October 1997

Thursday October 30, 1997

Al and Gracie visited Henrietta the other day. She’s a tortoise. No, not the tortoise from the story “The Tortoise and the Hare” Henrietta lives in a small wooden box and loves to eat rose petals. Al thought her life seemed a bit slow. “What? You don’t have a computer in that box?” “Where’s the fiber, the T1 line, the Cisco router?” Al knows his servers are using redundant T3 lines and multiple T1 lines. Braggart. Yet, Al’s owner still uses that same 14.4 modem.
Al and Gracie were discussing the number of bytes served so far this year. According to Al, it’s over 11 billion bytes. Gracie insists his math is a bit low by about a half a billion. She agrees that server statistics are never accurate enough to know who is watching – but Gracie thinks he subtracted too much for people just reloading the same web page. (click – reload)
According to Abit, the LX6 will not be available for testing until the middle of November.
Crucial Technology updated their product and pricing links again. Plus, they added laptop memory. You may still order at the same place. Remember, if you order directly from Crucial, they pick up the shipping charge.
We have one T2P4S in stock.
We updated the way our example workstations are displayed. We hope it’s easier to read.
GigaByte’s 586ATX3 board has USB on board. We’ll add this to our product line. It is the same price as 586ATX2.
The GigaByte 686DLX will be released around Comdex time. We’re hoping to receive a sample board next week.
A component used to make 64 and 128 Mb SDRAM were short in last week’s market. Corsair and Advantage are continuing to receive shipments of these parts, although all companies may experience some delays throughout the remainder of the year.
We receive requests each day about memory for a Micronics, Gateway, Dell, Compaq, and other machines. You may go to Corsair (www.corsairmicro.com), Crucial (www.micron.com/crucial/escprod.html), or Advantage Memory (www.advantagememory.com) to find part numbers. If you give us the part number, we can give you pricing information.

Wednesday October 29, 1997

The ASUS P2L97-DS arrived for testing.

Tuesday October 28, 1997

IBM buys back stock
Intel Pentium II 300 MHz Boxed Processors are on allocation. Intel is expected to increase the size of shipments in November.
Several readers ask us weekly for RMA information. Several months ago we made a policy change. Components with RMA’s greater than a particular percentage were dropped from our product offerings. We were already being careful, but we expanded the rules for acceptance into our product line.
Therefore, instead of listing each component’s RMA separately, we’d like to clarify why particular products are dropped from our product line. Over the years we have learned that the markup for a product must equal at least 3 times the RMA rate. Regardless of the volume, this formula holds for profitability. One third represents purchasing replacement product, two thirds for overhead and profit. For example, if the RMA rate rises above 5 percent, the markup for the product must be greater than 15 percent.
For motherboards, the RMA rate must be below 3 percent. Very few motherboard manufacturers reach this goal; ASUS, AOpen, Gigabyte, and Intel have reached this marker consistently with second or third revisions of a model. First revisions of all motherboards have much higher RMA rates.
For processors the RMA rate must be below 1 percent. Intel and AMD Processors are significantly below this rate.
For hard drives, the RMA rate is a different factor. Western Digital works directly with post sales RMAs. Therefore our numbers may not be accurate.

Monday October 27, 1997

Technical stocks are taking a beating.
Intel boxed processors drop in price. Price drop ranges from 20-30 percent.
Intel boxed motherboard prices are lowered.
We added more instructions for installing Windows 95 OSR2.

Friday October 24, 1997

Western Digital Retail drives are available. Capacities we offer are 4.3 Gb, 5.0 Gb, and 6.4 Gb.
All orders for the boxed processors taken today and this weekend will have the price protection for the expected Intel price drop, October 26. We will adjust your invoice total after we have the final figures from Intel.
Intel Pentium 180 Mhz Overdrive processors with MMX technology are past due at distributors.
Have you checked out our new Pentium II motherboard comparison chart?
We updated our “about esc” info.
Lora will be gone until Wednesday.
Are you watching the stock market today? The announcement by Intel concerning Flash Memory sure has the tech stocks moving.
To update the PC Power & Cooling Fan – K1. A 5/64” hex bit can be used to remove or attach rivscrews.

Thursday October 23, 1997

Super7 is the term AMD designates for their extension of the socket 7. The details from AMD suggest a 100 MHz bus and 100 MHz interface to the L2 cache. There is also talk of adding 24 instructions, creating a superscalar MMX unit. Intel’s MMX-2 instructions will probably be in the Katmai, expected in 1999.
Slot A is a code name for the slot 1 compatible package expected in the AMD K7.
The IA-32 and IA-64 terms keep hanging around in the press. Did you know that the IA stands for Intel Architecture? There has been a subtle separation of Intel’s Merced (IA-64), the first chip (and associated chipsets) to be released in 1999, and a second chip (twice as fast and 0.18-micron) to be released in 2002.
The AMD K6 3D may roll out as early as the first half of 1998.
All orders for the boxed processor products taken today and tomorrow will have the price protection for the expected Intel price drop, October 26. We will adjust your invoice total after we have the final figures from Intel.
Al and Gracie were fighting over where to bury their bones in the back yard. Since Al is the larger dog, his growl can be a bit fierce. It’s low pitched and very short lived. There is the warning and then the teeth. That is why he is the guard dog. Gracie, on the other hand, is bossy. She’s little, gets picked on by the cat, and has decided to ‘talk back’ when UPS gives her only one bone instead of two. Her growls almost sound like a bawling out. Resellers these days seem to be growling too. Dell is barking that it has the best business model, Gateway is growling that it has the best price, and etailers are marking their territories on the internet. We aren’t too sure if this business has gone to the dogs, but we hope everyone can at least keep a bit of humor.
After giving Intel some pokes, we thought we might want to congratu
late them for their attempts to get information to their resellers. Last night we spoke with a representative who described yesterday’s dealer meeting as carnage (scavengers being resellers and Intel being attacked). We may give them a tickle or two, but carnage seems a bit extreme. We hope the Intel representatives have a much better day today.
Users of the AOpen AP5T-3 should be careful not to combine it with the Trident TGUI9680-1 Chipset based VGA cards.
As a reminder to some of you – the domain name einsteinscomputer.com will no longer be accessible in a short time. Instead please use esc-tech.com, esctechnologies.com, esc-ca.com, or esc-technologies.com. We extended the time of the domain for an extra two months, but the time is about over. Please, fix your bookmarks.

Wednesday October 22, 1997

AMD plans to release an AMD-K6 266 MHz in December and a AMD-K6 / 300 MHz toward the end of 1st quarter ‘98. AMD-K6 3D and AMD-K6+ 3D are on the horizon (when? we don’t know yet). AMD-K7 is expected to be introduced in ‘99.
Intel is planning on releasing a series of new LX boards: AL440LX, R440LX, DK440LX, MB440LX, and RC440LX. Marketing for these boards is aimed at small business intranets. The AL440LX, DK440LX, and R440LX will be introduced through the Boxed program. Intel will honor 3 year warranties on these boards. The DK440LX is an entry level server. The R440LX is an dual all purpose server. The MB440LX is a dual board that is I₂O ready. The RC440LX is intended as a small mid-sized entry server marketed for internet and mail servers.
Intel Boxed Pentium II 266 MHz processors with ECC are expected late this quarter. Again, Intel Pentium II 333 Mhz are expected to be released the first half of ‘98.
Don’t be surprised if you open your Boxed Pentium and it doesn’t have the samplers. Intel removed the MMX technology samplers temporarily from all SKUs of Boxed Pentium processors with MMX technology beginning October 6th.

Tuesday October 21, 1997

Digital versus Intel versus the world. This topic seems to be in every trade magazine. Will Digital move forward with the 750 MHz Alpha processor? A Mitsubishi representative commented that he didn’t expect Intel to get the Alpha chip. Will Intel delay the slot 2 until 3rd quarter? Why are the Gateway ads still talking about Pentium® processors? Will Al and Gracie ever agree on the lifespan of the socket 7? Yes, these are exciting times.
Now enters Microsoft’s woes. The 1 dollar a day fine. Opps, make that the 1 million dollars a day fine for alleged antitrust violations. Eh, what’s the difference to Microsoft? Seems that their stock went up after the announcement. Go figure.
Thinking of unknowns, we have not seen the 300 MHz AMD K6. Apparently this processor keeps up with some of the Intel P2MTs. Despite AMDs financial lose we are all pulling for them to produce faster and cooler CPUs.
Happy Birthday Larry.
Albert is slobbering over a 1941 Ford Business Coupe street rod. It seems that Al is excited about the wide whitewall tires. Hmmm… it has all the modern amenities. If you would like more information, call HiPoint Auto Sales at 916-671-1217. This place even makes deliveries.
Nerd joke: “What did the guy say when his parrot flew away?” Polly gone.
Question of the day. Do you offer dual Pentium II motherboards? Can I get a Quad Pentium II motherboard?
The ASUS P2L97-DS will be available in the next couple of weeks. We are still searching for one to benchmark.
The LX AGPset from Intel will only operate up to 2 processors. If you are interested in mainboards wtih more than 2 processors, then you will need to look at the pentium pro motherboards. Intel has even announced licensing of the 8-way pentium pro processors. In terms of the P2MT, you will need to wait for the 450NX AGPset. Hurry up and wait.

Monday October 20, 1997

Interesting article: “Intel Competitors Have New Vision For Socket 7”
Einstein is back and he has a new keyboard. This one has been modified for his larger paws. The keystoke timing is also different than the ones we use. The natural keyboard from Microsoft may be ergonomic for our shapes and sizes but not for Albert; his paws don’t bend the same way as ours bend. Neither does his tail. In fact, he’d like to thank everyone who sent him a get well card or email. Presently, Einstein is snoring in his box. His tail is still a bit tender and bent. After the pickup door slammed on his tail…. he’s glad it is all behind him now.
During his travels through Bakersfield, a van load of people passed by Einstein. They hung out the window saying “here puppy, puppy.” Luckily Einstein’s fame hasn’t gone to his head. He just stared. He was busy thinking about a new book he is reading, The 500 year delta (ISBN 0-88730-838-4). This book written by Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker has him fascinated. Maybe the authors are right and we are entering the age of chaos or maybe Einstein is just being overly anxious. Then again, how would you feel if your tail was caught in a jam?
But not all of the talk today should be about Einstein. Gracie has also been busy working. Lately she’s tried to explain “just in time” inventory. It seems the whole industry has moved to this concept. First, you place the order. Then we place the order with the manufacturer or supplier. The manufacturer makes the product or the supplier buys the product. We receive the product, review the product and then ship it to you. This takes time and patience.
The new PC Power & Cooling P2MT fan arrived today. There are two ways to attach the unit to the processor package. One way is to use Rivscrews. The other method is a double sided tape. Since many of you don’t have the tool for the screws, that leaves you with using the tape.
Have you read about Direct Rambus? RIMMs are the future memory modules. According to Rambus they will have modules operating at 800 MHz. The downside is that a heat sink will be required.
A US judge has approved a deal whereby Intel will have to pay a $50 rebate to round-about 600,000 people in the States who bought OverDrives in 1995. You might want to get out your receipt and contact Intel on this one.
For those of you interested in the Abit IT5H revision 2.0, we are receiving a limited quantity. If you would like the motherboard, please give us a call at 1-800-427-3726.
Happy Birthday Larry.

Friday October 16, 1997

So you’re asking, “What happened to Thursday’s What’s New?” Well, Einstein and Gracie were busy working on systems in the tech room. Rod was gone for the day.
We updated our policies section.
Einstein and Layne will be gone today. They’ll be back Monday.
Have you seen the little banners on our CPU and board pages? When we dropped th
e banner exchanges we posted these rotating, internal links. (The banners aren’t working on esctechnologies.com and esc-technologies.com yet. We’ll fix them as soon as we can.)
Historically, Intel reduces their prices to distributors every 3 months. The next price drop is around October 30th to the beginning of November. We will let you know how our prices are changed as soon as we can. Typically, Boxed Processor price reductions are anywhere from no change on new items (i.e. Pentium II 300 MHz up to 20% on older items (i.e. Intel Pentium 166 with MMX technology).
Intel Boxed Pentium OverDrive 166 Mhz, 180 Mhz, and 200 Mhz processors with MMX technology may be used for upgrading your old socket 5 or socket 7 motherboard. Also, one of the least expensive way to upgrade an exisiting machine is to add more memory.

Wednesday October 15, 1997

We have an extra ASUS TX97-XE without audio in stock.
Yesterday residents and companies in the SIlicon Valley were watching the wildfire on the range east of Fremont.
This morning Einstein’s tail was broken in a pickup truck door. He’s now resting in his bed, trying to not wag his tail.

Tuesday October 14, 1997

AOpen AX5T-3.1 boards arrived. We will post results as soon as possible.
ABIT is releasing an extremely small number of IT5H rev 2 boards. If you are interested, we will place an order with ABIT for you. We appreciate your patience. Since Intel announced the end of life of the 430HX chipset, ABIT is working on alternatives.
We have extra Intel AN430TX motherboards arriving later this week, as well as extra ASUS T2P4 motherboards.
We received more ASUS AGPV3000 video cards. These extra video cards are available.
Have you seen our new, little banner links?

Monday October 13, 1997

More ASUS P2L97-S boards arrived.
We’re working on our installation guide. In the meantime, we have a few steps outlined for your use. It may be helpful to read them before you begin installing your components.
SuperMicro cases finally arrived. We appreciate everyone’s patience while we waited for the backorder to arrive.
Intel Boxed AL440LX board is still expected the last week of the month. We have noticed that OEM boards are on the market, but remember that Intel honors a 3 year warranty on their Boxed board whereas they do not honor a warranty on the OEM board.
ABIT is shipping their IT5H board rev 2.0in extremely small quantities. This board revision will have a short life since Intel announced end of life of their HX chipset.
AOpen AX5T-3 boards are still in the Q&A stage. We will let you know when AOpen releases the board to distributors.

Friday October 10, 1997

Today must be ASUS day. We have ASUS P2L97-S motherboards in stock. We also received more AGP V3000 Video Cards. Other products include ASUS T2P4 and T2P4S mainboards.
Did you know that ASUS and GigaByte mainboards use the same PCB manufacturer? In fact, the PCB company only makes them for ASUS and GigaByte.
We’d like to thank everyone who is looking at the books section of our website. We’ve noticed a growing number of people interested in this area. If you have read a particular book and would like to write a review then please let us know. If it is well written and Al and Gracie enjoy reading it, then we will post it for others to read too.
Writing about Al and Gracie … Albert is watching the stock market closely. He doesn’t quite follow the logic that strange humans pervade. His food bowl is full in the morning and full at night. So why all the complaining in the press? Sounds like a bunch of sour grapes. In fact, he’d personally like to thank all of you for the wonderful feeling he gets from a full belly. His only concern is that Gracie keeps trying to steal his food. Now he just sleeps on top of the food bowl.
Gracie on the other hand is just scratching up a storm. Seems she is itching to tell everyone about the GigaByte 686LX. This mainboard matched with 266 MHz P2MT CPUs scores 79.7 Winstone97 units for overall business. The testing was done with NT Server 4.0, 64 Mb Corsair SDRAM, Quantum 2.1 Gb UDMA hard drive, 800 x 600 resolution on the Matrox 2 Mb PCI video card. The BIOS settings were default.
Have you looked at the information on the DK440LX mainboard? Check out the Intel website for more details. This Intel motherboard is a proprietary ATX form factor dual P2MT board. Other features include an on board NIC (10/100) and on board audio. It has a limited three year warranty. The feature that stands out is the 1 Gigabyte of maximum EDO memory or 512 Mb SDRAM. This should make an excellent entry level intranet server.

Thursday October 9, 1997

Preliminary benchmark results on AOpen AX6L-1 motherboard: Winstone97 business overall with a P2MT 233 MHz is 72; with P2MT 266 MHz is 76.7; and P2MT 300 MHz is 80. We were able to mix Corsair 64 Mb and 32 Mb with Advantage Memory 32 Mb DIMMs (Toshiba on AMC).
Also, since this is a CPU jumperless board, the clock multiplier needs to be set for the CPU in the Award BIOS.
We have ASUS T2P4 motherboards in stock. Please call if you are interested. ASUS TX97 series boards are still rare. Hopefully, the situation will improve soon.
Reminder: Intel lowers their prices on Boxed products to distributors once every three months. The next expected change is the last week of October/first of November. Historically, we see changes anywhere from 5% to 20% on lower end products. We do not expect a change on Pentium II processors this time. We’ll see….
We have ASUS AGP3000 video cards in stock.
ABIT released a very small number of IT5H rev 2.0 last week. They will receive a few more next week. Hopefully, we will receive a few of these next boards. It is our understanding that ABIT is being cautious with the quantities on the market so they can make sure everything is going well with their product. We applaud them for this approach.

Wednesday October 8, 1997

We’ve had difficulty updating our pricing pages today. The Pentium II 300 MHz & 4x32EDO are still incorrect ($166 some odd dollars for 1 piece of 16 Mb generic EDO seems a bit excessive) on some sites. We’ll get it straightened out as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvience and confusion.
Reminder: Intel Pentium chipsets 430HX, 430VX, and 430TX support up to 66 Mhz. Settings beyond these are not intended for use by chipset design, nor by board and processor manufacturers. Using these settings is considered overclocking and voids your warranty with ESC and with manufacturers. Using these settings also adds stress to the motherboard, and can result in extreme damage to your system.
AOpen AX5T-3 motherboards are not available for shipping yet. We are still waiting on our shipment. We will keep you posted on availability.
Interesting articles:
Chip Business Slowing Down;
one about AMD ‘s production (It sounds like AMD needs to once again come up with a high performance processor that can compete against future Intel products. They certainly did so with
the AMD-K6 at first release. We’ll look forward to future processors.);
and Intel & DEC Alpha.
Intel was to announce yesterday a new chip aimed at network servers. The I/O processor (input/output) will be available with Intel System partners’ servers. Shipments are expected to begin in the next 3 months. This new I/O processor is to fill a market in addition to Intel’s Pentium and Pentium II processors.

Tuesday October 7, 1997

AMD-K6/233 processors are in extremely short supply.
Remember that AMD recommends that you only use AMD-tested motherboards listed on www.amd.com with an AMD processors. Motherboards not listed may often work with the AMD-K6 processors, but often have inadequate power supplies or insufficient capacitors. Moreover, they frequently use do not use a switching voltage regulator. Even if the motherboard works initially, insufficient, low-cost components often cause reliability & stability problems. (paraphrased from AMD reseller fax)
AOpen AX5T-3 boards should be available through distributors toward the end of this week.
GigaByte 586TX3 boards are available in the market.

Monday October 6, 1997

We have ASUS TX97, TX97-E, TX97-XE boards in stock.
Have you ever seen art like this? Here’s an interesting article.

Friday October 3, 1997

We’d like to welcome everyone who has discovered us from the Intel website link. For those of you who didn’t know, Intel recently added our company to their website as a place to purchase OverDrive Units.
Question of the day. I see that the motherboard I want has 7 slots plus an AGP. The case I want only has seven ‘cut outs’ for my motherboard expansion slots. What do I do?
LX chipset boards on the market with the AGP slot do not exceed the seven places for the case. First, most of the mainboards have lowered the number of ISA slots. Second, If you look carefully at the motherboard there is a sharing of space between one of the ISA slots and the PCI slot next to it.
As a reminder, the components on the PCI card face the opposite direction of the ISA cards. In other words, the ISA components face the PCI components. Therefore, people in the industry call this space “shared.” In fact, you will either use a PCI card or an ISA, but not both in this ‘shared space.’
Once you have counted the usable number of ISA, PCI, and AGP slots then you will see that the number does not exceed seven.
An excellent reminder was provided to our technical support staff today. There is a known conflict between the AMIBIOS and Adaptec BIOS version 1.25. If you use Adaptec SCSI BIOS 1.23 you should be fine.
Please accept our apologies for those of you using the shopping cart these past three days. We were uploading new images to make things easier. It seems that the shopping cart is ‘locked out’ each time we were uploading files. Therefore, unknown to us, some of you were knocked off.

Thursday October 2, 1997

Question of the day. Why should I purchase a Pentium® II with MMX Technology (P2MT) when I read that the AMD or Cyrix socket 7 CPUs are just as fast?
First, the statement that the socket 7 CPUs are just as fast as the P2MT is not correct. There are environments in which the socket 7 solution becomes close to the slower slot one CPUs, for example, integer performance measured by Winstone97. Floating point and graphics environments, on the other hand, do much better with the P2MT. Using a P2MT will provide faster, real time video and image editing as well as PC entertainment with MPEG 2 video, AC-3 audio, and DVD media.
Years ago, the argument for moving to a Pentium from a 486 was the focus of discussions. The 60 and 66 MHz CPUs were actually slower than some 486 systems on the market. Eventually, with newer clock speeds, it became clear that the Pentium CPUs provided the faster solution. Prior to the 486, was the 386 argument. Prior to that… well, you get the picture.
With the introduction of the P2MT 300 MHz, there should not be any doubt that the faster performance is on the slot one. Marketing aside, graphics have become extremely important to many people using their PCs. The P2MT and AGP smooth out graphic images. Presently, AGP is only on the slot one mainboards. Other companies are considering AGP for the socket 7, but Intel will most likely not provide this chipset.
In addition, this doesn’t imply that the P2MT is the only solution you should consider. Overall cost of the system is extremely important. If you earn money with your PC, then your ROI is greatest with the P2MT. If you are using your machine for entertainment, eventually, you will move to the P2MT environment. It only becomes an issue of when you decide to make the change.
If you change parts annually, then you should strongly consider making the move to the P2MT. In other words, if you plan on keeping the machine for at least a year – and will never add new software – you can look at the socket 7 mainboards. However, if you plan on keeping the machine for at least a year – and will add new software – you should only look at the P2MT.
Please realize, we still know people who use CPM machines. They do the job – and that is what is important to that person. We are also not implying that RISC based CPUs are not excellent for people to consider. We are only pointing out that the P2MT is much more viable than seen in the press. It is our company’s position that the socket 7 has reached its end of life.
ASUS P2L97-S boards arrived today. We thank those of you who have been patiently waiting for the shipment. We now have a few extra boards in stock. We also have the new AGP 3000 video card ready to ship.
We have a GigaByte 686LX board in stock.
If you are planning on using an Intel Pentium processor with MMX technology, we have an AOpen AX5T-2 in stock. The board is $117.
Gracie and Einstein are playing in the puddles this morning. We had a small storm last night. Who volunteers to give them a bath?

Wednesday October 1, 1997

SuperMicro cases are still backordered.
AMD K6 233 processors are scarce on the market, and the price is high.
We adjusted the misprint on the GigaByte 686LX board benchmarks.
We are an executive partner with Crucial Technology, a division of Micron Technology. If you are looking for Grade A major-on-major memory, you may call Crucial directly at 888-363-2562 and they’ll take care of the shipping costs to you.
Intel Boxed AL44LX motherboards’ estimated time of arrival to Intel authorized distributors has been changed to the middle of October to early November. We will let you know if we see the boards before this time.
Intel Boxed Pentium II 300 MHz processors’ estimated time of arrival to Intel authorized distributors has been changed from today to the middle of October to early November.
Yesterday’s meeting with Intel provided some insight into the future direction of processors and motherboards.
Intel annouced that the Pentium I I with MMX Technology at 333 MHz CPU will arrive sometime in the 1st half of 1998.
A
n Intel representative confirmed Intel’s direction with the higher bus chipset. They also confirmed that the slot 2 and slot 1 configuration will both be available in the market. The slot 2 does not replace the slot 1.
An Intel representative also helped us understand the Pentium Pro availability issue. According to Intel, they are expecting dealers to “order” these processors. In a 3-4 week time period Intel will “build” these CPUs for the orders. They have not abandoned the socket 8.
Now, you were curious about sustained transfer rate on the SDRAM modules. A nice Intel representative reviewed the calculation. An SDRAM module has a memory cycle of 10ns and 64 bits of addressing. Therefore, 64 bit /8 = 8 bytes per 10ns. This works out to 800 Megabytes per second. Now, the DDR SDRAM II is twice this rate, or 1.6 Gbytes per second. Still confused? Try this link.
Thinking of Pentium II with MMX Technology CPUs…. Please notice how this is designated. Intel doesn’t directly refer to the Pentium II processors as using MMX technology. In fact, many of their ads don’t even mention that there is MMX Technology inside this particular family of CPUs.
Curiously, Intel has spent millions trying to promote this technology, yet many dealers don’t even know the Pentium II has the MMX Technology. After pointing this out to Intel, one representative said that stating it more clearly is “a good idea” and another one said “No, absolutely not.”
Consumers love to use nicknames, catch phrases, sound bites, etc. Consumers also decide what to call this family of CPUs. After all, one year ago we were told that using the term ‘classic’ when referring to a Pentium processor without MMX technology would never be accepted within Intel. Hmmm. So, we’ll talk about the PPMT and the P2MT. That should do the trick.
Intel introduced its Boxed Server Motherboard, the Redwood. Oops. Make that the R440LX motherboard. Sorry, we can’t use nicknames. This is an entry level dual P2MT motherboard with on board Ultra SCSI, 10/100 NIC, and 1 Mb sVGA. The cool feature for this board is the FRB – Fault Resilient Booting circuitry. If one processor fails, the board can still boot.
The Intel 82443LX PCI/AGP controller is labelled PAC. The other chip is labelled PIIX4 (pronounced Pick). Yes, that’s right. It’s PIIX and PAC. Now who says Intel doesn’t have a sense of humor?
We’ve saved the best news for last. Intel’s new Boxed motherboards will have a three year warranty. But wait, there is more. Intel also started a cross-shipment program if you need a board replacement for the VS440FX, PR440FX, the PD440FX, and the AL440LX mainboards.

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