X-bit labs

Roundup of 7 Contemporary Integrated Graphics Chipsets for Socket 478 and Socket A Platforms (page 14)

Category: Chipsets

by Tim Tscheblockov

[ 07/05/2004 | 11:09 AM ]

Conclusion

Let’s do the summing-up from the end.

Irrespective of how you use your system, you want to have the best available image quality from the integrated chipset. My tests on the mainboards included into this review suggest that, save for rare exceptions, integrated chipsets output a good-quality picture to the CRT monitor in the 1280x1024 resolution and lower, at 85Hz refresh rate. When outputting to an LCD monitor, integrated chipsets, again save for rare exceptions, give out nearly a perfect picture.

The rare exceptions in my case are the mainboards based on the SiS661FX and the VIA KM400. In fact, any mainboard may become such an exception – the quality of the output to the monitor depends first of all on the quality of the board itself and only then on the characteristics of the integrated graphics core.

As for the performance in 3D applications, one thing is certain: chipsets from the companies that has a copious experience in 3D graphics are the fastest, and much better than the competitors.

So, if you want to use an integrated chipset in an inexpensive home “entertainment” system and play 3D games from time to time, consider the products from ATI and NVIDIA – only they can provide the bare playability at medium graphics quality settings in “not-very-hard” modern 3D games.

The chipsets from ATI have an additional appeal due to their hardware DirectX 8 support and high-level anisotropic filtering, while the NVIDIA chipsets are the fastest chipsets for the Socket A platform. If the performance of the integrated graphics core becomes insufficient, you may just install an external AGP graphics card.

The existing integrated chipsets from VIA and SiS with their performance in 3D cannot aspire for anything more than a place in an inexpensive office computer or a home “typewriter”.

The i865G looks more advantageous since it is a high-performance dual-channel chipset, interesting to the end-user irrespective of the graphics core. It can form a basement of a powerful workstation with low requirements to 3D graphics or, with an external AGP graphics card, of a full-fledged gaming machine with the graphics core “just in case”.

So, I hope you have formed your opinion about the existing and widely-available integrated chipsets.

The world of integrated graphics is evolving, although slowly. ATI Technologies, a serious new player, appeared recently with its RADEON 9x00 IGP / IGP PRO series. Just a few days ago, Intel announced a new chipset with an integrated graphics core, whose characteristics list hardware support of DirectX 9.

ATI and NVIDIA, having huge experience at developing GPUs, won’t just give up before Intel, but will surely release their own integrated chipsets with hardware DirectX 9 support. There are enough prototypes: ATI has the RV360/380, and NVIDIA can work on the NV34/36 or even some simplified modification of the NV40.

VIA at last seems to be poised to throw the PM800/PM880 chipsets, announced back at the start of the year, into the market. These products feature a new UniChrome Pro graphics controller, based on the discrete AlphaChrome chip, a precursor to the DeltaChrome who never made it into the market. The DeltaChrome itself seems to be waiting its turn to be integrated into chipsets.

SiS also seems to have integrated the Xabre at last. The SiS760, a not-yet-released chipset for the Athlon 64, uses a graphics core with hardware support of DirectX 8.1 shaders. What’s curious, they declare support of the ordinary UMA mode as well as of dedicated DDR SDRAM/SGRAM.

All these facts mean that we will see more new chipsets with integrated graphics in the near future. They will be better and faster and we’ll try to reveal their capabilities to you.

Stay tuned!