Intel Pentium D 820 May Be Incompatible with Third Party Chipsets

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Intel Pentium D processor model 820 may not be compatible with at least some of the chipsets by third party designers, according to ASUS, NVIDIA and X-bit labs performance testing experience. The lowest-speed grade dual-core processor from Intel does not work properly on some of NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition-based mainboards, it emerged.

“Yes, ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe motherboard does [support Pentium D 820 processor], but the Intel Pentium D 820 processor works only in single-core mode due to chipset limitation.,†claimed a statement over ASUSTeK Computer technology support web-site, which has been removed after the weekend.

NVIDIA’s spokesperson confirmed that the company had scrapped support for Intel Pentium D processor 820, which works at 2.80GHz, on its chipsets citing low demand for such chip from enthusiasts. NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipsets will only support Intel dual-core processors at 3.0GHz and above, including Intel Pentium D and Intel Pentium Extreme Edition products.

“We decided not to support the lowest performance 2.80GHz dual-core at this point. We expect very limited demand in the enthusiast and gaming segment for this SKU and we decided not to spend engineering resources qualifying it for now… We support 3.0GHz and above,†said Bryan Del Rizzo.

According to internal testing of Intel Pentium D 820 chip, the product does not run stably enough on NVIDIA reference nForce4 SLI Intel Edition mainboard as well as ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe mainboard. Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840, which is also Intel dual-core desktop chip that is even more advanced, works fine on the mentioned platforms.NVIDIA Claims Support for Lowest-Speed Intel Dual-Core Chip Scrapped

Intel’s first family of dual-core chips for desktops originally code-named Smithfield consists of Intel Pentium D 800-series as well as Intel Pentium Extreme Edition central processing units. Initial Intel Pentium D 800-series central processing units use 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, integrate 2MB (1MB per core) L2 cache and utilize LGA775 form-factor. The dual-core desktop processors will be made using 90nm process technology, each processing engine will use the same architecture with the current Pentium 4 “Prescott†chip and will sport EM64T, EDB as well as Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technologies. Intel Pentium D processors will not enable Hyper-Threading technology leaving this as a prerogative of Intel Pentium Extreme Edition processor 840.

Some sources reported that Intel’s dual-core Intel Pentium D products will be relatively affordable: $241, $316 or $530 – depending on the speed-bin and model – for 820 (2.80GHz), 830 (3.00GHz) or 840 (3.20GHz) chips respectively. Intel Pentium Extreme Edition processor 840 that also runs at 3.20GHz, but with HT technology enabled, costs $999 in 1000-unit quantities and is available now from PC makers like Dell.

Intel Corp. did not comment on the news-story.

Source: XBitLabs

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Pretty interesting

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For Intel its New Core - New Socket - New chipset , that creates problems
Why dont Intel have a single socket just like AMD has its S939

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I readf somewhere that nVidia will not even bother to add 820 into their compatible processsors list, coz they want to serve only the enthusiasts…

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AMD X2 proccys will not work on VIA k8t890 chipsets. Its just not Intel with issues here infact even many of mobos with NF4 chipsets will have probs.

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The article suggests otherwise, it says “NVIDIA Claims Support for Lowest-Speed Intel Dual-Core Chip Scrapped”

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The broken support for X2 on K8T890 is VIA’s fault. They made a change in chipset which caused this.
Old K8t800 and K8t800 pro are still compatiable with dual core. That says it all.
All other S939 boards with ULI/Nvidia/sis/Via chipsets are X2 compatiable.
On the other hand Intel was reluctant to give details of its dual core to the 3rd party chip makers and thats the reason for the problems that we may see.

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How can a slower-speed Dual core not be compatible, yet a higher clocked Dual core be perfectly fine? Isnt there just a difference of clock-speed between the two, or am i missing something else?

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^^There are some architectural differences between 820 and the higher end 840 series like 840 series would support features like hyperthreading, virtualization technology, etc which is absent in 820 series

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guys i have Pentium D 930.
how is that one?