Intel Skulltrail

Last updated

Skulltrail is an enthusiast gaming platform released by Intel on February 19, 2008. It is based on Intel's 5400 "Seaburg" workstation chipset. The primary difference between Skulltrail and Intel's current and past enthusiast chipsets is a dual CPU socket design that allows two processors to operate on the same motherboard. Therefore, Skulltrail can operate eight processing cores on one system. The platform supports two Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors (commonly mistaken for the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which is the LGA775 counterpart), which operate at 3.2 GHz.

Contents

Skulltrail was one of the first platforms to support SLI on chipsets not designed by Nvidia. It achieves this by including two NVIDIA nForce 100 PCIe 1.1 switch chips (two x16 to one x16). The implementation of SLI supports Quad SLI technology, which is achieved through the use of two dual-GPU graphics cards from NVIDIA, including the GeForce 9800 GX2. This gives a total of four graphics processors. Owners of Skulltrail systems can also make use of up to four ATI graphics cards using ATI CrossFireX technology, which made SkullTrail the only platform to support both SLI and CrossFire with public drivers at the time of release. The HP Firebird 803 also supported SLI on one (proprietary, MXM) motherboard at the time, but the drivers were special and only available for Firebird hardware.

Public demonstrations

Intel demonstrated Skulltrail at the Fall 2007 Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, California, and at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Skulltrail has a front side bus rate of 400 MHz (1600 MHz QDR), and was demonstrated with two 45 nanometer High-κ processors running at 3.2 GHz. During the IDF, a 4.0 GHz phase cooled Skulltrail system was demonstrated. Then on October 22, 2007, the two processors were demonstrated running at 4.4 GHz with water cooling. They were demonstrated again on October 31, 2007, this time running at 5.0 GHz, with phase change cooling. On April 18, 2008, Tom's Hardware, reporting from an Overclocking Enthusiast site, reported that an overclocked speed of 6.006 GHz was achieved on an 8-core Skulltrail setup.

System components

Core 2 Extreme QX9775

Intel D5400XS motherboard

Criticisms and issues

Although found to be an extremely powerful computing platform, Skulltrail was criticized by media outlets for being "ahead of its time". This is in part due to the lack of support for multi-core computing with almost all popular game engines at the time, in addition to the extremely high price of the components involved. The use of FB-DIMMs due to the workstation chipset has also been pointed at as a major limiting factor for Skulltrail. [1] [2] [3] although this limitation can be mitigated by purchasing specially designed Kingston HyperX FB-DIMMS that have a lower latency than generic FB-DIMMs [4]

The base Skulltrail platform consists of an Intel D5400XS mainboard which cost upwards of US$600 when it hit the market as a standalone part. Computers based on the Skulltrail platform also require high-output power supplies for both the CPU and graphics cards, along with a computer chassis capable of accommodating the motherboard, which is based on an Extended ATX form factor design. However, Atomic reported that they could accommodate cheaper Xeon server microprocessors that fit in the LGA-771 socket, which was corroborated by Intel's official processor support list. [5]

Intel's Skulltrail D5400XS motherboard was made with two nForce chips. The Skulltrail D5400XS motherboard became now just one of the motherboards available, along with motherboards with X58 and P55 chipsets, that runs both nVidia's SLI and ATI's Crossfire platforms out of the box with public hardware drivers.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mini-ITX</span> 17 × 17 cm motherboard

Mini-ITX is a 170 mm × 170 mm motherboard form factor developed by VIA Technologies in 2001. Mini-ITX motherboards have been traditionally used in small-configured computer systems. Originally, Mini-ITX was a niche standard designed for fanless cooling with a low power consumption architecture, which made them useful for home theater PC systems, where fan noise can detract from the cinema experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slot 1</span> Physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some Intel microprocessors

Slot 1 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, including the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II and the Pentium III. Both single and dual processor configurations were implemented.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGA 775</span> Intel desktop CPU socket

LGA 775, also known as Socket T, is an Intel desktop CPU socket. Unlike PGA CPU sockets, such as its predecessor Socket 478, LGA 775 has no socket holes; instead, it has 775 protruding pins which touch contact points on the underside of the processor (CPU).

nForce4 Motherboard chipset

The nForce4 is a motherboard chipset released by Nvidia in October 2004. The chipset supports AMD 64-bit processors and Intel Pentium 4 LGA 775 processors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scalable Link Interface</span> Brand name; multi-GPU technology by Nvidia

Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is the brand name for a now discontinued multi-GPU technology developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output. SLI is a parallel processing algorithm for computer graphics, meant to increase the available processing power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dell XPS</span> Line of high performance computers manufactured by Dell

Dell XPS is a line of consumer-oriented laptop and desktop computers manufactured by Dell since 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pentium D</span> Family of Intel microprocessors

Pentium D is a range of desktop 64-bit x86-64 processors based on the NetBurst microarchitecture, which is the dual-core variant of the Pentium 4 manufactured by Intel. Each CPU comprised two cores. The brand's first processor, codenamed Smithfield and manufactured on the 90 nm process, was released on May 25, 2005, followed by the 65 nm Presler nine months later. The core implementation on the 90 nm Smithfield and later 65 nm Presler are designed differently but are functionally the same. The 90 nm Smithfield contains a single die, with two adjoined but functionally separate CPU cores cut from the same wafer. The later 65 nm Presler utilized a multi-chip module package, where two discrete dies each containing a single core reside on the CPU substrate. Neither the 90 nm Smithfield nor the 65 nm Presler were capable of direct core to core communication, relying instead on the northbridge link to send information between the two cores.

The Intel Core microarchitecture is a multi-core processor microarchitecture launched by Intel in mid-2006. It is a major evolution over the Yonah, the previous iteration of the P6 microarchitecture series which started in 1995 with Pentium Pro. It also replaced the NetBurst microarchitecture, which suffered from high power consumption and heat intensity due to an inefficient pipeline designed for high clock rate. In early 2004 the new version of NetBurst (Prescott) needed very high power to reach the clocks it needed for competitive performance, making it unsuitable for the shift to dual/multi-core CPUs. On May 7, 2004 Intel confirmed the cancellation of the next NetBurst, Tejas and Jayhawk. Intel had been developing Merom, the 64-bit evolution of the Pentium M, since 2001, and decided to expand it to all market segments, replacing NetBurst in desktop computers and servers. It inherited from Pentium M the choice of a short and efficient pipeline, delivering superior performance despite not reaching the high clocks of NetBurst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intel 440BX</span> Chipset from Intel

The Intel 440BX is a chipset from Intel, supporting Pentium II, Pentium III, and Celeron processors. It is also known as the i440BX and was released in April 1998. The official part number is 82443BX.

The Xpress 3200 is a revision of the Xpress 200 computer chipset released by ATI. The chipset supports AMD64 processors for Socket 939 and Socket AM2.

The AMD Quad FX platform is an AMD platform targeted at enthusiasts which allows users to plug two Socket F Athlon 64 FX or 2-way Opteron processors (CPUs) into a single motherboard for a total of four physical cores. This is a type of dual processor setup, where two CPUs are installed on a motherboard to increase computing power. The major difference between the platform and past dual processor systems like Xeon is that each processor has its own dedicated memory stores. The Quad FX platform also has HyperTransport capability targeted toward consumer platforms.

AMD 580 chipset series is a computer chipset series designed by the AMD Graphics Product Group, for the AMD processors. It was designed for usage with ATI's CrossFire Multi GPU Technology, with both PCI Express slots running at x16 lanes each.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandy Bridge</span> Intel processor microarchitecture

Sandy Bridge is the codename for Intel's 32 nm microarchitecture used in the second generation of the Intel Core processors. The Sandy Bridge microarchitecture is the successor to Nehalem and Westmere microarchitecture. Intel demonstrated an A1 stepping Sandy Bridge processor in 2009 during Intel Developer Forum (IDF), and released first products based on the architecture in January 2011 under the Core brand.

The nForce 600 chipset was released in the first half of November 2006, coinciding with the GeForce 8 series launch on November 8, 2006. The nForce 600 supports Intel's LGA 775 socket and AMD's Quad FX platform and replaces the nForce 500 series.

The AMD 700 chipset series is a set of chipsets designed by ATI for AMD Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand. Several members were launched in the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008, others launched throughout the rest of 2008.

The AMD 690 chipset series is an integrated graphics chipset family which was developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI for both AMD and Intel platforms focusing on both desktop and mobile computing markets. The corresponding chipset for the Intel platform has a marketing name of Radeon Xpress 1200 series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ThinkStation</span> Line of professional workstations by Lenovo

ThinkStation is a brand of professional workstations from Lenovo announced in November 2007 and then released in January 2008. They are designed to be used for high-end computing and computer-aided design (CAD) tasks and primarily compete with other enterprise workstation lines, such as Dell's Precision, HP's Z line, Acer's Veriton K series, and Apple's Mac Pro line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGA 1151</span> Intel microprocessor compatible socket

LGA 1151, also known as Socket H4, is a type of zero insertion force flip-chip land grid array (LGA) socket for Intel desktop processors which comes in two distinct versions: the first revision which supports both Intel's Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs, and the second revision which supports Coffee Lake CPUs exclusively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dell Inspiron desktop computers</span> Desktop computer series by Dell

On June 26, 2007, Dell released the new Inspiron desktop series, under the Dell Inspiron branding, as a replacement to the Dell Dimension desktop computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raptor Lake</span> Line of Intel microprocessors, released in 2022

Raptor Lake is Intel's codename for the 13th and 14th generations of Intel Core processors based on a hybrid architecture, utilizing Raptor Cove performance cores and Gracemont efficient cores. Like Alder Lake, Raptor Lake is fabricated using Intel's Intel 7 process. Raptor Lake features up to 24 cores and 32 threads and is socket compatible with Alder Lake systems. Like earlier generations, Raptor Lake processors also need accompanying chipsets. Raptor Lake CPUs have suffered issues with permanent damage from elevated voltage due to a vulnerable clock tree circuit, resulting in instability. Intel claims these issues have been since fixed in the latest microcode patches, which requires updating the motherboard's BIOS.

References

  1. ↑ Kinky Luxury: Intel Skulltrail Platform Review Archived 2008-05-03 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ Intel Skulltrail Unleashed: Core 2 Extreme QX9775 × 2
  3. ↑ "Intel Skulltrail Preview". Archived from the original on 2008-05-27. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  4. ↑ "Legit Reviews - Technology News & Reviews".
  5. ↑ Intel Processors and Boards Compatibility Tool
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.