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Intel 440LX

The 440LX is Intel's latest and current top-end chipset, designed specifically for their latest and current top-end processor, the Pentium II. The Pentium II was released several months before the 440LX was ready, and so early PII motherboards used the older 440FX chipset. This chipset was never designed with the Pentium II in mind of course, and the 440LX was, optimized specifically to take advantage of its architecture.

Compared to the 440FX, the 440LX chipset offers several improvements. The key ones are:

• It is the first Intel chipset supposedly to support the new Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) standard for increasing video performance, particularly 3D video.
• Support for SDRAM memory, the first time this memory has been supported for the Pentium Pro or Pentium II platform.
• Support for the Ultra DMA hard disk interface standard.
• Support for the universal serial bus (USB) interface.
• Improved performance, especially for the Pentium II.

Of course, the 440LX is used in the latest and best Pentium II motherboards, and supports the SEC packaging used by that processor.

Next: Comparison of Intel Sixth-Generation Chipsets

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