Intel 845GE/845PE Preview October 06, 2002 Brandon Bell

Introduction

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Now that Intel’s legal obligations to Rambus have expired, Intel has been hard at work at bringing DDR memory support to the Pentium 4 platform. Things kicked off with the 845D chipset at the beginning of this year. You may not realize this, but 845D was actually launched unofficially in 2001 when the 845 chipset originally debuted. You see, 845 and 845D share the same memory controller, all Intel did was disable the DDR functionality that was already present in the chipset. Motherboard manufacturers were displaying their DDR 845 motherboards as early as at Computex last June, and at Comdex in November 2001. So once Intel was able to release its DDR variant of 845, motherboard manufacturers had no problems getting their respective products to market.

When Intel unveiled its 533MHz Pentium 4 bus, they also released a companion DDR chipset that supported the new bus speed, 845E. Besides offering official support for the 533MHz Pentium 4 processors, 845E didn’t bring much additionally to the table. Sure, we got USB 2.0 support via the ICH4 South Bridge chip, but PC2100 (DDR266) was the fastest memory type supported.

The bandwidth limitations of DDR266

With the 533MHz Pentium 4 bus offering the processor up to 4.2GB/sec of bandwidth, the 2.1GB/sec limitation of DDR266 was leaving the Pentium 4 starving for more bandwidth. We saw this in our SiS 648 preview, where its DDR333 (and unofficially DDR400) memory was much more capable of satisfying the Pentium 4’s bandwidth needs. In our testing it performed roughly eight percent faster than 845E in most applications.

As a result, many of those in the know simply overclocked the bus on their 845D motherboards to 533MHz and accepted the fact that they were left with only DDR266 memory support. They may have been stuck with the outpdated performance DDR266 memory provided, but at least they wouldn’t have to shell out their hard-earned dollars for a new motherboard based on the 845E chipset. Some enthusiasts left the Intel chipset entirely and opted instead for one of SiS’s DDR offerings for the Pentium 4: SiS 645, SiS 645DX, or, more recently SiS 648.

Today Intel is back again with two new chipsets that officially bring DDR333 memory support to the table. With any luck they may provide a solid alternative to going the SiS route. Lets see how they shape up!



SIDEBAR: Intel also launched its 845GV chipset today, which is the same as 845GE except it doesn’t offer an external AGP slot, it relies solely on Intel’s integrated graphics.

Specifications

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DDR333

As we mentioned earlier, the primary addition Intel has brought to the 845GE/PE/GV chipset is DDR333 support. Now that Intel’s validation unit has approved DDR333 memory for use with 845’s memory controller, end users of the 845PE chipset can now officially take advantage of the added bandwidth it provides. Intel’s 845G chipset also provided DDR333 functionality, many third-party motherboards based on this chipset have offered this setting for months. However, in the eyes of Intel this has been considered overclocking and was not supported.

Besides DDR333 memory support, not much has changed with 845GE/PE’s memory controller. You’ve still got support for up to 2GB of DDR SDRAM, and just like 845D/E/G the controller only supports two banks of DDR memory. This means that the chipset can only support up to two DIMM sockets when double-sided DIMMs are used. Many motherboard manufacturers offer three DIMM sockets on their DDR Pentium 4 motherboards based on Intel chipsets. But you’ll have to keep in mind that if you wish to use all three DIMM sockets, DIMM sockets two and three will have to be populated with single-sided memory modules. It’s pretty tough finding single-sided memory modules these days, so we’re not really sure if it’s necessary for motherboard manufacturers to continue to ship their 845 DDR products with more than two DIMM sockets. To avoid confusion, all of Intel’s own DDR motherboards have only offered two DIMMs up to this point.

Another point to keep in mind is that the 845GE/PE chipsets only support DDR333 memory when the system bus is operating at 133MHz. Therefore, those of you with 400MHz Pentium 4 chips will not be able to take advantage of DDR333. For the record, the memory types supported at 400MHz bus are DDR200 (PC1600) and DDR266 (PC2100). The 533MHz bus supports DDR266 and DDR333 memory.

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AGP 8X, Hyper-Threading, and ICH4

AGP 8X is not supported by any of the Intel chipsets that have been announced today. This probably comes as a disappointment to many of you; especially since AGP 8X cards from ATI, NVIDIA, and SiS can be purchased on the market today. We’ll have to wait just a little bit longer for AGP 8X support, which will be available in upcoming Intel’s dual-channel DDR chipset, codenamed Granite Bay.

845GE/PE are the first Intel chipsets for the desktop market to offer support for Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology. Hyper-Threading support will be built into the 3.06GHz Pentium 4 that will be debuting later this year. With Hyper-Threading, multiple threads of software can be run simultaneously on one CPU, increasing performance. In layman’s terms, this simulates the effect of having multiple processors. In order to take advantage of this technology your software will also have to support multi-threading, but the real performance gains come from applications that have been optimized for Hyper-Threading. We’ll discuss Hyper-Threading in further detail in our review of the 3.06GHz Pentium 4, but 845E/850/850E are the only existing Intel chipsets that supports this technology (via a BIOS update).

On the South Bridge (the 82801DB chip) things remain unchanged from 845E. That’s right, the ICH4 lives on in 845PE. That means support for up to six USB 2.0 ports, ATA/100 hard drive support (no Serial ATA), networking, and six-channel audio (among other things).


SIDEBAR: Granite Bay is currently sampling among motherboard manufacturers

Intel’s 845PE motherboard

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D845PEBT2: Changing the way we think of Intel motherboards

Normally we don’t have much to say regarding Intel’s in-house motherboards as they are usually light on features that would appeal to hardware enthusiasts and gamers. Features that we take granted on most motherboards such as IDE RAID and bus speed adjustments in 1MHz increments (for overclocking) typically won’t be found on an Intel motherboard.

Instead they’re designed to deliver the ultimate in stability. That means you won’t be able to fine tune the memory timings or adjust any voltages, as doing so could impair the reliability of the motherboard. It is because of their solid stability that Intel motherboards have found their home in many OEM systems ranging from Tier One computer manufacturers all the way down to the likes of your favorite local computer shop.

Intel must have gotten the hint from these customers that a more feature-filled product was needed for 845PE, as their 845PE solution, the D845PEBT2, is one of the most feature-packed motherboards we’ve seen coming directly from Intel.

New features

The first aspect that immediately grabs your attention is its sleek black printed-circuit board (PCB). The black PCB is very deep tone of black, and gives the motherboard a very sharp, powerful look. Not only does the D845PEBT2 look pretty, it’s also got a nice list of features to match.

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845GE & System setup

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The second Intel motherboard – 845GE

The second Intel motherboard we’re evaluating today is the D845GEBV2; it is based on Intel’s 845GE chipset. The GE chipset differs from 845PE in that it features an integrated graphics core. Intel refers to the graphics within 845G/GE as “extreme graphics”, but unfortunately this is not the case, at least if you’re into gaming. We’re essentially looking at an NVIDIA TNT2 Ultra level of performance here, although it does have a few interesting features that take it one level above that.

Fortunately the onboard graphics within 845GE can be disabled, so those of you who need to rely on its graphics capabilities have an upgrade path that is available if you wish to take it. Simply plug in an AGP graphics card and the external graphics takes over for 845GE. And we’re sure many of you are wondering if you can use the 845GE graphics controller as your second display if you do choose to install an AGP graphics card. The answer is no, once the AGP slot is populated, the graphics functionality within 845GE is turned off, so you’re out of luck there.

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System Setup

Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz

ABIT IT7-Max 2 (845E)
Intel D845PEBT2 (845PE)
Intel D845GEBV2 (845GE)
MSI 648 MAX-F (SiS 648)


256MB Corsair XMS3200 DDR SDRAM

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 reference board
Detonator Driver Version: 40.71

30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive

Windows XP Professional

DirectX 8.1

Desktop resolution 1024x768, 32-bit color, 75Hz refresh

Benchmarks

3D Mark 2001 Second Edition Build 330 - 32-bit color
Quake III: Arena
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
Jedi Knight II
Comanche 4 Demo
Unreal Tournament 2003 demo
Business Winstone 2001
Content Creation Winstone 2002



SIDEBAR: The South Bridge’s on both Intel motherboards were labeled “Secret” but there isn’t much to hide, it’s the same chip used on 845E.

3D Mark 2001

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3DMark 2001 Second Edition - DirectX 8

Notes

We’ll begin testing performance with 3DMark 2001SE, and as you can see 845GE/PE offer similar levels of performance as SiS’ 648 chipset. We’re looking at a gap of less than 1%, regardless of screen resolution.


SIDEBAR: Here is the link to get $5 off the Andrea microphone with your purchase of an Intel motherboard.

3DMark2001 Framerates

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3DMark 2001 - Car Chase

3DMark 2001 - Dragothic

3DMark 2001 - Lobby

3DMark 2001 - Nature

SIDEBAR: The CODEC on the D845PEBT2 is slightly different than the one offered on D845GEBV2. (AD1980 on the former, while the latter sports the AD1981B)

Serious Sam 2

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Serious Sam 2 - OpenGL

Notes

Once again, the top DDR platforms offer the same level of performance, this time in Croteam’s Serious Sam: The Second Edition. It’s looking like it’s going to be a photo finish here folks.


SIDEBAR: With its embedded graphics core, the 845GE motherboard ships with a slightly more robust heatsink.

Quake III

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Quake III - High Quality

Notes

In Quake 3 at 800x600, the three DDR333 chipsets continue to perform extremely close to one another, just 1.3 frames per second separates them! At the intermediate resolutions the gap is able to open up a little bit, but we’re still talking less than a 2% difference in performance.


SIDEBAR: We also tested ASUS’s 845PE-based P4PE motherboard and will be posting that review later today.

Jedi Knight II

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Jedi Knight II

Notes

The 845PE edges out SiS 648 ever so slightly in Jedi Knight II, but once again the margin is so slim that you’d be hard-pressed to see a difference between either platform.



SIDEBAR: Serial ATA support won’t find its way onto an Intel chipset until next year.

UT 2003 flyby

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Unreal Tournament 2003

Notes

We’ve never seen two different chipsets perform as close to one another as SiS 648 and 845PE are performing in this article. We’re going to give the edge to 845PE though simply because the 648 MAX is the fastest SiS 648 motherboard we’ve tested, while the Intel 845GE/PE motherboards aren’t quite as fast as third-party solutions.





SIDEBAR: ABIT is also planning a 128MB version of the GeForce4 Ti 4200 OTES

UT 2003 botmatch

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Unreal Tournament 2003

Notes

The botmatches are quite a bit more CPU-bound than the flyby tests, once again the margin between SiS 648 and 845PE is too close to call. 845PE officially comes out on top, but it isn’t by much.


SIDEBAR: Motherboard manufacturers have been quick to promote that 845PE supports Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology. BIOS updates will also be available for 850 motherboards that will bring official Hyper-Threading support.

Comanche 4

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Comanche 4 demo

SIDEBAR: Comanche 4 was one of the first real games to take advantage of the hardware and pixel shaders brought with DirectX 8.

Office Productivity

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Business Winstone 2001

Notes

It came as quite a surprise to us to see 845E offering more performance than SiS 648, although to be honest the margin between all four platforms is practically indistinguishable. Business Winstone 2001 is an older benchmark that isn’t able to push the platforms quite as much as today’s desktop applications, which is why it was recently updated.

Content Creation Winstone 2002

Notes

The DDR333 chipsets are able to distinguish themselves a bit more in Content Creation Winstone 2002, which is much more capable of straining the memory subsystem of the Pentium 4 platform.

845GE comes out on top, although the margin is still 2%, which is a number we’ve been repeating throughout our performance tests.



SIDEBAR: The codename of the original Intel chipset was Brookdale.

Conclusion

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Make no mistake about it, when Intel puts its mind to doing something on the chipset front; it definitely does it right when it comes to performance and reliability. Our previous DDR performance champion, SiS’s 648 chipset, is slightly eclipsed by Intel’s 845PE and 845GE chipsets, and both now offer DDR333 memory support.

We can also say that Intel has one-upped SiS in the compatibility department. While 845PE and 845GE support Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, SiS 648 does not. We’ve also experienced quite a few stability issues with the SiS 648 chipset and ATI’s RADEON 9700 PRO video card, whether we’re running in AGP 4X or AGP 8X mode. 845PE on the other hand ran flawlessly.

Despite this, Intel’s new chipsets aren’t the perfect offerings we’re sure so many of you where hoping for. We’re still waiting on AGP 8X, as well as native Serial ATA support. SiS 648 supports AGP 8X and Firewire today, giving it an advantage over 845PE. To address Hyper-Threading and DDR400 memory support, SiS is working on a follow-up to SiS 648 (SiS 648DX) that will be available later this year although to be honest, we don’t see this as the step our readers should be looking forward to.

Rather than waiting for SiS 648DX, we’re eagerly awaiting dual-channel DDR chipsets on the horizon from Intel, SiS, and VIA that should see the light of day before the end of this year. These offerings will offer more memory bandwidth to the processor than even DDR400 memory, which means we’ll see more performance coming to the Pentium 4 platform in only a couple of months. Knowing this, it’s a bit hard to get excited about 845PE or SiS 648DX, what’s the point of either of these chipsets with dual-channel DDR right on the horizon? If these chipsets would have been made available earlier this summer (say, when their predecessors originally launched) we would have been all over them. But now we can only recommend 845PE to the consumer who must go out and purchase a new system today.

For the rest of you, things are about to get really exciting in the next 60 days. The debut of dual-channel DDR chipsets will crank the Pentium 4’s performance up another notch, and with platforms available from multiple manufacturers cost shouldn’t come at too much of a premium. We’ll have the answer to both of these questions resolved very soon, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the latest developments!



SIDEBAR: What do you think of 845PE, are you planning on upgrading to it or would you like to see Intel move beyond the 845 family? Voice your thoughts in the comments!