Intel 820 'Camino' Chipset

With the integrated video removed, the i820’s MCH is a fairly simple chip that controls the system, memory and AGP buses. The i82820 chip is the single chip that comprises the MCH and is the second desktop chipset to be manufactured using the 0.25-micron process.

The older LX/BX chipsets were made on Intel’s 0.35-micron process and towards the end of their life cycles began requiring heatsinks on the chips. The shrink to 0.25-micron seems to have removed the requirement for a heatsink, which is why you’ll see the MCH go bare on most if not all 820 motherboards.

The MCH, unlike the previous 443BX North Bridge chipset that we’re used to, supports both the 100MHz and 133MHz FSB frequencies. This means that the whining Intel did about VIA pushing the GTL+ bus to 133MHz with their Apollo Pro 133 was meaningless because that it what Intel is doing that right now. Notice the absence of the 66MHz FSB from that listing of officially supported FSB settings.

Until we get the final word from Intel, it seems like the 66MHz FSB has finally gotten the boot, meaning that the current 66MHz FSB Celerons will not work on i820 based motherboards unless they can handle the 100MHz FSB setting. This isn’t a huge loss because in the first half of next year we will see the introduction of the first 100MHz FSB Celeron processors, the Coppermine 128.

Because of this 133MHz FSB support, the MCH now supports the ½ AGP clock divider which we were first introduced to with VIA’s Apollo Pro 133 chipset allowing for the 133MHz FSB to be used while keeping your AGP frequency at 66MHz.

Other than the 133MHz FSB support, there are two new features the MCH provides that help define the 820 chipset as a new solution. The first of those two is the AGP 4X support provided by its AGP 2.0 compliant interface.