Another improvement that the i840 offers is full AGP4X support. Offering a strong video bandwidth pipeline, up to 1GB/sec, was critical to Intel, as the 3D workstation's role is clearly one of video image manipulation on a grand scale.
The i840 implementation of AGP4X centers on what Intel calls "AGP Pro 50/110" which is an electrical/chemical/thermal spec not tied to bus speed implementation. Up to 1GB/sec of textures can be swapped between the main memory banks and the video accelerator via the i840's AGP Pro architecture.
The i840 is a strong improvement over the previous generation 440GX chipset in terms of sheer specifications; we'll know more about the platform's true abilities when we begin to receive aftermarket mainboards designed around it. And to answer what is sure to be a popular question regarding the i840, No, it is not affected by the RDRAM bus bug that has delayed the i820 thus far.
Ever since the August 9th debut of AMD's strong Athlon series of CPUs, the public has been waiting for the other shoe to drop and in this case the other shoe is Intel's new Coppermine core architecture.
Offering a host of improvements versus the somewhat dated technology behind current Katmai based Pentium IIIs, the Coppermine seeks to reestablish Intel as the performance leader within the desktop segment of the PC market.
Does it succeed? More on this question later. For now, let's delve into the design and goals of the Coppermine architecture.