** OFFICIAL ** Intel DX38BT & DX48BT2 BoneTrail Thread

[Manel]

News from Intel, Thunderbolt (aka Light Peak) is out. Guess what, Apple was the first (and only so far) to get it, with their new MacBook Pro line. 10Gbps inside your PC!! I wonder ig the P67 inside the Macs is the faulty one! That would be funny.
It combines PCIe and Display Port data paths in the same cable. Devices are daisy-chainable.
It uses a discrete controller though, linking to the PCH via PCIe 4x and Display Port.
USB 3.0 watch out, could be dead before mainstream.
How soon will we see it integrated on chipsets? Well, you're guess is as good as mine. Since it's an added cost (extra controller), not so soon I'd guess. Only if Intel really wants to blow USB 3.0 out of the water asap.

[JohnZS]

Wonder if these expensive Apple enthusiasts are actually paying for the privilege to BETA test LightPeak for all us important PC users

[djs357]

1. JohnZS: they are allowing us poor folk to ride on the wonderous coat tails of Apple.
2. Manel, 67series bug doesn't matter in a laptop, only 2 drives anyway.
3. Waiting to see the full potential of Lightpeak... It really is a game changer. One physical medium, fully compatible with everything it transports. No obsolesence while moving forward, for the first time in almost 30 years.

[djs357]

Oh, BTW updated 3 machines here all are running great. Most issues uninstalling the RC on my machine. It went flawlessly on the others. Still got a few to go, but they can wait.

[Manel]

John, long time no see!!
djs, 'm sure Intel tested it out with Apple all the way. Still, 6 series was supposed to be also fully tested and guess what?!
Regarding the SATA issue, I know ports 0 and 1 (6Gpbs) are not affected (so far that we know of) but still, would you have it on your machine, even knowing you'd probably never need the extra (not working properly) ports? I wouldn't for sure. And that's considering the OEM used in fact ports 0 and 1, and not others. What about if you want to add an extra drive (if your laptop supports it)? Nah, not for me. I would have paid for a working product, not a half baked thing.
LP really should be something, if it strives. Driven by Intel it just might. Funny how they took something existing and made it (possibly) future proof.
Thinking of it, it's more an Apple thing really. I guess they had to be the first.
What if Steve Jobs doesn't come back? What do you think will be the future of Apple? Will it just die? Or only get back to a small niche?!

[JohnZS]

Hi Manuel
Indeed longtime no see in this thread.
You have an interesting point about what Apple would do without their Steve Jobs, but more to the point I personally would not have a 6 series chipset unless it was the fixed one, purely because even if I did not use the other SATA ports it is the thought of having something tainted/broken which would annoy me the most.

(And eventually I may need to use those ports!)

Intel Have released a BIOS testing tool (BITS)
This tests the coding and programming of your BIOS, I am curious what you guys who run X38 and X48 boards get. I do know that my Rampage Extreme (X48) fails a few tests...shame on ASUS

I am more hopeful for you on Intel.
John

[Manel]

My thoughts exactly John, if it's broken no thanks.
Cool tool there, I'll try it.
Everybody seems to have LightPeak/Thunderbolt now after all.

[Manel]

Panther Point will in fact come to be 7 series chipset for Ivy Bridge. Featuring SATA 3.0, USB 3.0 (first for Intel), PCIe 2.0 (sucks!), HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.1 finally.
Too bad PCIe 3.0 is missing. Still around a year to go though.
LightPeak is missing I guess, probably as an add-on as well, not integrated still.
Come on Intel, X78 with all the goodies!
Most manufacturers are already shipping B3 stepping 7 series boards it seems. With stickers stating bug free chipset.

[djs357]

Panther point will have PCIe 2.0, but the PCIe links on Ivy Bridge will be 3.0, mainly for PCIe graphics adapters.

[JohnZS]

Has anyone ran BITS yet on their DX38BT or DX48BT2?

John

[Manel]

djs, thanx for the tip. That's reasonable, graphics cards are in fact the best candidates for PCIe 3.0, although it should be far from saturated.
Still, not being present at PP is fail. But Intel did it before, in our case PCIe 2.0 on the MCH and PCIe 1.1 on the ICH.
OK, that might be enough for a while but with USB 3.0 and LP going mainstream (if ever) that could be a bottleneck soon. Considering SATA 6G ports (even only 2), add another 2 (?) USB 3.0 ports, some more of these with external controllers from 3rd parties, double G Ethernet and you've got your chipset on its knees.
Sorry John, not yet.

[Manel]

Probably the bottleneck problem will be on the CPU-chipset link, DMI still maybe?
Well, they didn't (I think) cap PCIe 3.0 bandwidth in half like they did in our PCIe 2.0 lanes.

[djs357]

The chipset/cpu bottleneck is the reason for the slower speed PCIe on Panther Point. You would have PCIe 3.0 in word only. It would never be able to run that fast. I think I'm gonna try the BITS on my DX58SO.

[petr0id]

Glad to see all of you kickin' and alive! Congrat's on > 100 pages progress 8)

Has anyone ran BITS yet on their DX38BT or DX48BT2?

John

Yes. And I was able to take some pictures:

01 02 03 04 05
06 07 08 09

01: MAIN MENU 02:Inside TEST MENU 03: Results looks great! What is MSR consistent? 04: Inside CONFIGURE MENU 05: Results of "MICROCODE CHECK" Replace microcode on CPU? Uh-oh! 06: Tried to "LOAD MICROCODE" 07: This is "EXPLORE MENU" 08: Detect SMI freq and lat results (interesting summary, how do i improve the latency?)
09: Inside C-State Exploration menu

[djs357]

Sorry,
But where ever you have posted them loads an AV trojan. On the lighter side, I ran BITS on the DX58SO. Completely not interesting no fails except the Managment interrupt latency being to long.

[petr0id]

Sorry,
But where ever you have posted them loads an AV trojan. On the lighter side, I ran BITS on the DX58SO. Completely not interesting no fails except the Managment interrupt latency being to long.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is installed on my machine and there were no virus alerts at all. Seems you have very tight security software... If You still receiving AV alerts, it seems imageshack is somehow involved/trojaned. From my side all clean. It's just images (.png in that case).

[Manel]

Hi petri0d, it's been long.
I haven't had a warning either, hope no surprises here.
It seems the DX38BT has a lot of Fails, good to know the DX58SO does not.
I believe there were in the download page John mentioned some remarks regarding latencies, not sure though.
Intel, shame on you! How's that for the BoneTrail!!

[Manel]

Minor BIOS update 0765 for the SO2/OG with only a fix.
All this time has passed and I haven't seen one of these boards yet. Anyone got one?

[Manel]

Intel previews the new Itanium Poulson processor, looks promising. Too bad it never really took off, bad marketing I guess. The EPIC architecture is too dependent on the compiler for runtime optimizations though. Better IPC.
Compatible with Tukwilla, which is good.
Still, 8 cores and 54MB cache, 3.1B transistors - that's overkill for the desktop of course.
Maybe sooner or later it will replace the good ol' x86 architecture!!

[Patyabc]

Dear Manel:
is there a new Inf file?
I hope you enlight me.
Thanks

[Manel]

Hey Paty, how've you been?
Latest INF for BoneTrail is 9.1.2.1008 dated November last year.
However, for the newer X58 boards (SmackOver 2) and P67 Burrage (all 6 series in fact) there is the 9.2.0.1025, which I'd say should support older chipsets as well, but not (yet) officially though.

Today the Radeon HD 6990 is out, reviews around the web. And later on the GTX 590. Let's see who wins this time around. Power plant anyone?!

[Manel]

Been looking at an Intel roadmap and it seems there is a codename for the X58 replacement, Patsburg. This is workstation class but should be the basis for desktop, as is X58 anyway with it's several variants.
For Sandy Bridge -E (-EP) processors. By the time it's out they should wait for Ivy Bridge and make it Ivy Bridge-E.
Soon enough Z68 should be out too, out of P/H67.

[dukzcry]

Do you think all that trouble is worth just for a copy of 7? Messing with BIOS and all!! That's gotta be hardly legal but hey, I'm not complaining. Kool!!

Since you don't need to do any manual or even automated BIOS image file modification and any reflashing, i think it's pretty convenient thing to do. And it's pretty easy to remove the SLIC table with that Intel utility in further time if you'll ever need.

Still, 8 cores and 54MB cache, 3.1B transistors - that's overkill for the desktop of course.

If you'll ever have an access to Itanium hw and will need Windows distribution for it, let me now Besides the OpenVMS and UNIX (HP-UX) medias i also have medias (and experience of using) of Windows XP 64-Bit Edition (don't mislead with x64 edition) and 4051/4074 builds of Longhorn IA64. Also tried IA64 versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 R2 but they didn't inspire me much. Although R2 installation was very quick on maxed hardware.

[Manel]

duk
I see you're an aficcionado of high-end/server hardware. Maybe you will get a new Poulson?
Where do you get all that hardware anyway? Are those de-commissioned machines?
I never tinkered myself in the BIOS and never took the time to see how it's done so I guess that's why I get the creeps messing with it. If it's that easy as you say well, I guess that might be interesting.
If regular desktop hardware here costs you an arm and a leg, Itanium hardware will take you the rest... would be cool but not needed, not for what it would cost me. But thanks, I'll let you know if I ever need it.

[dukzcry]

Maybe you will get a new Poulson?

Impossible, sir! It will pass ten more years before they will be acceptable for enthusiast.

I never tinkered myself in the BIOS and never took the time to see how it's done so I guess that's why I get the creeps messing with it. If it's that easy as you say well, I guess that might be interesting.

It's relatively safe, since the only thing involved is official Intel NDA utility.