When it comes to system performance, one of the most crucial aspects is the chipset. These processors coordinate traffic between the main CPU, memory and peripheral devices like your video and sound card. Intel has always been the chipset performance leader for their own Pentium processors, as other chipset vendors either lacked performance or were plagued with bugs.
nVidia, primarily known for their video chips, pioneered new technologies into their nForce chipset, which was exclusively made for AMD’s Athlon processors. Intel countered by introducing a dual-channel memory controller for Pentium 4 processors, which now achieve over 5 gigabytes a second of memory bandwidth!
Now another well-known graphics card maker is making motherboard chipsets, this time it’s ATI with their RX330 chipset for Socket 478 (Pentium 4) processors. The board features 4 DIMM slots for memory, and are dual-channel, an AGP 8x slot, 5 PCI slots, and a Realtek 100Mbit Ethernet controller. Serial ATA-150 support is provided by ATI’s own SB300 I/O controller. The new RX330 offers no integrated graphics core as one might anticipate, as do some nForce motherboards.
| Board Features | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Socket 478 |
| FSB | 800/533/400 |
| Chipset | ATI RX330 |
| Memory | DDR 400/333/266 |
| Memory socket | 4x DDR |
| Max memory | 4 GB |
| Graphics interface | AGP 8x/4x |
| PCI slots | 5 |
| Raid function | Yes |
| LAN | Realtek 8100C |
| Audio | Realtek AC97 (ALC655) |
| IDE | 2x Serial ATA, 2x ATA133 |
| USB 2.0 | 8 (4 on MB, 4 by extension) |
| Serial ATA | 2x ATA-150 ports |
| Parallel port | 1x parallel port |
| serial port | 1x RS-232 serial port |
| audio ports | 3x configurable analog jacks 1x SPDIF jack by cable front audio connector pins |
| fan headers | 2x fan headers |
| Size | 30.5 x 24.4 cm |
Gigabyte is the first manufacturer maker to provide a mainboard based on ATI chipsets. This chipset is targeted to compete directly at Intel’s 865PE chipset, and offers similar features to its rival: hyper-threading technology, dual-channel DDR400, 800MHz FSB, 8x AGP and USB 2.0. Let’s take her out for a test drive…
| RX330 chipset features | |
|---|---|
| Up to 800 MHz CPU FSB for Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor | |
| Supports Intel® Hyper-Threading™ processors | |
| In-Order Queue (IOQ) depth of 12 | |
| Supports Dynamic Bus Inversion (DBI) | |
| Supports system bus interrupt delivery | |
| Integrated master clock generator with spread spectrum support | |
| AGP 3.0 compliant AGP 8X interface with Fast Write support | |
| 266MB/second point-to-point interface to ATI IXP in A-Link mode | |
| Dual channel 128-bit DDR SDRAM memory interface | |
| DDR400 SDRAM support provides up to 6.4 GB/second bandwidth | |
| Up to 4 GB DRAM support with two unbuffered DIMMs | |
| Up to 8 USB2.0 ports | |
| Up to 2 SATA ports | |
| Two independent IDE channels with support of mode 0 to 4, and ATA 100 | |
| Supports LPC based Super I/O | |
| Integrated Ethernet controller | |
| Support for Microsoft Windows® XP, Windows® 2000 and Linux | |
The board comes in a standard motherboard box, along with the following accessories: USB 2.0 port connectors, 1x serial ATA cables, 2x serial ATA power adaptors, 2x ATA 133 ribbon cables, 1x floppy ribbon cable, 1x driver CD, quick install guide, I/O back-plate, and Gigabyte case badge.
The board is brightly colored, with colors coordinated to function. Each matching DIMM slot is the same color, as are the ATA133 ports. The IO panel’s pins are visually marked as well, making them much easier to identify. The passive aluminum heatsink on the northbridge clearly bears the Gigabyte label. The CPU heatsink housing is a identified with bright yellow plastic. Other chips are clearly marked, such as the BIOS, Realtek Ethernet controller, the southbridge, and audio codec.
The board is standard ATX size, with 9 holes for screws in the standard “A” arrangement. The AGP port is colored bright neon green, and features a spring loaded pin that secures the AGP card. Five white PCI slots are below this, and on the bottom of the board are the SPDIF headers, USB and front audio connectors. There are only two fan headers, one for the CPU fan and another for the case exhaust. The mosfets are cooled by a passive aluminum heatsink. These transistors regulate the flow of electricity, and can become quite heated with extreme overclocking, especially when upping the voltages.
The back panel of the board consists of a standard keyboard and PS2 mouse connector, 1 parallel port, 1 RS-232 serial port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, an RJ45 jack for 100Mbit Ethernet, and 3 configurable analog audio ports. The motherboard lacks any firewire ports or headers, and only has two fan headers. It would have been nice to see a Gigabit Ethernet implementation, but an adequate 100Mbit Ethernet port is provided.
The two parallel ATA ports are colored bright green and white. Below these is the legacy floppy port. To the right of this cluster of legacy ports is the motherboard’s power supply connector, which is on the right side of the board when installed. The southbridge is eschewed 45 degrees in relation to the rest of the board, appearing like a diamond.
Most of the screens are standard fare as far as other BIOS’s go. You can see the main sections in the following screenshots. The Standard CMOS screen is pretty much like any other BIOS, allowing the user to view drive information and set the time.
The Advanced BIOS features are also pretty straightforward – users can change the boot priority and setup Hyper-Threading support. The Integrated Peripherals screen allows the user to enable or toggle support for the onboard sound card, PCI controllers, Serial ATA controllers and Ethernet controller.
Power options are pretty straightforward. The user can setup what suspend mode the computer will take when pressing the power button, and how the computer indicates sleep mode. By default, the power button will blink while in this state. The Integrated Peripherals screen is pretty straightforward. One can enable and disable onboard features such as LAN support, on-board audio, serial ports serial ATA, and even enable and disable USB keyboard and USB 2.0 support.
The PC Health Status page pretty much allows one to monitor the current CPU temperature and fan RPMs. A temperature and fan warning can be set at the BIOS level, which is a pretty standard feature these days. Most of the BIOS screens have a small help area on the right that explains a little bit about what each of the settings do.
The Top Performance feature does not really explain what it does, and I can only assume it is similar to a “Load Performance defaults” on other BIOSs. This was enabled before doing any of the benchmarks, but there is no indication as to what exactly has been changed.
The Frequency / Voltage Control is the most notable part of the BIOS, not for what it does, but what doesn’t appear there. The only options are the Spread Spectrum and CPU clock fields. There are no options to specify memory ratios, bus dividers, voltages or anything. The only thing that can be modified is the FSB speed, and the maximum supported is 232MHz. If the user enters a FSB frequency higher than 232, the system replaces this number with its maximum.
This only allowed my 2.8GHz Pentium 4 to reach 3.2GHz. It is assumed that the memory ratio is locked at 1:1, and the PCI and AGP dividers were automatically adjusted, as no feedback is given when entering new FSB values. It must be mentioned that this board is meant for mainstream users, and not intended for hardcore overclocking.
The test systems below are identical except for the motherboards being tested. nVidia’s 61.77 video card drivers were used on both systems. The DDR memory modules were setup to run in dual-channel mode. The BIOS was flashed to the latest BIOS as of this posting, version F3. The chipset drivers used were also the most current available, version 5.2.2196, which can be downloaded on Gigabyte’s website. It must be noted that this comparison pits the RX330 against the 875P, and not the 865PE, which is the target competition.
System 1
|
System 2
|
RealStorm 2004
RealStorm does not test the video card’s capabilities, but rather performs software ray-tracing to benchmark the system’s overall performance. All options were left at default except for the resolution, which was changed to 640×480.
Everest
Everest is a good and free benchmark tool for memory bandwidth. The ATI chipset just does not provide as much raw bandwidth as the Intel chipset. I had to double-check that the memory was running in dual-channel mode, as the RX330’s numbers are close to a system running without a dual-channel memory controller.
Sisoft Sandra
The Sandra memory benchmark mirrors Everest’s findings. Although more favorable than Everest’s findings, the ATI chipset has to be overclocked to its maximum to achieve near bandwidth of Intel’s more mature chipset.
3DMark 03
3DMark 03 is a little more demanding, as it requires DirectX 9 and a card with DX9 hardware support. The FX5900 is fine for this task and still shows the Intel chipset in the lead.
3DMark 05
3DMark 05 is currently the most beautiful and graphically intense video demonstration available. Only the newest hardware should be able to pass these tests. Although my system’s technology is less than a year old, it could not keep up, rendering an average of 3 fps on each test. The FX5900 video card was the limiting factor, and thus results for the motherboard are not clear, although the Intel 875P has a slight lead.
Doom 3
Doom 3’s timedemo1 was used to determine how quickly the system could render frames. The FX5900 is adequate for the task, although a newer card would produce higher results. The scalability between the two motherboards is what we are interested in, though. Although a newer video card would result in higher framerates, the same card on ATI’s RX330 system would scale similarly.
Far Cry 1.1
The Fort demo was used at 640×480 resolution on the version 1.1 patch. Again, the RX330 does not perform as well until overclocked.
In terms of features, the board is average; offering the same features as the competition. The one thing that makes this board interesting is the ATI chipset, which fails to impress at the performance level. The Pentium 4 processor craves memory bandwidth, and this chipset bottlenecks the power of the Pentium 4 processor, requiring its highest overclock to achieve the performance of an Intel chipset.
Conclusion
ATI’s newest chipset offers the same features as Intel’s 865PE and 875P, but Intel’s chipsets have had more time to mature. Previous testing has shown us that even Intel’s chips sometimes had performance issues when first introduced.
Newer drivers over the years have stabilized the systems, and we expect the same from ATI. It would be nice if there was more control at the BIOS level over the system’s capabilities, but right now they are very weak, achieving a maximum overclock of 232 FSB. The limited options can be a boon for the average user, as one can overclock with no fear of system damage.
Overlooking the overclock issue, the memory performance still does not match the average 865PE or 875P chipsets. This review will be updated if newer drivers yeild any performance change, but even if new drivers increase memory bandwidth beyond Intel’s performance, the system can only be overclocked slightly.
The current performance can only afford this product a below average 6 out of 10. We will be watching the RX330, but right now motherboards with Intel chipsets offer more performance and more overclocking options for around the same price.
Pros
- Alternative chipset for Pentium 4
- very stable
Cons
- Poor overclocking options
- Immature drivers yeilds below average memory performance
- Average motherboard features
1 Comment
do you know where I can buy this motherbored?