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VIA PT880 & SiS 655FX P4 chipsets vs the Intel i875P
[link=http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q4/655fx-pt880/index.x?pg=1]The TechReport[/link]: VIA PT880 & SiS 655FX P4 chipsets vs the Intel i875P
BACK IN AUGUST, we reviewed a pair of chipsets from SiS and VIA that represented the first wave of responses to Intel's 865/875 series. These chipsets, the SiS 648FX and VIA PT800, had many of the 865/875 chipsets' features, including support for an 800MHz system bus, support for DDR400 memory, and in the case of the VIA chip, Serial ATA with RAID. We dubbed them "single-barreled shotguns," however, because neither had a dual-channel memory controller. The Intel chipsets, by contrast, can feed up to 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth over that 800MHz system bus thanks to a pair of DDR400 memory channels.
Despite this handicap, the single-barreled shotguns performed well—especially the PT800, whose spunky performance (with one DIMM installed, at least) surprised us. VIA and SiS were coming close to catching Intel.
Now comes the encore. Both VIA and SiS have prepped their dual-channel memory controllers, and both chipsets are now at rough feature parity with Intel. The Intel competition hasn't sat still, however. Last time around, we used Intel's own typically tame motherboards to test the 865PE and 875P chipsets. This time out, we're using Abit's spicy IC7-G, a tricked-out enthusiast's mobo with playing-for-keeps performance.
To make things even more interesting, we've blindsided our contestants with a series of I/O and south bridge tests, measuring everything from USB 2.0 transfer rates to Ethernet performance and CPU overhead.
Are Taiwan's "twin dragons" finally ready to take on the chipsets Intel launched back in April? Well, only one way to find out...
Read the review at [link=http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q4/655fx-pt880/index.x?pg=1]The TechReport[/link]
BACK IN AUGUST, we reviewed a pair of chipsets from SiS and VIA that represented the first wave of responses to Intel's 865/875 series. These chipsets, the SiS 648FX and VIA PT800, had many of the 865/875 chipsets' features, including support for an 800MHz system bus, support for DDR400 memory, and in the case of the VIA chip, Serial ATA with RAID. We dubbed them "single-barreled shotguns," however, because neither had a dual-channel memory controller. The Intel chipsets, by contrast, can feed up to 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth over that 800MHz system bus thanks to a pair of DDR400 memory channels.
Despite this handicap, the single-barreled shotguns performed well—especially the PT800, whose spunky performance (with one DIMM installed, at least) surprised us. VIA and SiS were coming close to catching Intel.
Now comes the encore. Both VIA and SiS have prepped their dual-channel memory controllers, and both chipsets are now at rough feature parity with Intel. The Intel competition hasn't sat still, however. Last time around, we used Intel's own typically tame motherboards to test the 865PE and 875P chipsets. This time out, we're using Abit's spicy IC7-G, a tricked-out enthusiast's mobo with playing-for-keeps performance.
To make things even more interesting, we've blindsided our contestants with a series of I/O and south bridge tests, measuring everything from USB 2.0 transfer rates to Ethernet performance and CPU overhead.
Are Taiwan's "twin dragons" finally ready to take on the chipsets Intel launched back in April? Well, only one way to find out...
Read the review at [link=http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q4/655fx-pt880/index.x?pg=1]The TechReport[/link]
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Comments
The bottom line is very simple. VIA and SiS have both managed to duplicate, feature for feature, Intel's 875P chipset. The 875P tends to be a hair faster than the PT880 and the 655FX in most benchmarks, but never by enough to really matter. For all intents and purposes, the PT880 and the 655FX are clones of the 875P. Enthusiasts will want to pick their P4 motherboards based on price and features more than on which of these three chipsets is onboard.
That, of course, should be good news to VIA and SiS, and to consumers, because both of these chipsets should much be less expensive than the 875P, for which Intel charges a premium. And you can forget about buying an 865PE board that doesn't have a PAT-like option in the BIOS. The PT880 and 655FX are too close to the 875P, performance-wise, to make a vanilla 865PE board a compelling option.
Of these two chipsets, the PT880 is faster. VIA's first attempt at a dual-channel memory controller has produced impressive results. The PT880 aced our synthetic memory tests, delivering very high bandwidth and low access latencies. The new VIA chipset's other strong suits included good scores in the AGP-intensive SPECviewperf suite, fast USB 2.0 throughput, and very low CPU overhead for the SATA controller. Nor did the PT880 stumble significantly in any of our south bridge I/O tests. It did require more processor time for Ethernet transfers than the Intel or SiS chipsets, though. Otherwise, the PT880 held up well under scrutiny. We look forward to seeing how production motherboards based on the PT880 turn out, especially if they include BIOS overclocking options that take advantage of its asynchronous clock design.
When the CPU is cheaper than the motherboard you are going to be using it in... there's a problem ($279 for P4 2.4C, $315 for IC7-MAX3).
However, when it comes down to it, I'll be willing to spend the extra few $$$ for the reliability, stability, performance and driver-support offered by Intel's chipsets.