Roughly 7 weeks after the official announcement we
received a call from an Intel spokesperson if we could please review their
Latest main board chipset, the 925XE. Sure we handle a lot of mainboard reviews
but we quite honestly never get requests to test chipsets so a bit surprized I
said sure ! Completely forgetting that it's the busiest time of the year, that's
right .. Christmas means silly seizon. We are backlogged with reviews articles
and features. A well .. a quickie mainboard review we can handle just fine.
Back in June Intel launched it's new desktop line with the
915 and 925X chipsets. It offered great new technology, think here of PCI
Express interface and that all new sound concept, high definition
integrated audio. Hey feature of course was PCI Express with options in 16x and
1x busses but also the introduction of LGA775, the new Pentium 4 Socket for the
new 'Prescott' core based CPU's. A strong new platform that had to battle AMD's
Athlon 64. A harsh battle as Intel's Prescott CPU's run rather hot and use
up a lot of wattage compared to it's competitor.
So my friends, a few weeks ago we received a reference
Intel D925XECV2 mainboard equipped with the seriously breathtaking yet
unfortunately to expensive 3.46GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition to try out for a
couple of weeks. Unfortunately is an understatement .. the processor is 1000 EUR
alone ! But let's focus on that mainboard versus chipset. Key primary feature
you need to keep in mind is that this mainboard is capable of a lovely 1066 MHz
system bus. Your average Pentium 4 mainboard these days run on the quad pumped
800 MHz front side bus, this one can handle a bit more (266 MHzx 4).
That being said, let's startup this review. The mainboard tested is the Intel
Desktop Board D925XCV with the i925XE chipset, armed with an Pentium 4 Extreme
Edition 3.46GHz.
The CPU bus speed also known as "front-side bus speed" (or FSB) and is the
speed at which the CPU communicates with RAM memory and the motherboard chipset.
Athlon XPs have a 266, 333 or 400 MHz FSB, Pentium 4s have a 400MHz, 533MHz or
800MHz and now the 1066 MHz FSB , AMD Durons have a 200MHz FSB, and socket 478
Celerons have a 400MHz FSB. That being explained, never assume that the CPU with
the fastest front-side bus is the fastest performer. There are many factors that
control CPU speed, the most important are its design and efficiency of its
floating point unit, the internal clock speed of the CPU (the GHz speed it's
rated for), and the speed and amount of its L2 cache.
When choosing a FSB speed for the CPU you choose, be aware that you'll need
to purchase memory capable of this faster speed. For example, many people are
enticed by the remarkably low priced memory, yet you need to sync your memory to
CPU's FSB. First of all all mainboard these days use either DDR or DDR2 memory,
this one needs DDR2. In our case we know that the CPU we have uses the1066 MHz
bus so we're gonna need DDR memory rated PC 4200, thus 533 MHz DDR2 memory that
is capable handling that high FSB. You can also equip this mainboard with a 800
MHz FSB processor, in that case you'll need DDR2 400 MHz. Just devide the CPU
FSB with 2 and you are set to go.
Secondly, make sure you buy two bars so that you can have a 'dual-channel'
memory configuration which effectively double's the memory bandwith, and the
Pentium 4 loves that bandwidth for sure .
Here are some of the architectural highlights for the
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition:
Let's take a quick look at the processor and note the
bigger differences between your 'normal' Pentium 4. The Extreme Edition over the
'normal' 130nm (Northwood) Pentium 4's is the inclusion of a nice amount of 2MB
of Level 3 cache, this cache will speed up software/applications big-time, it's
also extremely expensive the implement.. Next to that bigger cache the big
difference of course is that the FSB speed is new for the 3.46GHz P4EE.
The processor
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
Architecture
Intel NetBurst Micro architecture
130nm Process Technology
Cache
512K L2,
2MB L3
Clock
Speed
3.46GHz
FSB
1066MHz
(266MHz quad pumped)
Monitoring
Thermal Monitoring: Monitors CPU
temperature and adjusts to prevent terminal issues
Built-in Self Test (BIST):
Provides single stuck-at fault coverage of the microcode and large
logic arrays, plus testing of the instruction cache, data cache,
Translation Lookaside Buffers, and ROMs
Other
Technologies
Intel
HyperThreading: PC works more efficiently by maximizing
processor resources and enabling a single processor to run two
separate threads of software simultaneously
Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
(SSE2)
Rapid Execution Engine
Execution Trace Cache
Advanced Dynamic Execution
The mainboard - we'll have a quick overview of the more
important features of the 925XE chipset and skip the less improtant things like
USB/FireWire etc. This chipset is basically 100% the same as your 925X system
yet now has support for that 1066MHz Front Side Bus.
When you look at the CPU position you'll
of course notice the new Socket 775. Back in June Intel needed to make that move
as they ran into limitations with the Socket 478 design.
The 775 based processor means nothing else
then 755 pins ... ehm whoah wait .. but not on the processor anymore!. It's
completely different as your CPU does not have the pins anymore, no your
mainboard CPU socket now has them. To prevent damage during transport everything
needs to be well covered. As you can observe is is surrounded by multiple
transistors, they are not a problem for any heatsink, it won't cause any
problems. Personally I am not at all a fan of Socket 775 from a practical point
of view. The pins are easily damaged.
The reference board
includes Intel's South Bridge, the ICH6R for the Lions 'roar' factor. It is a
slightly more mature feature over the standard ICH6 as it contains important
additional RAID features that sport your standard RAID 0 / 1 features.
There's also
something else there .. Integrated High-Definition sound. Intel designed this to
integrate quality sound in Intel desktop
platforms to meet the demands required of a modern PC in the home and office or
even your HTPC (Home Theater PC). The previous AC'97 solution was capable of
delivering a maximum of Six Channels of Audio at 48KHz/20-bit Audio quality, the
Intel HD specification manages 8 channels at 192KHz 32-bit. With this solution
Intel can support all modern Dolby formats like Dolby Digital EX and even DTS
ES. Small note for the freaks, the software provides real time Dolby Digital
(AC3) encoding and can take standard stereo signals and output them, digitally,
as a Surround,
Not bad, not bad at all.
PCI Express: Support for PCI
Express x16 for Graphics and PCI Express x1
PCI Conventional
USB 2.0
Storage
Technology Support
Integrated Serial ATA Controller:
Supports up to 4 150MB/s Serial ATA Drives
Ultra ATA/100
Intel Matrix Storage Array: Mixes
Raid 0 and Raid 1 properties to boost performance and data
protection
Integrated
Audio
Intel High
Definition Audio
Other
Technologies
Support for Intel HyperThreaded
CPU's
Direct Media Interface: 2GB/s of
concurrent bandwidth between MCH (Memory Controller Hub) and ICH
(I/O Controller Hub)
WHen we look at the photo's be sure to have
a look at that 24-pin power connector...
that's right I stated 24 pins. This is new, when you look at your PSU you'll
notice a 20 pin connector. Don't worry, it'll still fit, yet 4 pins will be
empty. Future PSU's will have 24 pins. BTW small warning, don't even think about
trying to connect the additional 4-pin connector that your PSU supplies on
there! That still has its own socket on the mainboard.
From
a graphics/gamers point of view most exciting for us is of course that
PCI-Expess technology is slowly replacing the older PCI and AGP ports, why?
Bandwidth... it's all about bandwidth these days and the PCI-Express solution is
a major step into the future.
With up to 4GB/s of one-directional and 8GB/s
of concurrent bandwidth, users are free to have high-speed graphics output. PCI
Express significantly increases bandwidth between the central processing unit
(CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU). The x16 slot can feed your graphics
card directly with 75 Watts.
Did
you know that one PCI-Express lane (x1) has more bandwidth then your mainboard's
entire PCI bus? PCI used to share that bus with all PCI devices, so a fast
ethernet controller was capable of utilizing and stressing the entire PCI bus...
that's a thing of the past as well as x1 PCI Express offers 500MB/sec full
duplex over its own pipeline. No more sharing that bandwidth and thus better
performance for all devices. Yes I'm all for the PCI Express bus.
D925XECV2 Desktop Board Details
Form
Factor
ATX
CPU
Support
Intel
Pentium 4's with 800MHz & 1066MHz FSB in the LGA 775 Package
Memory
Up to 4
DDR2 533/400 DIMM's
Supports up to 4GB of Memory
DDR2 533 CL3 Timing Support
Integrated
Audio
Intel High Definition Audio
5 jack ports
optical digital out
one S/PDIF out
Network
GigaBit
LAN
Expansion
Slots
One PCI Express x16 slot for
graphics support
Two PCI Express x1 slot
Four PCI Conventional
Peripheral
Interfaces
8 USB2.0 Ports
One Serial Port
One Parallel Port
Four Serial ATA Interfaces
One Parallel ATA Interface
One Floppy Drive Interface
PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse ports
Three IEEE 1394a ports
What's pretty cool is that Intel delivers
the Intel's Desktop Control Center Software.
This is a utility that allows you to monitor and tweak multiple features of the
system platform.. Here you can setup different bus speeds (overclock) and
different modes of fan operation. What I like the most is that you can create
customizable profiles so that you can setup a a high performance configuration
for for example gaming and a low noise configuration for Home Theater use.
Pretty cool stuff.
SiSoft Sandra Benchmarks SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic
and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic
utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented)
you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether
hardware or software. Sandra provides similar level of information to Norton
SI, Quarterdeck WinProbe/Manifest, etc. The Win32 version is 32-bit and
comes in both ANSI (legacy for Windows 98/Me systems) and native Unicode
(Windows NT4/200X/.Net) formats. The Win64 version is 64-bit and comes in
native Unicode format.
Do note that all the SANDRA
benchmarks are synthetic and thus are may not tally with real-life
performance. The latter stands for whatever your environment is, i.e.
which applications you run with what amount of data and so on. It is up to
you to decide whether what Sandra measures is what you want to measure.
Above, you can see the CPU
performance. Of course thanks to the 3.6 GHz processor in combo with the
mainboards it is very much on top of everything.
Sandra Memory DDR
MEM MB/s
Albatron PX845PE Pro II - DDR333 SC
2562
Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra 2 - DDR333 SC
2524
PX845PEV-800 - DDR333 SC
2516
PX865PX PROII @ DDR400 DC
4306
8IPE1000 Pro 2 -W + MIB/PAT DC + HT
4500
PX865PX PROII @ DDR400 DC+PAT
4623
PX915P/G Pro 3.6 GHz DC
4573
Memory is based on non tweaked SPD timings. As you can see
performance is rather good. On the previous 865 based mainboards we had to
use little trick to enable extra memory performance. That same performance
is now standard. The graphics clearly show what a difference dual channel
memory can do in terms of memory bandwidth.
SC means single channel while DC of
course means Dual Channel. Dual Channel memory @ 400+ MHz kicks ass and will
boost your overall performance so much.
Page 11
PC Mark 2004
PCMark2002 Pro measures and makes a diagnosis of your
computer’s performance under home and office usage. It has the capability to
test all types of PCs, laptops and workstations using 39 comprehensive
performance benchmarking tests. Although PCMark2002 Pro is a full-fledged
professional benchmark, its exceptional ease-of-use makes even novice users
feel comfortable in testing their own systems.
The integrated Online Result Browser service compares your results with PCs
for all PCMark™2002 tests with other results submitted by PCMark2002 users
around the world. Submitted results will help you get reliable information
about your hardware and help you decide which hardware is the optimal
upgrade for your system.
This benchmark is getting outdated and is not even supported
by Futuremark anymore, but since I had some more results available from past
tests I decided to take it for a little spin anyway to show you some
comparative results.
We also took some results with PCMark04:
PCmark04
Pcmark
CPU
Memory
Graphics
PX915P/G Pro 3.6 GHz
5060
4921
5190
3941
8IPE1000 Pro 2 2.8 GHz
4459
4181
4354
6408
It's nothing much, but it compares your average 2.8 GHz
Pentium 4 rig (865) with the this new mainboard and CPU. In time more and
more results will be added to this chart. one small sidenote where you read
graphics... the 2.8 GHz system was equipped with a Radeon x800 XT where the
Albatron 3.6 GHz system was equipped with a GeForce 6600 GT, that explains
the big difference in performance.
Conclusion
I think it's fair to say that the new 925XE chipset again offers a little
more performance over the previous generation, all that thanks to it's slightly
faster FSB. That 1066 MHz FSB offers roughly 10-20 percent more performance ever
the previous 800 MHz FSB product. Gaming wise, meh .. you'll not see a huge
difference, 5 percent maybe if you graphics card isn't limiting you that is.
Intel still has a difficult time battling AMD's Athlon 64 FX-53 price and
performance. But let's not forget that Intel offers these small things we take
for granted so easily, hyper-Threading for your multitasking intensive
applications for example. The Pentium 4 EE offers good competition but currently
is the only processor that can be used on this mainboard, but man .. that price
...
So in retrospect, the new 1066 MHz products offer a nice little performance
increase of the last generation product. The chipset simply has an improved FSB,
a small but worthy improvement. The chipset itself however already was loaded
with fantastic features like DDR2, RAID, 8-channel sound in 192 kHz/32-bit
quality, Matrix RAID, 4 native SATA 150 channels, PCI-Express. The mainboard
itself was as expected, easy to install, very stable and performing really
nicely. It has some nice overclocking and tweaking options at BIOS level, but
also at software level with the help of Intel's Desktop
Control Center Software.