Finally, a Conclusion
Intel has given us a lot to mull over for this review. I wish they had given us more time to test instead! Oh well, such is the life of a reviewer on the edge.
Intel introduced a lot of new technology with this chipset and processor release, though how well it turned out in the current market may not be all they had expected. The release of PCI Express, both in terms of graphics cards and for a system bus, is a welcome change, but not necessarily a necessary one. The bandwidth that is gained over the PCI and AGP buses is dramatic, but how long we will have to wait until it is utilized is anyone’s guess at this point. Even in graphics cards, where the envelope is used to being pushed, can’t seem to muster the strength to give PCIe a hardy push into the scene. Though both NVIDIA and ATI are ready with their PCIe cards, and both claim to be overly excited about the PCIe change, I can’t help but wonder if they both secretly feel that the transition development time is taking away from their ability to design products that may actually use the technology! Of course, I could be wrong, and the NV50 or R550 that we see coming down the pipes might support some unheard of new technology that utilizes the 4 GB/s of up and down stream available to it. I really, really hope they do.
DDR2 memory did not live up to the hype that has been building on it, but that is really because the hype has been building on it for so long. Before the introduction of DDR333, we were hearing about the benefits that DDR2 memory would bring to us. But then we got DDR400 and dual channel at that! Add lower latency times and it’s a concoction that spelled demise for the current generation of DDR2-533. The chips just aren’t ready for DDR2 and low latency, though from my talks with some manufacturers, they are hard at work at getting CAS 3 ready for the enthusiast market — but be prepared to pay for it. When we see DDR2-667 hit the streets, and that should be in a month or so I am guessing, the tone on DDR2 may begin to sound upbeat as we see more actual, real world benefits of it over DDR1.
The new sockets, though a big deal to Intel and the motherboard manufacturers, are not a big concern for us. It is simply a new way to install a CPU, which for the end user is not a big deal; just one more thing to learn. The new heatsink installation process is much easier and I think this will make a lot of PC users much happier in the long run.
The benchmarks that we saw showed that in some cases, there were very minor increases in performance from the new platform going from a 3.4 GHz E to the Intel 550. The Intel 560 performed very well in nearly all the tests and would make an excellent enthusiast processor, if the price can stay with the upper Athlon 64 processors. The 3.4 EE in the 775-package was arguably the top Intel processor with its better gaming and media performance.
The AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor was still the reigning processor here, especially when it comes to gaming performance. The Hammer core and the embedded memory controller are turning out to be a very difficult combo for Intel to defeat.
I have been hearing from different sources that the new P4 processors are pretty darn good overclockers. I am eager to test and find out, but I just didn’t have the time before the release of this embargo. Look for that in an upcoming test of retail motherboards.
Another item I didn’t get to touch on was the 915G and 915P chipsets. The G offers a significant increase in on-board video performance, and the first with DX9 capability, so I am eager to test it out and see if it lives up to what Intel has built. Also, the SATA and Matrix RAID technology is certainly something to look forward to, and is yet another item that I wanted to test but didn’t get a chance to. Expect a look at RAID and storage comparisons on the horizon from me as well.
I encourage you all to check out our processor forum for discussions on this important launch for Intel.
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