The 650E is right smack dab in the middle of Intel's FC-PGA roadmap, which tells us they are planning to take the current 0.18 micron Coppermine format up to 750 MHz in a Flip-Chip format by Q2. After that, we're likely to see Willamette's to debut in a Flip-Chip format, and more than likely Intel's low-cost Timna will be in the same format. While current FC-PGA chips are only at 100 MHz FSB, Intel's planning to take them to 133 MHz with a 667 and 733 MHz Flip-Chip soon, and most likely an 800/133 chip soon after that. 

SMP FC-PGA PIII ASAP!
One thing we're puzzled to see is the lack of Dual FC-PGA enthusiasm on Intel's part, after all, if these chips are going to replace the Slot-1 Pentium III's soon, won't people be begging for dual processor motherboards? Current FC-PGA to Slot-1 slotkets don't allow for SMP operation, there is some hope on the horizon, but both will take time. First off, PowerLeap is working on a converter which will convert from FC-PGA to PPGA, and supposedly will be dual processor compatible, as they say "When used with SMP-compliant CPUs, supports SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) on dual-Socket 370 motherboards".

We also know that Dual FC-PGA boards are in the works by Intel, using the I840 chipset. While rummaging through Intel's Developer site for information, I happened upon this happy document, which has motherboard guidelines for Dual FC-PGA boards. These boards will use 133 MHz front side bus, and will be able to used with SDRAM or RDRAM. We suspect these boards will hit the streets once the 667 MHz FC-PGA's start shipping, we're just amazed that we haven't heard of any companies working on boards like this yet. (Abit, are you listening?, BP6-2?)

Overclocking the 650E
I'm sure most of you are interested on how this puppy overclocks, considering the successes of the 500E and 550E's. The 650E is quite overclockable, and can pretty easily reach 800 MHz with default cooling and default voltage. That's a nice 150 MHz overclock, which seems pretty small, considering many 550E chips can reach 775 MHz without problems. Nevertheless, with extra cooling techniques, we don't doubt that this chip can hit 850+ MHz. The chip we tested could run at 820 MHz, but would crash about an hour into our Quake III timedemo loops. I applied a mighty Alpha cooler on this bad boy, but wasn't successful beyond 820 MHz. Sorry folks, but 800 MHz is pretty nice for this little chip. Keep in mind, the chip reached 800 MHz at stable levels with default cooling and default voltage, and never topped over 90 degrees F, incredible.