whats the differences between the springdale and canterwood chipsets?

i looked up on newegg and they got the msi springdale chipset... and a truck load of canterwood motherboards... they both support the new 800fsb p4's... (i'm basing my assumption on the msi board.... are tehre some springdales that don't?)

both support dual channel ddr.....
both have serial ata
both have agp 8x...

only difference i see is that one is more expensive than the other?

I am sorry for the noob post but i have been away for a long time... Hopefully you guys can forgive me?

No problem, its a good question.

The most important difference is that the 875 chipset supports ECC memory. It also has a "performance booster" in the memory chipset that can boost memory performance in some applications. But the effects on application performance are marginal at best. Canterwood boards are, according to Intel, put together with the best of the chipset parts. This leads some to believe the Canterwoods will be the better overclockers.

A cynic (like yr.obt.svt.) would ask if the Canterwood is that much better, then why wouldn't Intel release both chipsets simultaneously? A board that performs even 5% better in applications would find a market even if it cost $100 more. (Witness the 850E.) The marketing people at Intel aren't dumb. They know this. But they chose to give the Canterwood a month head start and a lot of hype about its features.

If it walks and quacks like an ad campaign, that's probably what it is. I suspect that when the Springdale boards ship they are going to perform almost identically to the Canterwoods, and the people who paid large for a better board are going to be bent.





BHD