needed for 4-phase power that is available on some mainboards). Additionally, Intel will provide new BIOS versions for the new mainboards.
The full list of changes is available in this document at Intel’s web-site. Pay attention to the fact that Intel does not add anything new to the PCB design or layout, but only changes some elements. The PCB layout of Intel’s mainboards was developed in order to provide more current for the processor and support CPUs with enhanced power requirements. The reason why Intel decided not to utilize the design that supports Prescott chips for sure from the beginning remains unclear, but obviously in order to save some $3-$5.
There are hopes that some mainboard makers were not saving a couple of dollars on components and some current mainboards will support Prescott processors for sure.
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