Testbed and Methods

We tested the new integrated chipset from ATI in two steps. First, we checked out the performance level of the RADEON 9100 IGP with the integrated graphics core. Then, we installed an external graphics card and ran the tests once again. This also helped us estimate the efficiency of the chipset memory controller.

The chipset itself came to us on a new mainboard from Sapphire, AXION 9100 IGP (RS300-MA26).

As you see, this MicroATX mainboard features the RADEON 9100 IGP and the IXP150 South Bridge. This product is evidently targeted at the lower end of the market and has just the necessary set of functions (USB 2.0, ATA-100, AC’97, 10/100Mbit Ethernet) and a minimum of expansion slots (3 PCI, 2 DIMM and AGP 8x). Even such ordinary functions as hardware monitoring or Ethernet support are optional for the AXION 9100 IGP. On the other hand, this has cut the price of the mainboard to about $70. And for this small money you get a mainboard with an integrated graphics core and support of the topmost processors!

Of course, it would be wrong to demand any exclusive features from Sapphire. It’s only necessary for this mainboard to provide stable work of the system and it may become popular among PC integrators and users who want to purchase an inexpensive system. The AXION 9100 IGP handles the task well enough. We can present no stability-related complaints about this product.

We also took a mainboard on Intel’s integrated chipset to be a kind of reference point. This was an i865G-based mainboard from the same Sapphire Company.

As a second reference point (to compare it to the chipsets’ performance with an external graphics card), we chose a mainboard on the discrete Intel 865PE chipset.

Overall, the testbed configuration looked as follows:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz CPU (800MHz QPB);
• Sapphire AXION 9100 IGP (RS300-MA26), Sapphire 865GMS4-A10 and ASUS P4P800 mainboards;
• 2x256MB Corsair XMS3200LL memory;
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics card (Detonator 52.16 driver);
• Western Digital WD400JB HDD.

The testbed ran under control of Windows XP Professional SP1 with DirectX 9.0b installed.

Performance

We are going to check out the performance of the integrated memory controller first. The ScienceMark 2.0 test set will help us to measure the bandwidth and latency of the memory subsystem.

The memory controller of the RADEON 9100 IGP is less efficient than its counterpart from the Intel chipsets for several reasons. First, the RADEON 9100 IGP requires less aggressive memory timings to be set up. Second, the memory controller itself is far from perfect – the engineering team from ATI doesn’t have much experience at developing system chipsets.