The 150 MHz Project, Part 3 — THG.RU

Introduction

On the perpetual quest for more performance, I have done some benchmarks and analysis using 150 MHz BX and VIA 694X setups back in May and in April. Those results showed quite impressively that increasing the front side bus clock unleashes a significant performance gain — just as three years ago, when people tried to speed up their HX or TX chipset system by running it at 75 or 83 MHz FSB.

We also revealed the real qualities of the good old 440BX chipset, which still makes one of the fastest and most reliable platforms. Thanks to the fact that it can run the PCI at 1/4 system speed, you can run your computer at an overclocked 133 MHz FSB, while all PCI components will be operated at 33 MHz within specs.

Right after the first Solano review, the enthusiasm for Intel’s new SDRAM chipset was all but high. In the last 12 months Intel proclaimed RDRAM to be the memory technology for the future, and the BX chipset was supposed to be phased out by the end of 2000. The introduction of Intel’s i815 chipset (Solano) left many customers puzzled, as of what to buy. Not only end users, but particularly the industry has become more careful after Intel’s recent platform problems.

Now, two months later, and after successful overclocking to 166 MHz system speed, people are gradually accepting the newcomer. Since Intel finally admitted on their own website that RDRAM is not able to outperform classic SDRAM, the 815 is becoming an interesting choice for more and more users. This article will give you all performance results at 150 MHz system speed and compare them to VIA’s Apollo Pro 133A and the BX chipset.

Why Solano?

Intel’s 815 chipset has some big advantages, making it more interesting than the two competitors VIA 694X and Intel 440BX:

• Excellent overclockability
  
  Good motherboards should have no problems running at 166 MHz system speed. Of course you will need highest quality SDRAM.

• Integrated UltraATA/66 or UltraATA/100 Interface, making additional controller chips obsolete. This may not sound very important, but non-standard controllers come with their own BIOS and drivers that might not be available for all operating systems and they are slowing down the boot process with their own status screens and driver initialization.
• Excellent Reliability
  
  Even though VIA is making tremendous advances, many people still believe that state-of-the-art chipsets are only made by Intel. Intel chipsets are still enjoying the best support.

• Integrated graphics controller
  
  It may not sound like an advantage, but in case you are not sure which grahics card to buy, you can use the integrated graphics functions for a while.

On the other hand, one should not forget about the negative aspects. The most important is of course the high price, as you have to spend at least $150 for a brand motherboard. Disadvantage number two is of theoretical nature: Being available for only two months, the chance of getting a motherboard with a few bugs is basically there. In contrast, motherboards with the Intel BX or VIA 694X chipset are quite mature today.

150 MHz FSB: Requirements

When overclocking your system to 150 MHz, some motherboard components will also run faster:

PCI

Due to the faster system speed, the PCI bus will run at 37.5 MHz instead of the standard 33 MHz. Usually, this should not be a problem, as most cards can easily tolerate a few more MHz. However, there is no other way than trying out to determine if a certain PCI card works at 37 MHz or not.

AGP

Also the AGP will be overclocked a bit. It runs at 75 MHz with 150 MHz FSB. So far, we have not heard of any graphics card that would not run at this AGP clock.

SDRAM

Some memory companies do already offer PC150 SDRAM. This is of course only interesting for overclockers, who can appreciate the memory manufacturer guaranteing problem free operation at 150 MHz.

Please realize that there is hardly any SDRAM module available which would run 150 MHz stable at CAS latency 2, so switching to CL3 is the only reasonable choice.

Don’t try using PC100 memory at 150 MHz, as it is prone to fail. I also would never overclock low-cost memory, no matter which cycle times it claims to comply to.

Test Setup

I have not changed the basic configuration for some months now, so that the results can again be compared with the former articles:

• 21 Slot-1 Motherboards using VIA Chipsets
• Slot-1 VIA Motherboard Update
• BX Flagship: Asus CUBX
• 12 Socket 370 Motherboards using VIA’s Apollo Pro 133A
• Comprehensive VIA motherboard roundup June 2000
• The Best For Freaks: 10 Motherboards using the BX-Chipset
• The 150 MHz Project, Part 1
• The 150 MHz Project, Part 2

BAPCo SYSmark 2000 — Windows 98 SE

Overclocking a Solano platform from 133 to 150 MHz will give you a 10% performance gain. Different to the BX results, a Solano system at 150 MHz is not too much faster than a standard 133 MHz configuration at the same core speed.

The freaks’ option is getting a 100 MHz CPU and overclocking it to 150 MHz FSB. That will work as long as the core speed does not come too close to the technical limit, which seems to be around GHz-barrier today. E.g. a Pentium III 600/100 will likely work at 900/150 MHz (multiplier x6.0), maybe at 1.70 or 1.75V. Just don’t try faster CPUs, because e.g. a 700/100 would have to run at 1050 MHz. There is hardly any chance for this, so please think realistic!

Direct 3D: Expendable Timedemo

It’s interesting to see that always two results are pretty close together: Configurations with similar clock speeds score almost the same, e.g. Pentium III 1000/133 and 975/150 or 933/133 and 900/150. Again, a Pentium III 600/100 clocked at 900/150 will give you about 35% more performance for Direct3D games.

OpenGL: Quake III Arena

Chipset Comparison

* overclocked
** not officially supported
*** ATA100 Support with ICH2 (makes 815/820/840 to 815E/820E/840E)

We already published a similar table some months ago, but the data is still the same. For a detailed platform comparison, please take a look at the article Showdown at 133 MHz FSB — Part 2, The Real McCoy.

Platform Comparison at 150 MHz: SYSmark 2000

Platform Comparison at 150 MHz: Expendable Timedemo

Platform Comparison at 150 MHz: Quake III Arena

Conclusion

Some days ago, the Solano already proved its overclocking qualities when we had the Asus CUSL2 motherboard running at 166 MHz FSB. Of course this clock speed is only for the real freaks, since you will have to abandon additional PCI hardware due to the high PCI clock of 41 MHz.

Running your system at 150 MHz FSB has now proven to be an easy way to increase performance without the necessity to do without important components. 37 MHz PCI clock have never been a big problem to the majority of PCI cards out there. However, don’t forget that overclocking always bares the risk of data loss or component failure.

The 815 chipset at 150 MHz FSB will only require good memory (PC133 CL2 will do fine) and a good motherboard. Our Solano motherboard round up is under way, so you will get a detailed review within the next days.

The performance difference between the BX and the 815 is certainly not worth a discussion about what to buy. If the amount of sold 815 motherboards keeps increasing, the prices will hopefully come down, making BX boards with on-board ATA66 or ATA100 controllers the less attractive option.