Intel Goes DDR – Do We Really Care? – THG.RU

Anybody Need Another DDR-Chipset?

Today it finally happened. From now on Intel allows motherboard makers to couple the i845 chipset with DDR-memory. Of course this it not the way things are put officially. Intel’s patronizes its customers by giving the very same product that we already know as lame budget P4-chipset with mere PC133 SDRAM support a slightly new name. Motherboards that team up i845 with DDR-SDRAM are officially equipped with Intel’s 845D chipset. There’s no business like show business!

The question now is, does the world need another DDR-chipset for Pentium 4? We have already got products from the Taiwanese core logic providers SiS and VIA. The SiS645 is even able to support DDR-memory clocked at 333 MHz, providing an excellent performance alternative to Intel’s 850 chipset for Pentium 4 systems. Then there is VIA’s semi-legal (or is it ‘semi-illegal’?) P4X266 and its brand new successor P4X266A. The so-called ‘i845D’ is neither offering any new features, nor would it provide more performance. On top of that, it follows Intel’s traditional overpricing policy.

Well, we shouldn’t forget the good old brand name fetishists. I am not completely free from it either. I will never understand how anyone could even remotely consider driving or even buying a Lexus, this sorry excuse for a wannabe luxury car.

So there are also people who would never buy a system that is not equipped with an Intel processor and of course Intel chipset. You’ll find those guys especially in corporate headquarters. We all may agree that i845 with PC133 support was a Pentium 4 performance killer, but it sold like crazy, because its carrying the Intel brand. The same will happen with ‘i845D’, as little as SiS, VIA and Ali may like that.

Finally, there’s another reason why I am personally welcoming Intel’s new support of DDR-memory. As much as some of you may dislike Intel, as much you should be aware of the fact that only a strong force is able to bring order into the somewhat chaotic PC-business. None of the Taiwanese chipset makers was ever able or even willing to make sure that provider of DDR-memory stuck to a reasonable conformity. Owners of motherboards with DDR-support were either lucky and the memory they bought actually worked, or it simply didn’t. Intel has the will as well as the power to make sure that providers of DDR-SDRAM stick to a regime that keeps owners of i845D-platforms headache-free.

For this article, we took the fastest available motherboards for each Pentium 4 chipset and compared them with each other.

MSI’s 845 Pro 2 currently is one of the fastest motherboards with Intel’s (‘not so fast’) 845 chipset.

Comparison: All Chipsets For The Pentium 4

This table shows all chipsets for the Pentium 4 platform. The latest one is VIA’s P4X266A which will be upgraded soon with USB 2.0 and UltraATA/133 (both by coming with a new south bridge chip).

The table above lists all chipsets for the Pentium 4. Intel’s 850 is the flagship product using RDRAM memory. As a result, it is both the most expensive but also one of the fastest P4-chipset. The i845 is available in two versions. There is the ‘old’ 845 for PC133 SDRAM as well as the today released i845D for DDR-SDRAM. Don’t think that these two are different products. As a matter of fact, they are the same silicon. According to rumors and conspiracy theories, the reason for the late introduction of DDR support is a license agreement between Intel and Rambus Inc.

Comparison: All Chipsets For The Pentium 4, Continued

Here’s the reference board from SiS with the 645 chipset and support for DDR333 (166 MHz double pumped).

We already reviewed the P4X266 some time ago; it will soon be replaced by the improved P4X266A, sporting a faster memory interface. Rumors claim that this interface is technologically very close to that found in products from VIA’s competitor SiS. Another interesting product in this comparison is the SiS645 chipset, which is the only one that supports DDR-memory clocked at 166 MHz (333 MHz DDR), ensuring excellent performance.

VIA P4XB reference baoard. It uses the new P4X266A from VIA Technologies.

Pentium 4: SDRAM, RDRAM or DDR-SDRAM?

Originally, the one Pentium 4 platform, based on Intel’s 850 chipset, was supporting RDRAM memory only. Intel’s reaction to the difficult foothold of RDRAM came pretty late. In July Intel released the 845, only supporting PC133 SDRAM.

One month later VIA was bold enough to release the first Pentium 4 chipset with DDR-support, but this core logic is still on shaky legal ground, keeping the big motherboard makers from offering products with the P4X266.

In Fall SiS launched its 645 chipset, which sports not only DDR-support, but also a high-speed version of it that is clocked at 166 MHz. Besides its excellent performance, the 645 chipset is also benefiting from the fact that SiS has a P4-bus license agreement with Intel, making this chipset a real player without legal implications.

In order to compare the different platforms, we ran benchmarks on Pentium 4 systems based on all available chipsets. One question is particularly interesting: How does the i845 and i845D perform against the SiS645 and VIA’s P4X266? Back in the times of 440BX and i815, Intel chipsets used to outperform its Taiwanese counterparts in terms of memory performance. Can i845D crush the DDR-competition?

Technical scheme of the SiS645 chipset.

These are the three available versions of the P4X266.

Test Setup: VIA vs. Intel vs. SiS

Six systems were all put through our benchmarking ordeal. All DDR platforms use PC266 DDR memory with CL2. The Asus P4X266 uses the VIA chipset, P4B266 the new i845D. The SiS S551A reference board with the SiS645 is a special exception. Its highlight is the option to use DDR333 (PC2700) memory (clocked at 166 MHz double-pumped). The oldest candidate is Intel’s 850 chipset (on the Asus P4T-E). Taillight is the i845 with SDRAM support. Here we used the 845 Pro 2 from MSI.

Benchmark Results

Overclocking as Factory Default

This table shows quite clearly that the motherboard makers try to score better benchmark results with ‘not-quite-so-fair’ tweaks: Overclocking is the magic word. The motherboard with P4X266A is pretty bold indeed, running the CPU at a clock speed of 2035 MHz! Only MSI’s 845 Pro 2 runs at exactly 100.0 MHz FSB and 2000.0 MHz CPU clock.

OpenGL Performance: Quake 3 Arena

The SiS645 is ahead in Quake III Arena. Though this 3D shooter is available for more than two years, it is one of the most efficient and popular benchmarks for memory and CPU performance. Both in 16 and 32-bit color, the SiS 645 is clearly ahead of the Intel 850 and the VIA P4X266A. Here, the memory interface shows great effect and even pulls ahead of the i850 with PC800 RDRAM – Congratulations!

Direct3D Performance: Unreal Tournament

In Unreal Tournament differences between the six platforms are rather little. Again, the SiS 645 is ahead of the competition. Also the VIA P4X266A is faster than Intel’s RDRAM chipset 850. As expected, the 845 with SDRAM is by far the slowest platform of the batch.

MPEG-4-Encoding: Flask Mpeg und Divx

MPEG-4 encoding definitely is a domain of the i850 and RDRAM. You can see very clearly that this platform is far the best for video encoding tasks.

MPEG-2-Encoding: Pinnacle Studio 7

MPEG-2 encoding is a domain of i850 as well, but the competition is not far behind.

MP3-Encoding: Lame Encoder

This benchmark consists of a 178 MB Wave audio file that gets converted into the MP3 audio format by ‘Lame Encoder’. VIA’s P4X266 is 6 seconds faster than the i845 with SDRAM – though you might think that this task depends from the CPU by almost 100%.

SiSoft Sandra Benchmarks: CPU und Multimedia

SiSoft’s Sandra 2001 benchmarking and utility suite is a synthetic benchmark and does not necessarily translate into real world performance.

3D-Rendering: Newtek Lightwave

Intel’s 850 and RDRAM claims to be a high-end and high-performance solution. Yet it cannot put itself in scene, as the rendering benchmark is absolutely dependent on CPU performance – and the CPU clock. The P4X266A motherboard from Asus runs Pentium 4 slightly overclocked at 2035 MHz – making it the fastest platform in this benchmark. That’s not how a benchmark comparison should be won though!

Linux-Kompilierung: Suse Linux 7.3 / Kernel 2.4.13

When compiling the latest Linux kernel, the VIA P4X266A is the fastest platform, requiring 247.6 seconds – while the i845 and PC133 SDRAM is considerably slower, consuming 296 seconds. What a difference!

Packen von Dateien: WinACE 2.04

Compressing data is a very practical benchmark. We use WinACE 2.04 and compress the same .wav file that we already used for the MP3 encoding test. Here, the SiS645 is the fastest once again.

Office-Performance: Sysmark 2001

The i850 wins the category “Office Performance”.

3D-Rendering Performance: SPECviewperf “Lightscape”

In Lightscape, the i850 is slightly ahead again.

Conclusion: VIA P4X266A And SiS645 Are Better Solutions Than i845D

That’s the Asus P4B266 with Intel’s 845D chipset.

If we put the legal quarrels aside for a minute, VIA’s P4X266A seems to be the best platform for Intel’s Pentium 4 right now. We have to wait and see for production boards that are able to use the full potential of the SiS645 chipset that might make this legal trouble free solution just as or even more attractive. Both come with excellent memory interfaces and performance, but VIA’s newcomer will also be available with USB 2.0 and ATA/133 interface very soon.

In contrast, the i850 is on a descending path. Though RDRAM still offers excellent performance for the fourth generation Pentium processor, the memory technology is comparatively expensive. Both the SiS645 and the VIA P4X266A offer pretty similar performance at lower chipset and memory costs, plus better chipset features (see comparison table above)!

Just a few words about the newcomer Intel 845D: Except for the support for DDR SDRAM, there is nothing new about it. Sure, the chipset is Intel-like: stable and reasonably fast, but it is no special offer at all, being more expensive than the products from Taiwan (SiS and VIA). In addition, it cannot outperform the P4X266A or the SiS645. Particularly the latter comes with shiny performance. Its success mainly depends on the availability of DDR333 (PC2700) memory, which is the basis for its excellent performance.

It is hard to believe, but Intel has indeed fallen behind in providing the most attractive chipsets for its own microprocessors. Back in the days of Pentium II and III this was unthinkable! Today, Intel has to depend on corporate buyers with a hefty portion of brand name awareness that don’t like Lexus … excuse me … Taiwanese chipset makers. There are still a whole lot of them, so we need not worry about Intel.

The next thing coming will be the step to 133 MHz (533 MHz QDR) fronts side bus clock of Pentium 4. It will take a while until Intel will introduce its own south bridge with USB 2.0 support. SerialATA is still quite a bit away while VIA will very soon support ATA133.