Intel Skulltrail
Encyclopedia
Intel's
Skulltrail is an enthusiast gaming
platform that was released on February 19, 2008. It is based on the company's 5400 "Seaburg" workstation chipset. The primary difference between Skulltrail and Intel's current and past enthusiast chipsets is a dual CPU socket design that allows two processors to operate on the same motherboard. Therefore, Skulltrail can operate eight processing cores on one system. The platform supports two Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors (commonly mistaken for the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which is the LGA775 counterpart), which operate at 3.2 GHz.
Skulltrail was one of the first platforms to support SLI
on chipsets not designed by Nvidia
. It achieves this by including two NVIDIA nForce 100 PCIe 1.1 switch(two x16 to one x16) chips. The implementation of SLI supports Quad SLI technology, which is achieved through the use of two dual-GPU graphics cards from NVIDIA, including the GeForce 9800 GX2. This gives a total of four graphics processors. Owners of Skulltrail systems can also make use of up to four ATI graphics cards using ATI
CrossFireX
technology, which made SkullTrail the only platform (other than Intel X58
and P55
Chipset) to support both SLI and CrossFire with public drivers at the time of release. The HP Blackbird 002 also supported SLI and Crossfire on one motherboard at the time, but the drivers were special, and only available to Blackbird buyers.
in San Francisco
, USA
, and at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas
.
Skulltrail has a front side bus
rate of 400 MHz (1600 MHz QDR
), and was demonstrated with two 45 nanometer
High-K processors running at 3.2 GHz. During the IDF
, a 4.0 GHz phase cooled Skulltrail system was demonstrated. Then on October 22nd, 2007, the two processors were demonstrated running at 4.4 GHz with water cooling. They were demonstrated again on October 31, 2007, this time running at 5.0 GHz, with phase change cooling. On April 18, 2008 Tom's Hardware, reporting from an Overclocking Enthusiast site, reported that an overclocked speed of 6.006 GHz was achieved on an 8-core Skulltrail setup.
The base Skulltrail platform consists of an Intel D5400XS mainboard which cost upwards of US$600 when it hit the market as a standalone part. Computers based on the Skulltrail platform also require high-output power supplies for both the CPU and graphics cards, along with a computer chassis capable of accommodating the motherboard, which is based on an Extended ATX form factor design. However, Atomic has reported that they can accommodate cheaper Xeon server microprocessors that fit in the LGA-771 socket, which is corroborated by Intel's official processor support list.
Intel's Skulltrail D5400XS motherboard is made with two nForce
chips. The Skulltrail D5400XS motherboard is now just one of the motherboards available, along with motherboards with X58
and P55
chipsets, that runs both nVidia's
SLI
and ATI's
Crossfire
platforms out of the box with public hardware drivers.
Intel Corporation
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
Skulltrail is an enthusiast gaming
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
platform that was released on February 19, 2008. It is based on the company's 5400 "Seaburg" workstation chipset. The primary difference between Skulltrail and Intel's current and past enthusiast chipsets is a dual CPU socket design that allows two processors to operate on the same motherboard. Therefore, Skulltrail can operate eight processing cores on one system. The platform supports two Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors (commonly mistaken for the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which is the LGA775 counterpart), which operate at 3.2 GHz.
Skulltrail was one of the first platforms to support SLI
Scalable Link Interface
Scalable Link Interface is a brand name for a multi-GPU solution developed by NVIDIA for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output...
on chipsets not designed by Nvidia
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
. It achieves this by including two NVIDIA nForce 100 PCIe 1.1 switch(two x16 to one x16) chips. The implementation of SLI supports Quad SLI technology, which is achieved through the use of two dual-GPU graphics cards from NVIDIA, including the GeForce 9800 GX2. This gives a total of four graphics processors. Owners of Skulltrail systems can also make use of up to four ATI graphics cards using ATI
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
CrossFireX
ATI CrossFire
AMD CrossFireX is a brand name for the multi-GPU solution by Advanced Micro Devices, originally developed by ATI Technologies. The technology allows up to four GPUs to be used in a single computer to improve graphics performance.-First-generation:CrossFire was first made available to the public...
technology, which made SkullTrail the only platform (other than Intel X58
Intel X58
The Intel X58 is an Intel chip designed to connect Intel processors with Intel QuickPath Interconnect interface to peripheral devices. Supported processors implement the Nehalem microarchitecture and therefore have an integrated memory controller , so the X58 does not have a memory interface...
and P55
Intel P55
The Intel P55 is the first desktop chipset from Intel based on the PCH chipset design. The P55 Express chipset uses the LGA 1156 socket. Compatible CPUs include the Core i3, i5, and i7 processor line along with a Pentium Processor G6950...
Chipset) to support both SLI and CrossFire with public drivers at the time of release. The HP Blackbird 002 also supported SLI and Crossfire on one motherboard at the time, but the drivers were special, and only available to Blackbird buyers.
Public demonstrations
Intel demonstrated Skulltrail at the Fall 2007 Intel Developer ForumIntel Developer Forum
Intel Developer Forum , is a gathering of technologists to discuss Intel products and products based around Intel products. The first IDF was in 1997...
in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show
Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new...
in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
.
Skulltrail has a front side bus
Front side bus
A front-side bus is a computer communication interface often used in computers during the 1990s and 2000s.It typically carries data between the central processing unit and a memory controller hub, known as the northbridge....
rate of 400 MHz (1600 MHz QDR
Quad Data Rate
Quad data rate is a communication signaling technique wherein data are transmitted at four points in the clock cycle: on the rising and falling edges, and at two intermediate points between them. The intermediate points are defined by a 2nd clock that is 90° out of phase from the first...
), and was demonstrated with two 45 nanometer
45 nanometer
Per the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, the 45 nm technology node should refer to the average half-pitch of a memory cell manufactured at around the 2007–2008 time frame....
High-K processors running at 3.2 GHz. During the IDF
Intel Developer Forum
Intel Developer Forum , is a gathering of technologists to discuss Intel products and products based around Intel products. The first IDF was in 1997...
, a 4.0 GHz phase cooled Skulltrail system was demonstrated. Then on October 22nd, 2007, the two processors were demonstrated running at 4.4 GHz with water cooling. They were demonstrated again on October 31, 2007, this time running at 5.0 GHz, with phase change cooling. On April 18, 2008 Tom's Hardware, reporting from an Overclocking Enthusiast site, reported that an overclocked speed of 6.006 GHz was achieved on an 8-core Skulltrail setup.
Core 2 Extreme QX9775
- Four processor cores in one processor package
- 3.2 GHzHertzThe hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
clock frequency - 1600 MHz FSBFront side busA front-side bus is a computer communication interface often used in computers during the 1990s and 2000s.It typically carries data between the central processing unit and a memory controller hub, known as the northbridge....
- Fabricated on 45 nm45 nanometerPer the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, the 45 nm technology node should refer to the average half-pitch of a memory cell manufactured at around the 2007–2008 time frame....
process - 12 MiBMIBMIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...
L2 cacheCPU cacheA CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations...
(6 MiB per core pair)
Intel D5400XS motherboard
- Two LGA 771LGA 771LGA 771, also known as Socket J, is a CPU interface introduced by Intel in 2006. It is used in Intel Core microarchitecture based DP-capable server processors, the Dual-Core Xeon is codenamed Dempsey, Woodcrest, and Wolfdale and the Quad-Core processors Clovertown, Harpertown...
CPUCentral processing unitThe central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
sockets (supports XeonXeonThe Xeon is a brand of multiprocessing- or multi-socket-capable x86 microprocessors from Intel Corporation targeted at the non-consumer server, workstation and embedded system markets.-Overview:...
DPSymmetric multiprocessingIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
processors) - Four FB-DIMM slots supporting maximum 16 GB of system memory at 800 MHz
- Four x16 PCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
1.1a slots - Two PCI 2.3 slots
- Six SATA 3.0 Gbit/sSerial ATASerial ATA is a computer bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives...
ports - Two eSATA ports
- Ten USB ports
Criticisms and issues
Although found to be an extremely powerful computing platform, Skulltrail has been criticized by media outlets for being "ahead of its time". This is in part due to the lack of support for multi-core computing with many popular game engines at the time, in addition to the extremely high price of the components involved. The use of FB-DIMMs due to the workstation chipset has also been pointed at as a major limiting factor for Skulltrail. although this limitation can be mitigated by purchasing specially designed Kingston HyperX FB-DIMMS that have a lower latency than generic FB-DIMMsThe base Skulltrail platform consists of an Intel D5400XS mainboard which cost upwards of US$600 when it hit the market as a standalone part. Computers based on the Skulltrail platform also require high-output power supplies for both the CPU and graphics cards, along with a computer chassis capable of accommodating the motherboard, which is based on an Extended ATX form factor design. However, Atomic has reported that they can accommodate cheaper Xeon server microprocessors that fit in the LGA-771 socket, which is corroborated by Intel's official processor support list.
Intel's Skulltrail D5400XS motherboard is made with two nForce
NForce
The nForce is a motherboard chipset created by Nvidia for AMD Athlon and Duron microprocessors. The chipset shipped in 3 varieties; 220, 415, and 420. 220 and 420 are very similar with each having the integrated GPU, but the 220 only has a single channel of memory available whereas 420 has the...
chips. The Skulltrail D5400XS motherboard is now just one of the motherboards available, along with motherboards with X58
Intel X58
The Intel X58 is an Intel chip designed to connect Intel processors with Intel QuickPath Interconnect interface to peripheral devices. Supported processors implement the Nehalem microarchitecture and therefore have an integrated memory controller , so the X58 does not have a memory interface...
and P55
Intel P55
The Intel P55 is the first desktop chipset from Intel based on the PCH chipset design. The P55 Express chipset uses the LGA 1156 socket. Compatible CPUs include the Core i3, i5, and i7 processor line along with a Pentium Processor G6950...
chipsets, that runs both nVidia's
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
SLI
Scalable Link Interface
Scalable Link Interface is a brand name for a multi-GPU solution developed by NVIDIA for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output...
and ATI's
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
Crossfire
ATI CrossFire
AMD CrossFireX is a brand name for the multi-GPU solution by Advanced Micro Devices, originally developed by ATI Technologies. The technology allows up to four GPUs to be used in a single computer to improve graphics performance.-First-generation:CrossFire was first made available to the public...
platforms out of the box with public hardware drivers.