IF YOU"VE BEEN following the news on Intel"s new Springdale and Canterwood chipsets, you"ve probably already seen information on how certain motherboard vendors are introducing boards using a chipset workaround to enable Intel"s Performance Acceleration Technology on Springdale boards. This in turn gives Springdale a whopping kick, accelerating the board until it"s virtually indistinguishable from its Canterwood counterpart. Intel, of course, has taken an extremely dim view of this practice and has announced that boards sold in this matter are the sole responsibility of the motherboard vendor to support, as well as throwing out some standard FUD about overclocking and instability. End users running Springdale in this accelerated mode are not, according to Intel, "receiving the benefits of 875P chipset-based platforms with PAT functionality".
This isn"t exactly true. From a performance standpoint, end users certainly do seem to be receiving the benefits of PAT functionality, with 865-based boards performing equally to 875-based boards, or even running faster in certain cases. Further, while Intel is correct that overclocking components can lead to failure, it"s a given that at least the more reputable manufacturers will test their boards a great deal before shipping them out with this hyper-acceleration mode available. Intel"s claimed observation of "actual failure" has yet to be born out in real life by independent reviewers - until they are, this is just more smoke from Chipzilla"s corner of the room.