X-bit labs

Fastest Pentium 4 Platform: Performance of i925, i915, i875 and i865 with DDR2-533, DDR2-400, DDR533 and DDR400 SDRAM

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 08/04/2004 | 12:38 PM ]

We compared the performance of the new Intel chipsets when they work with the memory of various types against that of the previous generation Intel chipsets also working with different types of system memory. Well, it looks like the old buddies are still pretty powerful and shouldn’t be disregarded when it comes to figuring out the configuration for the fastest Pentium 4 platform.

Table of contents:

• Comparison of Intel’s Modern Chipsets Specs
  
• Intel 915P Express Chipset
  
• Overclocking
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance
  
• Overall Performance Rating
  
• Memory Subsystem Performance
  
• Performance in Games
  
• Data Encoding and Compression
  
• Performance in Professional Applications
  
• Conclusion
  

Intel’s recent announcement of the new i915 and i925 chipsets made no revolution in the mainboard market. A month has passed since the official introduction but there are still few mainboards on the new chipsets available. However, it would be rather imprudent to claim that the release of the i915/i925 platform was a total failure. The chipsets of the i9xx family conceal numerous innovations that just cannot be accepted by the user community in a second. It takes time for innovations to permeate and win the market – that’s why the new Intel chipsets haven’t been able to show their best so far.

And really, there are enough direct and indirect causes that can hinder the expansion of i925/i915 chipsets. For example, these chipsets work with DDR2 SDRAM, which is available in limited quantities today. They also work with graphics cards with the PCI Express interface and such cards have been rare so far. Then, many users are repelled by the “childhood diseases” of the new platform, particularly with overclocking problems that have already been much discussed. Due to these reasons, Intel’s new platform has a smaller appeal towards the user; many mainboard manufacturers predict a steady demand only at the end of the summer.

I should also mention such an unpleasant aspect of the new chipsets as their limited lifecycle. Revised versions of them, more advanced than the i925/i915 (for example, with support of the 1066MHz FSB), are scheduled to appear in this fall. And in the second quarter of the next year the i925/i915 family will be followed by absolutely different chipsets known now by their codenames: Glenwood and Lakeport.

Anyway, the new chipsets from Intel will remain the most advanced and feature-rich products for the Pentium 4 processor for the time being. At the same time, the old and tested i875/i865 family will most probably live alongside the newcomers for a while. Moreover, our tests suggest that the transition to the i925/i915 platform doesn’t bring any perceptible performance gains today.

That’s why mainboard makers, trying to meet the needs of different categories of users, are going to roll out a wide selection of new solutions, both on the i925/i915 family chipsets and on the i875/i865 logic. As you know, Intel intended the new chipsets to be accompanied with a new CPU form-factor called LGA755. In fact, the reference design of i925/i915 mainboards implies installation of the new socket. However, the manufacturers that can design their products independently – ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, ECS and others – are going to offer combo solutions: i925/i915-based mainboards with Socket 478 as well as i875/i865-based mainboards for LGA755 CPUs. Thus, the user is likely to find himself/herself confused seeing so many choices.

With all these considerations in mind, and before posting reviews of fresh Pentium 4-supporting mainboards on our site, we decided to compare the performance of the older i875/i865 against the new i925/i915 chipsets under equal conditions. This comparison will be a kind of foundation or reference point for our upcoming reviews. Well, and I’m simply curious to know how much the i925 differs from the i915 in practice!