After the release of new processors of the Intel Core 2 family, confusion began on the market for budget motherboards oriented to work with these processors. The fact is that the release of new chipsets designed to build low-cost computer systems based on the presented processors is scheduled for a much later date, and motherboard manufacturers tried to fill the gap with solutions based on Intel 945 Express family chipsets. As a result, a number of inexpensive motherboards with support for Intel Core 2 Duo processors appeared on the market, but ... only budget models processors operating at 800 MHz FSB (in this case, chipsets from the Intel 945 Express family are often used, which do not support the system bus at 1066 MHz). Such motherboards also have one more drawback: since these solutions are focused on building low-cost PCs, most of them are based on chipsets with integrated graphics (Intel 945G Express, Intel 945GC Express, Intel 945GZ Express), but their graphics core is Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (Intel GMA950) does not meet the requirements for Windows interface Vista Aero (recently this criterion has become one of the most important when evaluating the performance of integrated graphics solutions). But now, with the release of the new Intel P31 / G31 Express chipset family, which has replaced the sets Intel chips 945 Express, everything falls into place. GIGABYTE Company UNITED has expanded its line of budget motherboards with new solutions based on Intel P31/G31 Express family chipsets. In this article, we will talk about the capabilities of two of them - Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 and Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motherboards.
The Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 and Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motherboards, which have expanded the range of GIGABYTE UNITED S-series solutions, are designed to work with the entire range of Intel processors made in the LGA775 form factor and operating at a system bus frequency of 800, 1066 or 1333 MHz, including the new quad-core Intel Core 2 Quad and Intel Core 2 Extreme processors, as well as the upcoming Penryn processors, which will be released using a 45-nanometer process technology.
The Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 motherboard is made in the microATX form factor (dimensions - 24.4x21.5 cm) on a dark blue textolite, traditional for GIGABYTE UNITED products. It was based on the Intel G31 Express chipset (Intel G31 Express + ICH7), the capabilities of which are complemented by the ITE IT8718F I/O controller.
To install modules system memory(It is assumed that unbuffered memory modules of the DDR2 SDRAM 533/667 or 800 standard will be used) The board has two DIMM slots. The memory subsystem can operate in both single- and dual-channel modes. The maximum amount of system memory supported by the board is 2 GB.
The Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 motherboard has an integrated graphics core Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 (Intel GMA 3100), which fully supports API DirectX 9c and OpenGL 1.4 and meets all the requirements of the new operating system Windows Vista to work with the Aero interface. If the capabilities of this integrated graphic solution seem insufficient to the user, then the slot is at his service. PCI Express x16, where you can always install a discrete graphics card that meets its needs. By the way, in addition to this slot for installing additional cards that expand the capabilities of the motherboard, there are two more PCI slots and one PCI Express x4 slot.
To organize a network connection, Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 provides the user with a Realtek RTL8110SC gigabit Ethernet controller. The “sound” here is implemented by a combination of the HDA (High Definition Audio) controller integrated into the ICH7 and the Realtek ALC888 audio codec, which provides the ability to play 7.1 sound. There are six audio connectors on the motherboard output panel for connecting external audio devices.
In addition to the mentioned audio connectors, the output panel of the board contains two PS / 2 connectors (for connecting a mouse and keyboard), parallel (LPT) and serial (COM) ports, a D-Sub video connector, an RJ-45 connector, and four USB port 2.0.
In total, the Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 supports eight USB ports: four more, in addition to the four available on the output panel, can be implemented using additional expansion brackets, for which the board has two connectors (two ports per connector).
To build a disk subsystem, the board has four SATA II ports, one PATA connector that supports connecting up to two devices with an ATA 100 or ATAPI interface, and an FDD connector.
The system components are powered by a three-channel VRM unit.
To cool the microcircuits of the north and south bridges, plate light-alloy radiators are used. Note also that this motherboard has two four-pin connectors for connecting the processor (CPU FAN) and system (SYS FAN) fans. These fans are speed controlled using Gigabyte's Smart Fan technology, which is part of the Smart feature set. By the way, it is worth talking about the set of functions implemented in this motherboard separately. Like all GIGABYTE UNITED S-series motherboards, the Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 motherboard has a set of proprietary innovations - a set of S-functions. In this case, this kit includes a set of Smart and Safe functions (which is what the S2 combination in the model name means). The Smart feature set includes a number of smart utilities that make it easier to use the system and automate certain actions. Among them:
- Download Center - an intelligent utility that allows you to find and download the necessary drivers and utilities from the official GIGABYTE UNITED website;
- @BIOS - a utility that allows you to automatically find and download BIOS firmware from the GIGABYTE UNITED official website and update the BIOS code in Windows environment;
- Q-Flash - a low-level utility (accessible from the CMOS Setup Utility menu) that allows you to flash the BIOS without loading any OC;
- Xpress Install - a utility that provides automatic installation of drivers and utilities necessary for the operation of the motherboard;
- boot menu- allows you to select the device from which the boot will be performed without changing the settings in the CMOS Setup Utility;
- Smart Fan - technology for intelligent control of the speed of rotation of cooling fans.
The Safe feature set includes a number of utilities that increase the reliability of your computer system. Among them:
- Virtual DualBIOS - BIOS backup utility (in a private disk partition, a backup copy of the BIOS code is created with the ability to automatic recovery in the event of a BIOS crash);
- BIOS Setting Recovery - a utility that allows you to restore custom CMOS Setup settings;
- C.O.M. (Corporate Online Manager) - a utility that gives the system administrator the ability to remotely receive comprehensive information (versions installed drivers and client machine software) on the configuration of user PCs on which the client part of the software is installed, as well as real-time monitoring of a number of subsystems of these computers (processor temperature, fan speed, power supply voltage);
- Xpress Recovery2 is a utility (loaded before the OC is loaded and does not depend on it) that allows you to create backup systems with the possibility of subsequent recovery from the created image;
- PC Health Monitor - provides monitoring of the main operating parameters of the computer system through the CMOS Setup utility or EasyTune.
If the Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 is an excellent option for building compact computer systems with an integrated graphics core, for example, HTPC (Home Theater PC) class systems or office PCs, then the second of the considered motherboards - Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L - is already a solution that is more focused on creating productive home systems, in particular PCs for computer gamers, although this may seem strange if we are talking about a budget-level motherboard. Unlike the first model, the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motherboard is made in the ATX form factor (dimensions - 32.4x21.5 cm). It was based on the Intel P31 Express chipset (Intel P31 Express + ICH7), the capabilities of which are complemented by the ITE IT8718F I/O controller.
In this case, four DIMM slots are equipped to install system memory modules (it is assumed that unbuffered memory modules of the DDR2 SDRAM 667 or 800 standard will be used), so the maximum amount of system memory supported by the board is 4 GB.
Motherboard output board
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L
Since this model does not have an integrated graphics core, there is only one way to build a video subsystem - using a discrete graphic card, for the installation of which the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L has a PCI Express x16 slot. In addition to this interface, there are three more PCI slots and three PCI Express x1 slots to accommodate additional expansion cards.
Just like the Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2, the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motherboard has a Realtek RTL8110SC gigabit Ethernet controller and an audio controller, which is implemented by a combination of the HDA (High Definition Audio) controller integrated in ICH7 and the Realtek ALC888 audio codec.
The possibilities of building a disk subsystem of this motherboard are similar to those described for the Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 model.
The output panel of the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motherboard contains two PS / 2 connectors (for connecting a mouse and keyboard), parallel (LPT) and serial (COM) ports, a D-Sub video connector, an RJ-45 connector and four USB ports 2.0, a set of six audio connectors, as well as optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs.
The system components are powered by a four-channel VRM unit. By the way, when creating the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motherboard, the manufacturer used proprietary Ultra Durable technology, in which only high-quality solid-state capacitors are used in the electrical circuits of this solution, which have best performance and a much longer period of operation than electrolytic ones.
To cool the microcircuits of the north and south bridges, plate light-alloy radiators are used. To connect the cooling system fans, the motherboard has three connectors: two four-pin connectors for the processor (CPU FAN) and system fan SYS FAN2 and one three-pin connector for the system fan SYS FAN1.
Like the motherboard described above, the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L has a set of proprietary S-functions, but this time, in addition to the Smart and Safe sets, it also includes the Speed set, which includes utilities familiar to fans of GIGABYTE UNITED products overclockers like EasyTune and M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker).
Summarizing the above, we note that although the motherboards Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 and Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L are built on related chipsets, they are oriented towards different categories of users. At the same time, both of these models are undoubtedly united by the fact that they combine the promising solutions based on chipsets of the new Intel 3x Express family and the availability of motherboards based on the Intel 945 Express chipset (the price of these motherboards, according to price.ru, is about $100). .) and can be an excellent solution for building low-cost computer systems with an eye to the future.
This review is a kind of continuation of last year's article “Choosing a chipset for Core 2 Duo. The era before the Intel 3 Series" and one of the last parts of the material dedicated to chipsets for the Intel LGA775 platform. This time we will consider sets of system logic of the Intel 3 Series family, products on which, although not in large numbers, are still on the market.
The company launched the Intel 3 Series chipset line in 2007 to support the expected 45nm Penryn processors with a 1333MHz bus, which could not function on the then popular motherboards based on the Intel x965 and 945x chipsets. In total, there were eight models in the line: the mass entry-level P31, P35 for mid-level systems, integrated G31, G33 and G35, the flagship X38, and solutions for the corporate market - Q35 and Q33. Of course, the novelties were not limited to supporting future processors - with their appearance, the era of DDR3 memory and the PCI Express 2.0 bus began (the latter is true only for the high-level X38 chipset). In addition, the south bridge has been updated, which became known as ICH9: the number of USB 2.0 ports has increased to twelve, and support for Intel technologies Turbo Memory, which is based on the installation of an additional module with flash memory on the board, which allows you to speed up the loading of applications in the operating room Windows system Vista.
Intel P31/G31 Express
The P31 and G31 chipsets have replaced Intel series 945x/946x with the only difference being FSB support up to 1333 MHz and DDR2-800 memory with a maximum of 4 GB. The integrated solution has received an updated GMA 3100 graphics core instead of the previously used GMA 950. The rest of the functionality was limited to ICH7 or ICH7R southbridges, which support only eight USB 2.0 ports, four PCI-E 1.1 lanes (six for ICH7R), four SATA II channels (the ability to organize RAID arrays of levels 0, 1, 5 and 10 for ICH7R) and Fast Ethernet.
In addition, entry-level system logic sets were limited in their ability to operate at high FSB frequencies, i.e. overclocking of motherboards based on P31 and G31 left much to be desired and was at the level of 430-450 MHz.
Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G
The Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G board was used as a product representative based on the entry-level Intel P31 Express chipset, which is currently one of the most affordable solutions for the Penryn family of processors.
The motherboard comes in a green and black box that lists the board's features, including Easy Energy Saver technology.
The scope of delivery is standard for products intended for the mass market:
- instructions for installing AMD / Intel processors;
- disk with drivers and software;
- two SATA cables;
- one IDE cable;
- one FDD cable;
- rear I/O bar;
- sticker on system unit.
The board is made in the ATX form factor, is very compact, but despite this, there is a lot of empty space on it - in this way it even somewhat resembles some Intel solutions. Model GA-P31-ES3G supports all modern processors, including even the Pentium 4 and Pentium D, with a system bus frequency of 800 to 1333 MHz. The board has only two DIMM slots, and the maximum amount of DDR2-1066/800/667 memory can reach 4 GB, which is quite enough for an entry-level system.
The design of the GA-P31-ES3G has certain flaws: the IDE connector is located between the DIMM slot and the power connector of the board, as well as the FDD connector installed parallel to the bottom edge of the board - but given that there are practically no drives with an IDE interface on sale, and a floppy drive has outlived itself, then these disadvantages can not be counted.
The processor power subsystem is built according to a 3-phase scheme using solid capacitors and chokes in armored cores. In the rest of the circuits, conventional capacitances and simpler chokes are installed. Connector for additional power supply of the ATX12V processor.
Chipset microcircuits are cooled by small aluminum heatsinks - some boards based on Intel P965 Express from the same manufacturer were equipped with a similar cooling system. Four connectors are provided for connecting fans, one of which, a four-pin connector, is designed for a fan from a processor cooler.
The functionality of the GA-P31-ES3G is minimal, due to the limited capabilities of the ICH7 south bridge. The board has four SATA II channels, eight USB 2.0 ports, four of which are routed to the rear panel, one IDE channel, three PCI-E x1 slots, and three conventional PCI. There is also a COM and LPT port.
The audio subsystem is implemented using the old familiar Realtek ALC888 HDA codec, the Gigabit Ethernet network is based on the Realtek 8111C chip.
The rear panel has two PS/2 connectors, coaxial S/PDIF, four USB ports, network connector, COM and LPT ports, and three audio connectors. In fact, a standard set that products from the time of the Intel 945P chipset could boast of.
Clear CMOS pins are placed closer to the edge of the board, unlike their favorite place near the PCI-E x1 slots, which eliminates the constant dismantling of a video card with a dual-slot cooler when resetting BIOS settings.
And, of course, the GA-P31-ES3G is equipped with two BIOS chips, which will allow you to restore the system if the microcode in one of them is damaged. It is gratifying that such a feature can be found on an inexpensive motherboard, while two BIOS chips from competitors can be found on products of a higher class.
BIOS
The BIOS of the Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G board is based on the Award Software microcode and is somewhat inferior to modern solutions in terms of its capabilities. The available settings for overclocking are concentrated in the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) menu, but before going there, you must press the “Ctrl + F1” combination, otherwise the items for setting memory delays will not be available.
In the M.I.T. you can control the processor multiplier (both integer and fractional), change the frequency of the system bus, PCI-E interface, adjust the memory mode and various voltages.
The FSB bus frequency varies within 100-700 MHz, the PCI-E bus - from 90 to 150 MHz. Rough control of the Performance Level is available in the Performance Enhance item, where you can choose from Standard, Turbo or Extreme modes. To fine-tune the PL, there is a Static tRead Value item among the memory timings, which already allows you to select more familiar digital values. To select the operating mode (i.e. frequency) of the memory, there is a small list of multipliers.
The ability to change the voltage is present for the processor (up to 1.6 V), FSB bus (up to +0.3 V from nominal), memory (up to +0.7 V), PCI-E bus (up to +0.3 V), north bridge (up to +0.3 V) and GTL logic. It is also possible to reduce the FSB voltage to -0.15 V.
| Parameter | Range of changes |
| DDR2 OverVoltage Control | + 0.1-0.7 V, in 0.1 V steps |
| PCI-E OverVoltage Control | + 0.1-0.3V, in 0.1V steps |
| FSB OverVoltage Control | + 0.1-0.3V, in 0.1V steps |
| FSB DeOverVoltage Control | - 0.05-0.15 V, in 0.05 V steps |
| (G)MCH OverVoltage Control | + 0.1-0.3V, in 0.1V steps |
| CPU GTLREF Voltage Ratio | 0.54/0.566/0.603/0.636 |
| CPU Voltage Control | 0.5-1.6V, 0.00625V steps |
Poor monitoring allows you to track only the voltages on the processor, memory, +3.3 and +12 V lines, as well as the speed of four fans. It is possible to configure an alarm when a certain processor temperature is reached or when each of the four fans stops.
For BIOS updates you can use the built-in Q-Flash utility - just connect a “flash drive” with a saved version of the microcode.
Additional software
The Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G motherboard allows you to install the Easy Energy Saver utility, which has common features with Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced, but unlike the latter, it does not control the dynamic shutdown of the processor power phases when the system is idle, but simply calculates the saved electricity when the voltage drops power supply and activation of C1E and EIST technologies for processors of the Core 2 family.
Eventually practical application this utility is not so much.
Overclocking
To find out the overclocking potential of the board, the following configuration was assembled:
- Video card: ASUS EN8800GS TOP 384M;
- Power supply: Silver Power SP-S850 (850 W).
As a rule, during overclocking, the PCI Express bus frequency should be blocked at the level of 100-110 MHz, but with such settings, the system could only boot at the FSB frequency of 350 MHz. If PCI-E is left in Auto mode, then the ceiling is practically limited by the capabilities of the chipset itself.
In our case, it was 455 MHz with raising the voltage on the chipset and FSB by +0.1 V and 465 MHz by raising these voltages by another +0.1 V.
Further increase in voltages and changing the memory timings did not affect the potential of the board, although there is information on the Web about the maximum overclocking to the FSB level of 500 MHz and higher. Intel P35/G35/G33 Express
The Intel P35/G33 Express chipsets, which replaced the Intel P965/G965, were the first chipsets introduced by Intel during the announcement of a new line of chipsets at Computex 2007. The rest had the status of a “paper” announcement and appeared a little later. New products for the first time supported DDR3-1066/800 memory with a maximum capacity of 8 GB, in addition to DDR2-800/667, and motherboard manufacturers could release products designed for any of these types, or even combined solutions. The ICH9 southbridge expanded the functionality of the system with twelve USB 2.0 ports, its ICH9R and ICH9DO modifications supported six SATA II channels with the ability to organize RAID arrays of levels 0, 1, 5 and 10. disable unused channels of the high-speed serial interface. The integrated graphics core of the G33 is similar to that of the G31, but with one difference, which is the support for Clear Video video enhancement technology. The P35's CrossFire mode was advertised as "x16 + x4", which, like the P965, hindered tandem performance. Intel Turbo Memory technology was never widely adopted, although there were high hopes for it.
The integrated Intel G35 Express chipset acquired a more advanced core - GMA X3500, but only supported DDR2 memory up to 800 MHz and was equipped with the ICH8 south bridge (ICH8R, ICH8DH), known from the P965 / G965 system logic sets.
Intel Q35/Q33 Express
For the corporate market, the Q35 and Q33 chipsets were released, which contained the GMA 3100 video core, supported DDR2-800/667 memory and were equipped with ICH9, ICH9R and ICH9DO southbridges with the ability to implement Intel Turbo Memory (only Q35). These solutions differed in support of Intel Trusted Execution and Intel Virtualization for Directed I/O (Q35) technologies.
ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP
Representatives of the business segment did not come to us for testing, so let's consider a product based on the Intel P35 Express mid-range chipset that was mass-produced at the time. The ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP Motherboard is packaged in a black box with a handle and a hinged lid that lists all product features and supported technologies.
Contents of delivery:
- instructions for the motherboard;
- instructions for WiFi access point;
- disk with drivers and software;
- four SATA cables;
- one IDE cable;
- one FDD cable;
- rear I/O bar;
- WiFi antenna;
- a set of branded Q-Connector pads.
The board, made on black textolite, is designed for Intel processors with FSB 800-1333 MHz and supports DDR2 memory with a frequency of up to 1066 MHz and a total capacity of 8 GB. The PCB design has some flaws, in particular, the DIMM slots are located close to the graphics connector, six SATA connectors are installed perpendicular to the board, four of which can be blocked by a large card with a two-slot cooling system. Also, the IDE connector is located at the bottom of the board, due to which the cable length may not be enough to connect the drive in Full Tower cases, but, given the general transition to the SATA interface, this is no longer so critical.
Some of the power transistors were moved to the reverse side of the board, which made it possible to evenly distribute the thermal load on the VRM module.
The processor power subsystem is built according to an 8-phase scheme using solid-state capacitors and chokes in armored cores. Similar components are used in other power circuits of the board. An eight-pin EPS12V is used as an auxiliary power connector for the processor.
Chipset microcircuits and part of power transistors are cooled by aluminum heatsinks connected to each other by means of heat pipes. For the remaining elements of the four phases, a separate aluminum radiator is installed.
Six connectors are provided for connecting fans, one of which is four-pin - this is more than enough for organizing active cooling inside the case.
The functionality of the board is good even by modern standards: three PCI slots, two PCI-E x1, one PCI-E x4 (PCI-E x16 slot) and one PCI-E x16, as well as ten USB 2.0 ports, six of which are routed to the rear panel, and six SATA II channels with the ability to organize RAID arrays 0, 1, 5 and 10 due to the south bridge ICH9R.
Additional controllers on the board include JMicron JMB363, which supports one IDE channel and two eSATA, and Agere FW3227, which is responsible for two IEEE 1394 ports.
Two gigabit controllers, Realtek RTL8110SC and Marvell 88E8056, are responsible for the network on the board, and the first of them is located on the PCI bus, and the second on the PCI-E bus.
As you have already noticed, two USB ports are not available to the user - they are used by the WiFi module near the back of the board.
The AW-GA800BT module from AzureWave is based on the Realtek RTL8187L chip and supports the IEEE 802.11b/g standard.
In addition to the connector for connecting a WiFi antenna on the rear panel, there are six USB ports, two eSATA, one FireWire, optical and coaxial S / PDIF, six audio connectors and only one PS / 2 for the keyboard.
At first, boards with one PS / 2 port, or even without it at all, aroused indignation among users, they even accused the chipmaker of the inexpediency of excluding the "mouse" interface. But Intel has nothing to do with this, since the PS / 2 ports are implemented in the Super I / O chip, which motherboard manufacturers put on their products. With the abandonment of the archaic interface, some problems appeared with the compatibility of new motherboards with USB mice from second-tier manufacturers. For example, the tested ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP refused to work with the A4-Tech SWOP-558 manipulator. Perhaps these are features of the exclusively considered solution.
BIOS
The board's BIOS, based on AMI microcode, allows users to fine-tune the system and is less overloaded with various parameters compared to modern ASUS boards.
The main settings are concentrated in the Advanced menu, where you can change the frequency of the FSB bus (from 200 to 800 MHz), PCI-E (from 100 to 150 MHz), the processor multiplier and the memory mode. It is possible to control the Performance Level parameter, however, somewhat in a non-standard form: you need to combine enabling or disabling the Transaction Booster parameter and the Relax Level level. By default, this board has a PL of 10, while even Intel's P43 Express-based solution has a default of 7, which immediately puts the ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP at a disadvantage when comparing products from different manufacturers.
The number of dividers in the memory is enough to set 835, 887 or even 1111 and 1332 MHz at FSB 333 MHz.
The voltage on the processor can be changed within 1.1-1.7 V, memory - from 1.8 to 2.55 V, although the description contains data from a board that supports DDR3.
On the north bridge, the voltage varies within 1.25-1.7 V, it is also possible to change the voltage of the CPU PLL, which is important for overclocking quad-core processors, on the FSB, south bridge and GTL logic. The available Load-Line Calibration parameter will allow you to avoid a drop in the supply voltage of an overclocked processor under load.
All variable voltages are listed in the table:
| Parameter | Range of changes |
| CPU Voltage | 1.1-1.7V, 0.0125V steps |
| CPU PLL Voltage | 1.5-1.8V, 0.1V steps |
| FSB Termination Voltage | 1.1-1.4V, 0.1V steps |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.8-2.55V, 0.05V steps |
| NB Voltage | 1.25/1.4/1.55/1.7V |
| S.B. Voltage | 1.05/1.2V |
| Clock Over-Charging Voltage | 0.7-1.0V, 0.1V steps |
| CPU GTL Voltage Reference | 0.63x/0.61x/0.59x/0.57x |
| NB GTL Voltage Reference | 0.67x/0.61x |
Monitoring is notable for its quite minimalism - there is only the temperature of the processor, motherboard, main voltages, including the processor voltage, and tracking the rotational speed of four fans, as well as controlling the Q-Fan technology.
For those who frequently use various settings system, the ability to save two profiles will come in handy, which after updating the BIOS will still have to be rewritten again, otherwise the system is unstable.
To update the BIOS, there is a built-in ASUS EZ Flash 2 utility - just connect the flash drive and select the directory with the saved version of the microcode.
Additional software
Comes with the board ASUS software AI Suite, which is responsible for monitoring, system overclocking, fan control and power saving functions.
Also on the bundled disk you can find a simpler PC Probe II utility responsible for system monitoring.
Overclocking
The board was overclocked with the same configuration as with the Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G. The BIOS version was 0902, dated June 19, 2008 - more recent firmware is in beta status, so it has not been used. With a voltage of 1.4 V on the north bridge and 1.4 V FSB, the maximum stable frequency was 550 MHz, and with an increase in NB Voltage to 1.55 V, the system was able to pass the stress test at a frequency of 566 MHz. For greater stability, the board was blown by a 120mm fan.
Changing other parameters did not affect the potential of ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP.
After the announcement of a new line of chipsets, the "old man" i975X temporarily handed over the baton of the company's flagship to the Intel P35 Express chipset, despite the limitations in the construction of CrossFire systems. Some manufacturers even produced P35-based boards with PCI Express bus switch chips, which allowed video cards to “talk” between themselves and the motherboard via eight PCI-E 1.1 lanes on each side. Of course, this affected the final cost of the finished solution, but high-level products have never been distinguished by a democratic price.
In the fall of 2007, the high-end Intel X38 Express chipset was already introduced, which differed from the P35 by supporting 32 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, which had twice the bandwidth of PCI-E 1.1, and allowed two video cards to work in “x16 + x16” mode . In addition, it became possible to work with DDR3-1333 memory, and support for XMP (eXtreme Memory Profiles) technology was introduced, which is an analogue of EPP (Enhanced Performance Profiles) from NVIDIA, but for DDR3 modules. Another interesting feature of the chipset was the presence of a heat-distributing cover on the north bridge, which made it possible to evenly remove heat and avoid chipping the chip chip.
Six months later, the Intel X48 Express chipset was introduced, which is nothing more than an X38 with bug fixes and official support for the FSB 1600 MHz bus and DDR3-1600 memory, and the chipset cannot work with DDR2 memory. In any case, this is what Intel said, which was soon refuted by motherboard manufacturers by releasing appropriate products that work with the old type of memory.
That's just, despite the fact that this chipset belongs to the fourth series, the south bridge remains the same - ICH9 (R / DH), while the new series is equipped with a microcircuit already at number 10.
Since products based on Intel X38 Express are already a certain rarity at the moment, ASUS Rampage Formula board was chosen as a representative of solutions based on the top X48 chipset. Over the year, the cost of high-end boards has dropped by half and now you can buy a good product for 150-200 dollars, but considering the forthcoming release of the P55 chipset and processors for Socket LGA1156, the expediency of such a purchase is doubtful. Although, it is not known how much the latest boards will be priced (they do not promise very much) and it is not a fact that it will be possible to immediately switch to the next platform. So if there is a quad-core processor, but there is no desire to change it, and motherboards based on Intel P45 are not satisfied for one reason or another, then a solution based on X48 will be the only candidate for purchase.
The board in question belongs to the Republic of Gamers series and comes in a branded box with a flip-top lid and carrying handle.
On the cover, all the technologies supported by the product are painted, and the presence of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R .: Shadow of Chernobyl is also indicated in the package. There are cutouts on the box through which you can see the cooling system and the back panel of the board, as well as the external sound card— i.e. one of the most interesting ASUS features Rampage Formula.
The board and the delivery set are packed in different boxes - accessories in a cardboard box, and the “motherboard” in a plastic one. The presence of plastic packaging was often found in decisions made in 2000-2001. costing about $100-120, but later they abandoned it, and now, as we see, they have returned to this idea again, but already as an attribute of top products.
Contents of delivery:
- instructions for the motherboard;
- disk with drivers and software
- disc with the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl;
- six SATA cables;
- external sound card SupremeFX II;
- power adapter for SATA devices;
- one IDE cable;
- one FDD cable;
- briquette with two USB connectors and one mini-FireWire;
- rear I/O bar;
- turbine for a radiator on power elements;
- a set of branded Q-Connector sockets
- set of ties;
- remote LCD indicator LCD-Poster;
- sticker on the system unit with the logo.
Among the board's accessories you can find a remote LCD-Poster indicator, familiar to us from Rampage II Extreme, and a turbine for installation on one of the power transistor heatsinks when passive system cooling or SVO. There is also a SupremeFX II discrete sound card, which is a regular audio codec on a separate board.
The full-format ATX-board is made on a black textolite, as, indeed, all expensive solutions from ASUS. The layout of the elements is more or less thought out, there is practically nothing to complain about: two PCI-E x16 slots are spaced far enough apart, memory can be replaced without dismantling the video card, the SATA and IDE connectors are rotated 90°, and after installing the accelerators, each channel will be available for connection drives. As for the memory - as noted above, the X48 chipset can work with the DDR2 standard without any problems, and the Rampage Formula is no exception - the board supports modules with a frequency of over 1200 MHz, but finding such modules is now problematic. The maximum amount of memory can reach 8 GB and in this regard there are no differences from solutions based on X38. But for new products from this fourth series, the bar has already moved up to 16 gigabytes, although eight are now rarely used. Of the processors, you can install all modern models with a bus frequency from 800 to 1600 MHz.
A complex design of various radiators and heat pipes is responsible for cooling the 8-channel power subsystem of the processor and chipset microcircuits. On the north bridge there is a large radiator with wavy fins, which, according to the manufacturer, should have a better effect on cooling, connected by a heat pipe to radiators smaller on power elements. To stiffen the system, a reinforcing plate is installed on the reverse side of the board, just at the location of the north bridge. In addition, heat is transferred to another heatsink made of thin aluminum plates, the back of which protrudes slightly beyond the I / O bar - this is somewhat reminiscent of the Silent Pipe cooling system on Gigabyte video cards.
The ICH9R southbridge is content with a heatsink connected to the rest of the structure via a heat pipe. There are eight connectors on the board for connecting fans, one of them is a four-pin, naturally designed for a processor cooler.
Like the new models, Rampage Formula is equipped with a new CPU power controller - EPU, capable of turning off unused processor power phases during system idle, thereby somehow allowing to save power. For a single board, the savings are not significant, but for a fleet of cars or even on a global scale, the numbers will be much larger.
The functionality of the product is at a high level, and the user can install two PCI expansion cards, two PCI-E x1, one more slot (black) is reserved for a SupremeFX II sound card, two graphics cards with PCI Express 2.0 interface, combining them in CrossFire mode.
The board has six SATA connectors, one IDE implemented using the JMicron JMB363 chip, six USB 2.0 ports (six more on the rear panel), and one IEEE 1394 port (VIA VT6308P). Two Marvell 88E8056 controllers are responsible for the network.
The SupremeFX II module is equipped with a shield cover and a full bar, and appearance resembles a shortened sound card with PCI-E interface x1.
But under the cover is a regular ADI AD1988B HDA codec, several filtering capacitors, power wiring and connectors for connecting an HD audio panel and CD.
On the rear panel there are six USB, one PS / 2 port, one FireWire, optical and coaxial S / PDIF, two network connectors and a Clear CMOS button.
In addition, the board has Power and Reset buttons, as well as a mini-switch that can be used to disable BIOS reset on the rear panel.
The buttons are convenient to use on an open stand or with one video card in the case, but Clear CMOS may not even be needed, because during the entire testing period it was not necessary to press it, except for checking the function itself. The board is also equipped with three connectors for connecting external thermal sensors and a number of LEDs near the processor, memory, north and south bridges, which are responsible for the level of voltage supplied to the listed components.
BIOS
BIOS ASUS boards Rampage Formula is based on American Megatrends, Inc. microcode, which is to be expected. Its possibilities for fine tuning the systems are quite wide, probably, only boards already on Intel X58 Express look better in this regard. All points of interest for overclocking are concentrated in the Extreme Tweaker section.
Here you can choose auto overclocking, carry out an “upgrade” of the processor to the next model. For example, our Core 2 Duo E8500 could operate in the E8600 mode, when its frequency is raised to the required level by overclocking the FSB bus, or in the Crazy mode, which will be discussed below. The system bus frequency can vary within 200-800 MHz, PCI-E - 100-180 MHz.
The number of memory dividers is similar to the ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP board, but unlike the latter, it has become easier to manage the Performance Level by directly entering the required numerical value. It is also possible to set a time delay between the memory and northbridge clocks. In addition, another item responsible for system performance - Ai Twister, which appeared on boards with X38, found its place here as well.
The maximum voltage on the processor can reach 2.4 V (1.1 V minimum), CPU PLL - 3 V, the voltage of the north bridge varies between 1.25-1.85 V, which will be enough for overclocking Core processors 2 Quad.
The memory voltage can be changed from 1.8 to 3.4 V, although for modern memory already 2.3 V is the limit that not every module can withstand.
The defined voltage limit is marked with a color code. For example, green voltages are safer, yellow ones are already less recommended, red ones - well, we think their essence is clear anyway. Although, upper values the green limit can easily burn a member of the Penryn family or an average memory, so you need to be extremely careful when choosing a voltage for a particular system component.
For convenience, all variable voltages are listed in the table:
| Parameter | Range of changes |
| CPU Voltage | 1.1-1.9V, 0.00625V steps and 1.9-2.4V, 0.025V steps |
| CPU PLL Voltage | 1.5-3.0V, 0.02V steps |
| North Bridge Voltage | 1.25-1.85V, 0.02V steps |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.8-3.4V, 0.02V steps |
| FSB Termination Voltage | 1.2-2.0V, 0.02V steps |
| South Bridge Voltage | 1.05-1.225V, 0.025V steps |
| SB 1.5V Voltage | 1.5-2.05V, 0.05V steps |
| CPU GTL Voltage Reference | 0.67x/0.65x/0.63x/0.62x |
| NB GTL Voltage Reference | 0.67x/0.63x/0.60x/0.57x/0.56x/0.53x/0.51x/0.49x |
| DRAM Controller Voltage REF | |
| DRAM Cohannel A Voltage REF | -30 mV to +30 mV, in 10 mV steps |
| DRAM Cohannel B Voltage REF | -30 mV to +30 mV, in 10 mV steps |
Monitoring, unlike more affordable ASUS products, allows you to monitor the temperature of the north and south bridges and three external thermal sensors in addition to the processor and motherboard. The entire list of variable voltages is also present in this section, which allows you to compare the exhibited with the "real". There are also control points for fans and protection against overheating of system components.
Like all ASUS solutions with good overclocking capabilities, the board supports saving two profiles, which will help with frequent changes in system settings.
Additional software
From software the board is completed standard set utilities: for flashing the BIOS and changing the splash screen at system startup, the PC Probe II monitoring program and a more advanced Ai Suite configuration tool, which we partially reviewed above. This program allows you to adjust the FSB frequency, processor multiplier, memory operation mode and its supply voltage, PCI-E frequency. It is also possible to adjust the fan operation mode.
In the Ai Gear3+ section, you can control the power-saving features and even slightly overclock the system.
For example, when Turbo mode is selected, the FSB frequency is raised to 350 MHz:
Turbo
Or you can even choose the Crazy mode in CPU Level Up and the bus frequency will increase to 368 MHz, which gave a final 3495 MHz for the test processor. Why not overclock?
Crazy
Overclocking
Well, now the real acceleration. The configuration is the same without any changes. The board was additionally blown by a 120 mm fan. The BIOS version is 0902.
The maximum frequency at a voltage of 1.45 V on the chipset and 1.4 V FSB turned out to be 562 MHz, and the test in OCCT generated an error if this threshold was exceeded.
Neither increasing other voltages, nor weakening the timings positive result did not.
Chipset Specifications
| Intel P31 Express | Intel G31 Express | Intel P35 Express | Intel G35 Express | Intel G33 Express | Intel Q35 Express | Intel Q33 Express | Intel X38 Express | |
| Positioning | Mainstream PC | Mainstream PC | Performance PC | Performance PC, Mainstream PC | Corporate Stable-Pro | Corporate Stable-Pro | Performance PC | |
| north bridge | 82P31 MCH | 82G31GMCH | 82P35 MCH | 82G35GMCH | 82G33GMCH | 82Q35GMCH | 82Q33GMCH | 82X38 MCH |
| Official CPU support | Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo | |
| connector type | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 |
| FSB frequency, MHz | 1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
1333 1066 800 |
| Maximum memory, GB | 4 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Number of memory slots | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Supported memory | DDR2-800 DDR2-667 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 DDR3-1066 DDR3-800 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 DDR3-1066 DDR3-800 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 |
DDR2-800 DDR2-667 DDR3-1333 DRR3-1066 DDR3-800 |
| Integrated graphics core | N/A | GMA 3100 | N/A | GMA X3500 | GMA 3100 | GMA 3100 | GMA 3100 | N/A |
| GUI | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-E 2.0 x16+x16 |
| south bridge | ICH7, ICH7R | ICH7, ICH7R | ICH9, ICH9R, ICH9DH | ICH8, ICH8R, ICH8DH | ICH9, ICH9R, ICH9DH | ICH9, ICH9R, ICH9DO | ICH9, ICH9R | ICH9, ICH9R, ICH9DH |
| Number of PCI-E lanes | 4 or 6 (ICH7R) | 4 or 6 (ICH7R) | 4 or 6 (ICH9R, ICH9DH) | 4 or 6 (ICH8R, ICH8DH) | 4 or 6 (ICH9R, ICH9DH) | 4 or 6 (ICH9R, ICH9DO) | 4 or 6 (ICH9R) | 4 or 6 (ICH9R, ICH9DH) |
| Disk subsystem | 4x SATA II, 1x PATA | 4x SATA II, 1x PATA | 4x SATA II or 6x SATA II (ICH8R, ICH8DH) | 4x SATA II or 6x SATA II (ICH9R, ICH9DH) | 4x SATA II or 6x SATA II (ICH9R, ICH9DO) | 4x SATA II or 6x SATA II (ICH9R) | 4x SATA II or 6x SATA II (ICH9R, ICH9DH) | |
| eSATA support | - | - | + | - | + | + | + | + |
| Supported Technologies for the Disk Subsystem | Intel Matrix Storage Technology (ICH7R) | Intel Matrix Storage Technology, NCQ, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (ICH8R, ICH8DH) | Intel Matrix Storage Technology, NCQ, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (ICH9R, ICH9DH), Intel Rapid Recover Technology, Intel Turbo Memory | Intel Matrix Storage Technology, NCQ, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (ICH9R, ICH9DO), Intel Rapid Recover Technology | Intel Matrix Storage Technology, NCQ, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (ICH9R), Intel Rapid Recover Technology | Intel Matrix Storage Technology, NCQ, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (ICH9R, ICH9DH), Intel Rapid Recover Technology, Intel Turbo Memory | ||
| Number of supported PCI slots | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Number of USB 2.0 ports | 8 | 8 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Sound subsystem | HDA, AC'97 | HDA, AC'97 | HDA | HDA | HDA | HDA | HDA | HDA |
Specifications of boards
| Model | Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G | ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP | |
| Chipset | Intel P31+ICH7 | Intel P35+ICH9R | Intel X48+ICH9R |
| Socket | LGA775 | LGA775 | LGA775 |
| Supported processors | Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Pentium Extreme, Pentium D, Pentium 4, Celeron Dual Core, Celeron | Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, Pentium D, Pentium 4 | |
| FSB, MHz | 1333/1066/800 | 1333/1066/800 | 1600/1333/1066/800 |
| Supported memory | 2 DIMM DDRII SDRAM 1066/800/667 (4GB max) | 4 DIMM DDRII SDRAM 1066/800/667 (8GB max) | 4 DIMM DDRII SDRAM 1200*/1066/800/667 (8GB max) |
| PCI slots | 1 PCI Express x16 3 PCI Express x1 |
1 PCI Express x16 1 PCI Express x16 (x4) 2 PCI Express x1 |
2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 3 PCI Express x1 (one reserved for SupremeFX II sound card) |
| PCI slots | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Number of connected fans | 4 (1x 4-pin, 3x 3-pin) | 6 (1x 4-pin, 5x 3-pin) | 8 (1x 4-pin, 7x 3-pin) |
| USB 2.0 ports | 8 (4 connectors on the rear panel) | 10 (6 connectors on the rear panel) | 12 (6 connectors on the rear panel) |
| PS/2 ports | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| LPT port | + | - | - |
| COM Port | 1 | 1 (on board) | 1 (on board) |
| FireWire ports | - | 2 (1 on board, Agere FW3227) | 2 (1 on board, VIA VT6308P) |
| ATA-133 | 1 channel (two devices, ICH7) | 1 channel (two devices, Micron JMB363) | |
| Serial ATA | 4 channels SATA II | 6 SATA II channels (ICH9R) + 2 eSATA channels (Micron JMB363) | 6 channels SATA II (ICH9R) |
| RAID | - | 0, 1, 5, 10 | 0, 1, 5, 10 |
| Sound subsystem | Realtek ALC888 (5.1, HDA) | ADI AD1988B (7.1, HDA) | SupremeFX II external sound card based on ADI AD1988B (7.1, HDA) |
| S/PDIF | Coaxial | Coaxial + Optical | Coaxial + Optical |
| Networking | Realtek 8111C (Gigabit Ethernet) | Marvell 88E8056 (Gigabit Ethernet, PCI-E) and Realtek RTL8110SC (Gigabit Ethernet, PCI) | 2x Marvell 88E8056 (Gigabit Ethernet) |
| BIOS | AWARD BIOS | AMI BIOS | AMI BIOS |
| Form Factor | ATX | ATX | ATX |
| Dimensions, mm | 305x194 | 305x245 | 305x245 |
| Additionally | - | WiFi module based on Realtek RTL8187L, uses two USB 2.0 ports | Power, Reset, Clear CMOS buttons, remote LCD display LCD-Poster |
Test configuration
Testing was carried out on the following configuration:
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16 GHz);
- RAM: G.Skill F2-8800CL5D-4GBPI (2x2048 MB, DDR2-1100, 5-5-5-15-2T, dual channel);
- Video card: XFX GF GTX295 576M 1792MB DDR3;
- Hard disk: Samsung HD252HJ (250 GB, SATA2);
- Power supply: Seasonic SS-600HM (600 W);
- Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x86 SP1;
- Motherboard driver: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 9.0.0.1008
- Video card driver: NVIDIA GeForce 182.50
Test results
Memory subsystem
The performance of the memory subsystem in the Lavalys Everest test of boards based on Intel X48 Express is slightly higher than in the rest of the participants, especially in the copy subtest, where it reaches a 20% difference. A similar result, about 6100 MB / s, was demonstrated in recent tests by boards based on the P43 chipset. Apparently, the fourth series of Intel system logic sets has a slightly updated memory controller, which, in the process of copying, works a little faster than the previous generation solutions.
The GA-P31-ES3G board, which is based on the P31 Express chipset, showed a slightly higher result in the rendering subtest using multiple cores, and in the OpenGL test it turned out to be the most productive in general. ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP lagged behind by 5%, in contrast to which, in turn, the more expensive product showed a 3% worse result.
In gaming applications, the product based on Intel P35 Express turned out to be the most productive board. Naturally, when using higher-quality graphics, the difference between different solutions is leveled, unless, of course, a higher bandwidth of the PCI Express bus is required, which is possessed by representatives of the fourth-series chipsets from the processor giant.
conclusions
The first thing I would like to say to users with motherboards based on Intel 3 Series chipsets - if there are no special reasons for switching to new products, then you can wait with the upgrade. All you lose on older solutions is about 5% in modern games when using the highest quality picture, a Radeon HD 4890 level card and more than 4 GHz Core 2 Duo, as you can see in one of our upcoming materials. But when building a system from scratch or when moving from a platform of venerable age, of course, there is no point in buying motherboards based on already outdated chipsets, and in this case it is better to immediately turn your attention to newer solutions. Or even wait a bit and immediately switch to the LGA1156 platform, since the prices for finished products are not expected to be so high, in contrast to the beginning of expansion into the Nehalem microarchitecture market.
As for the reviewed products, the GA-P31-ES3G board based on the Intel P31 Express entry-level chipset demonstrated good performance with fewer settings, in some tests it even showed better results than more expensive solutions. The delivery set is minimal, but you can hardly expect anything more from a board for less than $ 60 - this is an ordinary workhorse that is installed in the system and often forgotten about what it is.
ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP is equipped to the eyeballs and is one of the best representatives of motherboard models based on the P35 chipset. Two network cards, WiFi-module, excellent overclocking potential - perhaps the owners of these boards should look at the replacement only when switching to another platform.
Former flagship intel set X48 system logic, aka X38 without support for the 1600 MHz FSB bus and DDR3-1600 memory, will for a long time be the basis of motherboards for productive systems based on quad-core processors and a bundle of a pair of video cards Radeon family HD. The reviewed ASUS Rampage Formula is an example of what an overclocking product should be. Maximum settings for overclocking, concentrated in one section, thoughtful design and cooling system, additional functionality in the form of power and reset buttons, as well as resetting the settings BIOS Setup and external LCD-Postera - take it and overclock it. The relationship of this motherboard to the gaming series is a little unclear - the players do not need all this. But for overclockers just right, if, of course, the price suits. But top products are only going up in price these days...
We thank the following companies for providing test equipment:
- 1-Incom for G.Skill F2-8800CL5D-4GBPI memory kit;
- Quasar Micro for mother Gigabyte board GA-P31-ES3G;
- Group Master for ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP and ASUS Rampage Formula motherboards, as well as for ASUS graphics card EN8800GS TOP 384MB;
- Max Point for the Silver Power SP-S850 PSU;
- Noctua for the Noctua NH-U12P cooler and Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste;
- Syntex for Seasonic SS-600HM power supply;
- XFX for the XFX GF GTX295 576M 1792MB DDR3 graphics card.
We already know about Intel's plans to start deliveries of budget chipsets P31 and G31 in the third quarter of this year. These chipsets are designed to replace the i945x series chipsets in the long run. The boards based on the new chipsets will support 45 nm Intel processors, but it would be wrong to attribute this feature to the merits of the chipsets themselves. The Intel P31 and G31 chipsets will initially support 1066 MHz bus processors, and will be allowed to support 1333 MHz bus in the first quarter. Motherboard manufacturers are already introducing support for 1333 MHz bus for those chipsets that do not have this capability. The Intel P31 and G31 chipsets will be pin-compatible with the i945x series chipsets, the southbridges will remain the same - ICH7 and ICH7R, which will provide native support for the IDE interface, which is still in demand in the budget sector. In a word, the new chipsets do not offer any special innovations, besides the integrated graphics of the Intel GMA 3100 class for the Intel G31 chipset. They are introduced in order to unify the range of chipsets - already in the fourth quarter of this year, every second desktop chipset supplied by Intel will belong to the x3x family.
advertising
DigiTimes reported yesterday that Intel started shipping the P31 and G31 chipsets on July 4th. The wholesale cost of each of the chipsets is $30. Note that i945x series chipsets are offered at the following prices:- i945GT -> $39;
- i945G -> $37;
- i945GT -> $33;
- i945GC -> $25;
- i945GZ -> $24;
- i945PL -> $23.
advertising
Thus, the Intel G31 and P31 chipsets, costing $30, join the friendly ranks of the i945x series chipsets. Note that this will not help i945x series chipsets leave the market faster - even in the first quarter of 2008 their share will be close to 35%. In the second quarter, the chipsets of the "third series" will be replaced by new chipsets of the Eaglelake family, and the i945x series chipsets will move to the lowest rung of the hierarchy, replacing the i865x series chipsets. Please note that by the first quarter of 2008, the share of i965x series chipsets will be measured by a few percent, and x3x series chipsets will unconditionally dominate (almost 60%). By the way, in the current quarter the cost of the Intel P35 chipset will be reduced from $34 to $33, but this will hardly affect the retail price of motherboards.
So, Intel has paused for almost three years since the release of the revolutionary series of i9xx chipsets. Recall that then desktop systems were added at once: a new type of socket and a new power connector, DDR2 memory, a PCI Express bus (including an option for connecting video accelerators) and High Definition Audio. Then, over the course of two generations of chipsets (i945/955/975 and i965), only increases in FSB and memory frequencies followed, as well as support for new processor families (first dual-core, and then Core 2).
Now we are meeting a new generation of chipsets, which, along with a radical change in numbering, offers an update of such important architectural characteristics of the system as the general purpose bus and memory type.
Intel X38 Express
It is logical to start considering a new family of chipsets with its top representative, which, however, has not yet been released to the market and will appear only in the third quarter, like the entire second wave of new chipsets. Note that earlier the model number of a top product was specified by an increased numerical index (i915 - i925), but now a top product is easy to distinguish by the X prefix, which in Intel is responsible for any general improvements (not only for chipsets, but also for processors, video accelerators) . This block diagram lists the key features of the X38:
- support for "new" processors of the Celeron and Pentium families, as well as all processors of the Core 2 family (Duo/Quad/Extreme) with a system bus frequency of 800/1066 MHz, including future models with a system bus frequency of 1333 MHz;
- dual-channel DDR2-533/667/800 or DDR3-800/1066/1333 memory controller with support for up to 4 DIMMs up to a total of 8 GB (with ECC) and Fast Memory Access and Flex Memory technologies;
- 2 graphics interfaces PCI Express 2.0 x16;
- DMI bus (~2 GB/s throughput) to the new ICH9/R/DH/DO southbridge.
It is clearly visible that all the key characteristics of the chipset have been changed. Let's break down the innovations point by point.
Processor Support. It should be noted right away that officially all chipsets of the 3x series do not support processors of the Celeron D, Pentium 4 and Pentium D families (as well as their Extreme Edition versions). The lack of support is due not to the changed characteristics of the processor bus, but to the new FMB motherboard design standard (specifically, the VRM processor power module), which provides support for future processors created using the 45-nanometer process technology, instead of the old ones based on 90 (and more) - nanometer technology. Of course, there is no direct connection between the applied chipset and the power subsystem on the motherboard, but manufacturers, in the vast majority of cases, follow Intel development standards, so it seems extremely unlikely that we will see a significant number of models based on Intel 3x supporting processors of the "pre-Core" era. 2". Not to mention boards with simultaneous support for Prescott and Penryn.
As for Core 2 support, the X38 is doing just fine: all current and future Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme models (including quad-core versions) will officially work with this chipset, and for all of them there will be supported bus 1333 MHz. Of the younger families of new processors (Celeron 400 and Pentium E2000), everyone will be able to work on the X38, although Celeron 400 support for the top chipset has not been announced for marketing reasons.
Memory support. The capabilities of the DDR2 controller have not changed for all new chipsets (actually, no development is expected in this area, everything available in the specification has already been implemented), but boards based on Intel 3x will be able to work with DDR3 memory. The features and theoretical performance of the new type of memory have already been discussed in a separate article on our website, but here we will limit ourselves to considering practical aspects. The first question that usually comes up is is it possible to support DDR2 and DDR3 at the same time? Here the situation is no different from the transition from DDR to DDR2: Intel does not officially test such combinations and does not check them for compatibility, but no one bothers motherboard manufacturers to do this on their own. Our readers, who regularly watch the news, are undoubtedly already familiar with several models of combined motherboards, and today's testing was carried out on one of them (however, we are unlikely to see combined models on the X38). Note that the simultaneous Work DDR2 and DDR3 memory, of course, is impossible: at startup, the board will initiate work with memory of one or another type.
In the context of system assembly, DDR3 is good for everyone: less heat dissipation (the supply voltage is lowered, so even DDR3-1066 will emit less than DDR2-800), a different location of the key in the connector will not allow you to mix up the DDR2 and DDR3 slots on combo boards. As you already know, DDR3 is supposed to operate at frequencies up to 800(1600) MHz, and X38 will immediately allow you to use almost the fastest version - DDR3-1333. Here, with the availability and timings of available memory, the situation at the time of the launch of Intel 3x is terrible. DDR3 modules are not yet widely represented on the market, and in such conditions even "elite" manufacturers (like Corsair) allow themselves to sell modules with frankly mediocre characteristics at an insane price. We recommend that all our reasonable readers wait, because over time, of course, prices will fall and performance will grow. In the meantime, analysts predict that DDR3 will reach 50% of its presence on the market only in 2009, and by the end of 2007 this type of memory will hardly gain even 10%. And of course, in the practical part of the article, we will see what we are offered to overpay for.
PCI Express 2.0. Here, Intel delivers a preemptive strike, not only by finally creating a chipset with support for two full-speed PCI Express x16 interfaces, which the top products of competitors have long been boasting about (there is no real tangible gain from such a configuration in the vast majority of cases, but the principles are more expensive), but also by implementing the host controller of the second version of the standard. In a practical aspect, the use of PCI Express 2.0 does not interfere with the use of old video cards, since the connectors are the same, and compatibility is observed in both directions. As far as the graphical interface is concerned, the innovations of PCI Express 2.0 are not likely to be very interesting, except for two. First, the performance of each lane (lane) of PCI Express has been doubled, so that a connection with a single channel (PCIEx1) now has a bandwidth of 500 MB / s in each direction at the same time, and for a 16-lane PCIEx16 interface, the total bandwidth will be 16 GB /With. We emphasize that in the foreseeable future the systems will not receive any practical benefit from this.
Secondly, the power supplied via the bus was increased by the same 2 times: the PCIEx16 slot of the first version of the standard provided up to 75 W, but now the video card can receive 150 W. (Immediately the question arises how these "extra" watts will get to the bus - will there be a special additional power connector on X38-based boards?) However, immediately after the launch of the i915/925 video cards for PCI Express began to appear, but with their own power connector on board (bus 75 W was not enough), and now top video accelerators only look condescendingly towards the power supply from the PCIEx16 connector, suggesting at best to abandon one of the two on-board power connectors. However, here, of course, the "merit" of SLI / CrossFire is great: it is top-end video cards that are primarily designed for pairing, and if one can theoretically still have enough bus power, then the second video accelerator, thoughtlessly deprived of its own power connector, simply cannot start under such conditions. As for the ability to combine a pair of video cards based on Intel X38 into a bundle, everything is still the same here: CrossFire is officially supported, SLI is not officially supported and will not be in the foreseeable future.
Also paired with the X38 will be a new southbridge from the ICH9 family, the functionality of this family will be discussed in detail below.
Intel P35 Express
Let us briefly list the main functional characteristics Northbridge of this chipset:
Here, the number of innovations is already smaller, of the most significant only DDR3. Processor support is limited to the same models based on the 65nm and future 45nm process technology, but due to the reasons described above (a simplified FMB design is expected for P35 boards), Core 2 Extreme models (especially quad-core ones) will not work in P35 boards. Also, the chipset lacks support for DDR3-1333 memory (in fact, it lacks a divider to set such a memory frequency). Instead of PCI Express 2.0, the current standard is used GUI PCI Express x16 (first version), and, like the P965 and earlier chipsets, the P35 does not allow you to flexibly configure this interface to support CrossFire. However, as before, this fact does not stop motherboard manufacturers - they create solutions for CrossFire based on the P35, connecting the second slot to the south bridge (where PCIEx1 peripheral interfaces go to it). The southbridge for this chipset is also one of the ICH9 family.
Intel G33 Express
The main integrated chipset of the new family bears the slightly illogical name G33, while in terms of functionality it is on par with the P35. The reason is that in the third quarter, Intel will release another integrated chipset (now G35), with an improved graphics core, and it was necessary that the newcomer not be equal in number to the top X38. So, the G33, which is a variant of the P35 with an integrated graphics core, has the following architecture:
Let's briefly list the main functional characteristics of the north bridge of this chipset:
- support for "new" processors of the Celeron and Pentium families, as well as Core 2 Duo/Quad processors with a system bus frequency of 800/1066 MHz, including future models with a system bus frequency of 1333 MHz;
- dual-channel DDR2-533/667/800 or DDR3-800/1067 memory controller with support for up to 4 DIMMs up to a total of 8 GB (non-ECC) with Fast Memory Access and Flex Memory technologies;
- graphic interface PCI Express x16;
- integrated graphics core GMA X3100 with support for Clear Video technology;
- DMI bus (~2 GB/s throughput) to the new ICH9/R/DH southbridge.
Again, this chipset differs from the P35 only in the presence of integrated graphics.
Integrated graphics GMA X3100. Let's hope that video drivers for the X3100 will be ready soon, and we will finally see everything that we have been promised since the X3000 (G965). In fact, the new video core has not undergone major changes compared to the GMA 950 (i945G), so it is significantly inferior in architecture to the X3000; we will analyze the differences when / if we can fully conduct all the tests. In the meantime, we recall that Clear Video technology is designed to hardware accelerate and improve the quality (deinterlacing + color correction) of video playback (including HD), as well as provide digital video interfaces (including HDMI) for image output. Of course, full support for the Aero interface in Windows Vista is promised. The GMA X3100 also claims support for HD DVD and Blu-ray disc playback, we'll look at the details after testing the boards on the G33.
Intel G31, G35, Q35 Express
Let's say a few words about other chipsets of the new line. All of them will be released to the market in the third quarter of 2007.
G31 is an entry-level integrated chipset, it can hardly be called new. In fact, its functionality is at the level of 945G chipsets, which it is designed to replace. Even the southbridge of this chipset is the same old ICH7/R - thus, at the same time, the mess with PATA support, which is completely undesirable in the corporate sector, which has been going on since ICH8, is solved. The G31 supports Core 2 Duo (but with FSB up to 1066 MHz) and memory up to DDR2-800.
The G35 is an interesting integrated chipset with a redesigned graphics engine that Intel promises will be the first [integrated] solution to support DirectX 10. Of course, we'll talk more about the G35 (and its GMA X3500) in due course. In other respects, the G35 promises to be very similar to the G965 (note that this also applies to integrated video), and architecturally with Intel 3x chipsets it will only have support for 45nm Wolfdale and Yorkfield and the new Core 2 Duo with a FSB frequency of 1333 MHz (memory DDR3 is also not supported). The old ICH8/R/DH will be used as the southbridge for the G35.
Q35 (and its simplified version Q33) - the basis for Intel vPro business systems, an integrated chipset with disabled gaming opportunities. The most interesting combination will be the Q35 with the ICH9DO (Digital Office) southbridge, which will provide support for technologies such as AMT (Active Management Technology) 3.0, Trusted Execution Technology and Virtualization Technology. Q35 also does not support the use of DDR3 memory.
Southbridges Intel ICH9
New chipsets - updated southbridges. Quite a match for its northern counterparts, ICH9 has a number of evolutionary improvements compared to ICH8, and also supports (only ICH9R) one technology that can be considered revolutionary. Let us briefly list the main functional characteristics of the new family of southbridges:
- up to 6 PCIEx1 ports;
- up to 4 PCI slots;
- 4/6 (4 for ICH9, 6 for ICH9R) Serial ATA II ports for 4/6 SATA300 devices (SATA-II, the second generation of the standard), with support for AHCI mode and functions like NCQ (for ICH9, this mode is guaranteed to work only under Windows Vista), individually disconnectable, with support for eSATA and port splitters;
- the ability to organize a RAID array (only for ICH9R) levels 0, 1, 0 + 1 (10) and 5 with the Matrix RAID function (one set of disks can be used in several RAID modes at once - for example, two disks can organize RAID 0 and RAID 1, each array will have its own part of the disk);
- 12 USB 2.0 devices (on two EHCI host controllers) with the ability to individually disable;
- Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller and a special interface (LCI/GLCI) for connecting a PHY controller (i82566 for Gigabit Ethernet implementation, i82562 for Fast Ethernet implementation);
- support for Intel Turbo Memory;
- High Definition Audio (7.1);
- binding for low-speed and obsolete peripherals, etc.
ICH9R traditionally differs from ICH9 in the presence of support for RAID arrays, as well as two extra SATA ports. Special versions of the ICH9DO (Digital Office) and ICH9DH (Digital Home) Southbridge are based on the ICH9R, but the former offers Active Management Technology 3.0, Trusted Execution Technology and Virtualization Technology, and the latter Viiv Technology (the positioning of both of these variations is obvious) .
Of the minor evolutionary changes, we can note the increased number of USB 2.0 ports to 12, the implementation of the eSATA function and port splitters (which is relevant for external eSATA connectors) for SATA chipset ports, and SATA connectors now (like USB, starting with ICH8) are subject to individual shutdown. An alternative to creating RAID arrays for data safety can be the new Intel Rapid Recover Technology, which allows you to create a disk image on another hard drive, quickly update it without touching unchanged files, and quickly restore data if the first hard drive is damaged. The Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller is still integrated into the south bridge, but we have not seen its use in any i965-based board - apparently, for ordinary desktop systems, a network controller from Marvell, Broadcom, Realtek and others connected via PCI Express bus is cheaper. At the same time, users of corporate vPro systems will certainly appreciate the features of the proprietary Intel controller. It would be strange to expect the return of PATA support after it was abandoned in ICH8, and it really did not happen - Intel considers this issue closed despite the abundance of problems with chipset PATA "substitutes".
The most intriguing feature of the new series of southbridges is the support for Intel Turbo Memory technology (known as Robson Technology in development). Its essence is to install a module with a certain amount of NAND flash memory on the board (for a start, it is planned to produce variants with 512 MB and 1 GB). Basically, apparently, the module will be installed in the PCIEx1 slot, although, in principle, other connection options are possible (for example, to contacts for an external USB port). The benefit from Turbo Memory will be received by Windows users Vista, and unlike, say, USB key fobs with flash memory, the module integrated on the board can be used by the new Microsoft OS for both ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost.
Briefly, in the first case, we get the opportunity to use a flash drive as a cache memory for a hard drive - for linear read-write operations there cannot be a big gain here (flash memory is slower hard drive), so that ReadyDrive will benefit from regular small data exchange operations that are typical for swap file read-updates (flash memory has noticeably less access time than a hard drive). An additional advantage is a reduction in the number of accesses to the hard disk (data is merged to the disk in batches, during idle times, and reading is not performed at all if the necessary data is available in the Turbo Memory cache), which saves energy - of course, this is a real gain only for mobile devices. devices.
ReadyBoost, on the other hand, expands the available memory for pre-reading and caching data (from the hard disk), and although with RAM flash drives cannot compete in speed, yet reading not from a hard drive, but from flash memory with its low random access time can significantly speed up application loading and opening files (numbers are called up to 2 times). The disadvantage of Turbo Memory is the potential fragility of flash drives, the best of which are characterized by the number of rewrite cycles of the order of a million (possibly several million), which, even with some reserve capacity, can lead to loss of storage capacity long before the end of the life of the PC, in which it is installed.
Heat dissipation. The heat dissipation of the new chipsets deserves special mention. Despite being manufactured using the same 90nm process technology and more complex logic, the 3x series chipsets consume noticeably less power than their predecessors. So, TDP for P35 is 16 W (for P965 - 19 W), and this despite the fact that the new chipset TDP is calculated based on the increased frequencies of FSB (1333 MHz) and memory (1066 MHz DDR3), that is, in equal conditions, the difference is much more than 3 watts in favor of the P35. Similarly, the new chipsets have noticeably lower maximum idle heat dissipation (5.9 W for the P35 and 10 W for the P965), although here a slight indulgence is allowed for beginners: idle measurements are taken for the case of 2 DIMMs, and not 4, as before . The G33 is basically characterized by the same consumption values, but since this chipset can be used without an external video card, we will give its heat dissipation for this case for reference: idle - 5.75 W (against 13 W for the G965), and TDP is 14.5 W (G965 has a record 28 W).
compare the reference heatsink for new chipsets and the one used by MSI
As a result, the difference is so noticeable that it is easily determined even by touch, when touching the chipset heatsinks. By the way, reduced heat generation, of course, led to the processing regular system cooling, and the Intel documentation provides a recommended chipset cooler with a significantly lower weight and surface area. Fortunately, the motherboards based on the P35 that we saw (including models from Intel itself) retained the heatsinks of the previous type (used for the i945/965 chipsets), and the top products of all manufacturers, of course, will continue to be equipped with powerful designs using heat pipes - the provision obliges, although now it will become relevant only in case of serious overclocking. As a result, we have a turning point in an extremely unpleasant trend, when after the hot i965 and scalding nForce 600i it seemed that soon we would have to develop new standards for chipset cooling devices.
Performance study
Test stand:
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz)
- Motherboards:
- MSI P35 Neo Combo (BIOS V1.0B16 dated 04/20/2007) based on Intel P35 chipset
- Gigabyte 965P-DQ6 (BIOS version D25) based on Intel P965 chipset
- EVGA nForce 680i LT SLI (BIOS P03) on NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI chipset
- Memory:
- 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS3-1066C7 (DDR3-1066) modules
- 2 x 1 GB modules Corsair CM2X1024-9136C5D (DDR2-1142)
- Video card: ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 512 MB
- Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 (SATA), 7200 rpm
Software:
- OS and drivers:
- Windows XP Professional SP2
- DirectX 9.0c
- Intel Chipset Drivers 8.2.0.1014
- NVIDIA Chipset Drivers 9.53
- ATI Catalyst 6.8
- Test applications:
- RightMark Memory Analyzer 3.72
- 7-Zip 4.10b
- WinRAR 3.41
- codec XviD 1.0.2 (29.08.2004)
- SPECviewperf 8.01
- Doom 3 (v1.0.1282)
- FarCry (v1.1.3.1337)
Test platform
Due to the fact that we received several MSI motherboards based on the P35 chipset for testing, including one with simultaneous support for DDR2 and DDR3, as well as a set of DDR3 memory modules from Corsair, today's testing will help answer two questions at once. Firstly, we will find out how the speed of DDR2 and DDR3 on one platform (P35) correlate, and secondly, we will compare both versions of this platform with other chipsets on the market today. As the latter, it is logical to take the P965 (which is just being replaced by the P35) and the top chipset of the latest NVIDIA series - nForce 680i LT SLI (we have already found out that there is no difference between the nForce 680i LT SLI and functionality, and we had a board based on nForce 680i LT SLI).
Comparison of the two types of memory turned out to be more difficult, since the pre-sale BIOS versions of MSI boards turned out to be practically not ready for DDR3: the BIOS of the P35 Neo Combo model did not provide the ability to set the normal (for DDR3) supply voltage (1.5 V) and timings (they were limited to the standard DDR2 scheme, so it was impossible to set values greater than 6 for the main timings). At the same time, the Corsair modules we had in the DDR3-1066 mode did not agree to work with timings below 7-7-7, so the board had to be launched in the SPD timings setting mode. Additional problems were created by the novelty of the platform, which did not allow checking the correctness of setting timings (and other parameters of memory operation) by numerous utilities under Windows. Fortunately, the latest version of CPU-Z already understands both the P35 chipset and DDR3, so, with allowances for everything said above, we managed to bring some clarity.
In DDR3-1066 mode (SPD timings), according to CPU-Z, the timings scheme was as follows: 7-7-7-20. Since the board did not allow setting the main timings above 6, we ran DDR2 memory at a frequency of 1066 MHz with timings 6-6-6-18 for the maximum possible approximation of the results. At the same time, at a frequency of 800 MHz, our DDR3 modules unexpectedly easily agreed to work even at 4-4-4-12 timings, which made it possible to compare this configuration with the P965 and nForce 680i LT SLI in their standard mode with [email protected] Since we didn't have a P965 board at hand that would allow us to run our memory in the DDR2-1066 mode, the previous generations of chipsets in this mode are represented only by the NVIDIA product (recall that it is exceptionally close to the i965 in tests).
Now, before proceeding to the presentation of the test results, let's consider the issue theoretically. Under equal conditions (at the same frequency with the same timings), DDR3 cannot be noticeably faster than DDR2, and the main hopes for acceleration from the use of a new type of memory can only apply to modes with lower timings at high frequencies. Indeed, according to the absolute values of the timings, the modes [email protected] and [email protected] are equal, so if memory manufacturers manage to produce low-latency modules, DDR3 may be more efficient even in “normal” conditions.
The second possible advantage of DDR3 is the increased bandwidth, since this memory can run at about higher frequencies. Unfortunately, this gain can only manifest itself on future processors, since at a FSB frequency of 1066 MHz, the bandwidth of this bus is only ~8.5 GB/s, which corresponds to the bandwidth of a dual-channel DDR2-533! As practice shows, in such cases, usually increasing the memory frequency “by one step” can still bring a small gain, but in reality even DDR2-800 will be enough with a margin even for future processors with a 1333 MHz bus, while current processors neither DDR3-1066 nor , especially since DDR3-1600 is not needed.
Test results
Traditionally, let's start with a low-level study of the potential of memory using a test developed by our programmers.
Recall that despite the closeness of performance in real applications, the NVIDIA chipset and i965 look very different in the synthetic RMMA test, so we won't focus on this difference.
The P35, which is noticeably inferior to both competitors in terms of data reading speed, demonstrates a very interesting effect: when memory (both DDR2 and DDR3) is running at 1066 MHz, its performance is higher than in DDR2-800 mode, although nForce 680i LT SLI decrease slightly. Let us leave this fact, which is weakly consistent with our theoretical reflections, for the time being, and turn to other relations. Actually, it remains for us to note that DDR3 looks noticeably worse than DDR2 even with equal timings. We deliberately do not indicate the exact size of the differences here, since it would be hasty to estimate the percentage differences before moving on to real tests.
When testing the write speed, we are not interested in the limit values achieved using the direct data storage method, since they will be the same on a processor of the same architecture. In terms of actually achievable memory write speed, the picture roughly corresponds to that when reading: the new chipset is noticeably slower than its competitors, DDR3 is slower than DDR2 (especially at 800 MHz), and the transition to a memory frequency of 1066 MHz still speeds up the P35 with both types of memory, but slows down the NVIDIA chipset.
Finally, the memory latency test, and here the first surprise is the implementation in the P35 memory controller of a technology similar to NVIDIA's DASP - when pseudo-random reading from memory (without going beyond one page) latency decreases radically, by several times. Obviously, we are dealing with the same prefetch caching buffer. Nevertheless, even in such a successful test of pseudo-random reading from memory, the P35 is significantly inferior to its competitors (in this case, nForce 680i LT SLI). In the comparison of DDR2 and DDR3 on the P35, the old type of memory again wins, this difference is especially noticeable in the DDR2 / 3-1066 mode, where DDR3 has higher timings.
It is curious, but here the transition to the memory frequency of 1066 MHz leads to acceleration, although the ratio of the absolute values of the timings should have led to the opposite: taking into account the clock time, CL4 for DDR2 / 3-800 corresponds to 10 ns, and CL6 for DDR2-1066 - 11.25 ns (not to mention CL7 for DDR3-1066 - 13.13 ns). Why is that? Two possible explanations come to mind. First, the matching of the bus frequency of the Core 2 Duo E6600 and the DDR2/3-1066 memory attracts attention: perhaps such a synchronous mode of operation provides some advantage. However, the absence of such an effect in the NVIDIA chipset suggests that some internal optimizations of the memory controller also have an effect, just like in the i965, allowing you to get a small gain from running the memory at any higher frequency.
Well, now let's move on from consideration of theoretical aspects to real tests, and here, with numbers in hand, we will evaluate the advantage of certain configurations.
So, according to the real results, it is already possible to draw the first conclusions. On the one hand, all the ratios we noticed earlier have been preserved: P35 is slightly (now we can say specifically - up to 7%) inferior to P965 and nForce 680i LT SLI, DDR2-800 is faster on P35 than DDR3-800 at equal timings (by 3%) , and DDR2/3-1066 on the P35 is faster than the same type of memory at 800 MHz (it is impossible to give an exact estimate here, since the timings of DDR2 and DDR3 are different), about higher timings. On the other hand, it's worth noting that a 7% difference is observed only in one test, and working with DDR2-800 is obviously not the P35's forte. Further obscuring the difference is the fact that [email protected] is a memory with almost extremely low latency, while [email protected] - standard version, which the same Corsair and the company will most likely offer an alternative with significantly reduced timings very soon.
But let's not jump to conclusions, let's look at the results of other tests.
There are no surprises from testing for video encoding speed (measured according to our open method), here, as usual, all competitors look the same, since processor performance is the limiting factor.
In the SPECviewperf package of professional 3D applications, only NVIDIA chipsets manage to prove themselves, which is likely due to their optimized graphics bus controller, since different memory modes (and even different types of memory) only nominally affect the performance.
We don't see anything new in games either, only the fact that in one of the Doom 3 modes (for the first and last time during today's testing) the P35 is the absolute winner (and, of course, with a memory running at 1066 MHz) deserves to be stated. However, the difference between the chipsets in Doom 3 is generally small, no more than 3%, and the losses due to the use of DDR3 instead of DDR2 on the P35 are even smaller - about 2%. In FarCry, the spread of results is slightly more significant, up to 4%, but all three patterns we have noted today remain in force.
conclusions
It is difficult to evaluate chipsets that bring several revolutionary innovations at once. In this case, the announcement turned out to be smooth, because PCI Express 2.0 will appear only in the third quarter, with the release of X38, and compatibility problems due to the transition to the new version of the standard are not expected. The second novelty, DDR3 memory, did not make much impression on us with its speed characteristics, but, fortunately, at least in the first generation of chipsets there will be a choice between DDR2 and DDR3, so we can safely wait for price reductions and improved performance of a new type of memory. Support for new processors is probably the main advantage of the Intel 3x series. True, by the time these new processors become available, it may turn out that they are also supported by other chipsets, including products of competitors, of which at least for the nForce 600i series support for FSB 1333 MHz is announced, while no one can declare actual support for 45-nanometer models yet. The new southbridge is moderately progressive, adding a little here and there, and its main intriguing feature, Intel Turbo Memory, needs hands-on testing before a verdict is reached.
Before proceeding to the performance evaluation, I would like to note that we are waiting, firstly, for confirmation of the speed level shown MSI boards. Indeed, all three motherboards that came to us demonstrated absolutely the same level of performance when working with DDR2 (two of them support only this type of memory), however, just before the end of the tests, we received a new firmware for P35 Platinum, which slightly (by a few percent) increased the speed this model. In addition, although we can't say that the combined solutions are inferior in speed to the "dedicated" ones, general concerns of this kind remain, so it's too early to put an end to the issue of DDR3 performance. If we take into account the release of [inexpensive, that is, mass-produced] processors with a 1333 MHz FSB, the picture may change further. However, having performed a significant amount of tests, it would be foolish not to draw any conclusions based on it. Our conclusions are as follows: taking into account all the above and implied reservations, the chipsets of the new series still look a little slower than the old ones (both i965 and NVIDIA nForce 600i), DDR3 memory under equal conditions can lead to a loss of 2-3% of performance, and P35 is better suitable memory operating at a frequency of 1066 MHz, regardless of the timings.
Speaking globally about the fate of new chipsets on the market, the X38 will undoubtedly find its fans, albeit not numerous, of top solutions, being one of the best chipsets on the market in terms of functionality. P35, after leaving the early start strip, should demonstrate a decent level of performance, and its good functionality, low heat dissipation, support for promising processors and memory types make it possible to recommend buying motherboards based on a new chipset instead of solutions of a similar class from competitors and old chipsets today about
th company. Turbo technology Memory, with a clear demonstration of all the promised properties, can become another very weighty argument for Intel 3x. We promise to talk about integrated options later separately.
Socket 775 is far from new. Over the entire period of its existence, a huge number of motherboards have been released, it is simply impossible to list all of them,. It will probably be much easier to specify which motherboard chipsets support Intel Xeon server processors. In plain language, you should find out what kind of chipset is installed on your motherboard in order to understand whether Intel Xeon wants to work on it or not.
Purchase
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Compatibility table
Below is a small but rather capacious table on the compatibility of chipsets and Xeon processors LGA771.
| Intel Xeon which is compatible with the chipset | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| motherboard chipset | Xeon 5xxx | Xeon 3xxx | Intel 45nm | Intel 65nm |
| P45, P43, P35, P31, P965 G45, G43, G41, G35, G33, G31 nForce 790i, 780i, 740i, 630i GeForce 9400, 9300 |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Q45, Q43, Q35, Q33 X48, X38 |
Not | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| nForce 680i and 650i | Yes | Yes | Possibly (need to be checked) | Yes |
| Vidia 680i | |
| nVidia 650i | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| nVidia 780i | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| nVidia 790i | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| P35 | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| P45 | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| G31 | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| G41 | Compatible with all 771 Xeon's |
| X38 | |
| X48 | Compatible with X33 series Xeons only |
Well, one more table. If you are sure that the motherboard is fully compatible with the chipsets listed on the left side of the table, you can safely select the processors listed on the right side.
During the installation process, you need to pay attention to the fact that in the vast majority of cases you have to update the BIOS, flash it, taking into account the following:
the 5xxx series are all Intel Xeons whose model numbers end in 5xxx. They can be combined with motherboards that support one or two physical central chips.
Problems can arise with Intel motherboards. Very rarely there are troubles with motherboards from MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS. This may be due to the fact that Intel motherboards have their own BIOS, which is practically not amenable to manual flashing.
Nforce 680i and 650i chipsets from Nvidia official version do not work with 45nm process processors. It all depends on luck. Some motherboards with these chipsets were compatible and functioned normally with 45nm Xeon for 4 cores, and some did not. To find out how it will be for you, see the list of boards that have successfully passed the test.
Zeon's power and system bus frequency must be supported by your computer's motherboard.