X-bit labs

ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 Mainboard on Intel P31 Express Chipset (page 2)

Category: Mainboards

by Doors4ever

[ 12/26/2007 | 11:53 AM ]

Intel P31 Express chipset differs from Intel P35 Express by the name: an insignificant different, of course.

Intel P31 Express shouldn’t be used for high-performance machines. “Shouldn’t” doesn’t mean it won’t. Overall, the borderline between Performance PC and Mainstream PC is pretty washed out today, and we will definitely compare the performance of Intel P31 Express chipset against that of Intel P35 Express chipset in the end of our today’s review.

Intel P31 Express doesn’t support Intel Core 2 Extreme processors. However, it officially supports Intel Core 2 Quad. Firstly, this is a much more up-to-date feature than the support of thousand-dollar Core 2 Extreme. And secondly, what is the actual difference between Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Quad? The price and unlocked frequency multiplier apart, there is nothing else, so Intel Core 2 Extreme processors will work in Intel P31 Express based mainboards just fine.

Intel P31 Express doesn’t support 1333MHz processor bus. I am sure that ASRock engineers loved this joke. Just look at the actual name of the mainboards we are talking about today: ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2. If this doesn’t help, look at its technical specifications and try to figure out if it actually supports 1333MHz FSB :)

Intel P31 Express chipset supports maximum 4GB of system memory, while Intel P35 Express officially supports maximum 8GB. If I were a marketing specialist, I would probably claim that Intel P35 Express chipset is twice as good as Intel P31 Express from this prospective. And no one would be able to call me a liar, because it is absolutely correct. It is a different question, that there is no real practical benefit to this feature yet. Until the infrastructure switches completely to 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit applications, it doesn’t make much sense to install even 4GB of RAM, not to mention 8GB. When that happens, we will see completely different mainboards on totally new chipsets taking over the marketplace, so this really significant advantage of the Intel P35 Express will not be of any practical value for a long time. However, it is hard to object to actual numbers like that: support of only 4GB of RAM is indeed a drawback, although only a theoretical one at this time.

Intel P31 Express chipset doesn’t support DDR3 SDRAM. And it doesn’t need this support. DDR3 these days is either slower than DDR2 and noticeably expensive, or a little bit faster and much more expensive. It will take at least 6 months for the prices to level out, and even more for DDR3 to become more efficient than DDR2 performance-wise.

Other differences are determined by the functionality of the chipset South Bridges: ICH9 by Intel P35 Express and ICH7 by Intel P31 Express. And you know, ICH9 is not necessarily better. For example, besides four SATA ports, Intel P31 Express chipset supports one PATA port allowing connection of up to two devices. And taking into account that Intel P35 Express based mainboards all have one PATA port that is implemented with an additional onboard controller, i.e. at our expense, Intel P31 Express turns out to have an advantage over the competitor from this standpoint.

Another indisputable, but not very noticeable difference: 12 USB ports by Intel P35 Express chipset against 8 USB ports by Intel P31 Express. To begin with, there are very few boards out there that have more than 4-6 USB ports laid out initially. The rest of the ports require purchasing additional brackets or connecting the system case USBs. But, assuming that all the USB ports are available to us, what will we use them for? The keyboard and mouse take up two ports; web-cam takes the third one; a flash drive or a card reader – the fourth; another flash drive may be permanently plugged in for the ReadyBoost technology to work in Windows Vista – that’s the fifth one; a USB light may take the sixth port; a USB printer – the seventh; a USB scanner – the eighth; and if we still need more ports we can use a USB hub to connect our USB massager or USB drink heater/cooler. I cannot think of anything else to connect, so, yes, 8 USB ports is indeed a very “serious” drawback.

In conclusion I could remind you that Intel P35 Express has eSATA ports, but the mainboard we are going to talk about today also has them. I could mention Rapid Recover Technology, but this is a not very significant feature, either.

All in all, if we go through the whole list once again, we will see that there are only two important differences: Intel P31 Express allows installing only 4GB of RAM (a not very serious drawback still) and Intel P35 Express doesn’t support PATA ports. Still, everything I have just said doesn’t at all imply that Intel P31 Express is better than Intel P35 Express. I would only like to make the point that Intel P31 Express is at least not any worse than Intel P35 Express.