MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 3
NVIDIA: nVidia plans to take its popular
nForce4 chipset for the Athlon 64 FX
and make it work with the Pentium 4. It’s
not quite that simple, but it pretty much
describes the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition.
nVidia actually dusted off some designs
from the award-winning nForce2 chipset
and brought them to the Intel side. The
chipset includes a hardware firewall and
SATA 3Gb, too. Unfortunately, nVidiahasn’t said whether it can run dual-core
procs, so we’re in limbo on that score. The
company also won’t disclose the intercon-
nect speed between the north and south
bridges, so you can expect some competi-
tive specsmanship in the coming months.VIA: VIA lost some ground to nVidia con-
cerning AMD chipsets, but its P4 offerings
are appealing. The new PT894 Pro canrun PCI Express and AGP graphics cards
simultaneously for dual-monitor sup-
port. VIA is also betting that consumers
will want to run DDR now and upgrade
to DDR2 later, so it supports both types
of RAM. You can’t run both types simul-
taneously, of course, so you’ll have to
throw out your DDR RAM if you want to
upgrade. And like Intel, the company can’t
support SLI at the moment.MAKE/
MODELCPU SUPPORT BUS
SPEEDPCI EXPRESS
SUPPORTRAM SUPPORT ATA SUPPORT INTERCONNECT
SPEEDEXTRAS OUR TAKEIntel 925X Pentium 4,
Celeron800,
106620 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 4 in the
south bridgeDual Channel
DDR2/400-
DDR2/5334 SATA, 1
PATA2GB/s HD Audio,
Matrix RAIDIntel’s 925X was a bold step forward. It
was the first chipset to offer support for
PCI Express, DDR2, and HD Audio. The
absence of dual-core support, however,
renders this a poor choice for a new
board.
Intel 945 Pentium 4,
Celeron, Pentium
D, Pentium
Extreme Edition800,
106622 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 6 in the
north bridgeDual Channel
DDR2/400-
DDR2/6674 SATA, 1
PATA2GB/s HD Audio,
Matrix RAIDThe 945 is similar to the faster 955, but
it can only address 4GB of RAM, loses
support for ECC, and doesn’t have the
memory optimizations of its big brother.
Intel 955X Pentium 4,
Celeron, Pentium
D, Pentium
Extreme Edition800,
106622 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 6 in the
north bridgeDual Channel
DDR2/400-
DDR2/6674 SATA, 1
PATA2GB/s HD Audio,
Matrix RAIDThis chipset is the launch partner for
Intel’s dual-core CPUs. It has everything
except for licensed support for SLI.VIA PT894
ProPentium 4,
Celeron400,
533,
800,
106622 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 4 in the
north bridge, 2 in
the south bridgeDual Channel
DDR266-
400 and
DDR2/400-
DDR2/6674 SATA
3Gb, 2 PATA
with VT8251
south bridge1066MB/s DualGFX sup-
port for two
PCI Express
videocardsIt’s not clear if DualGFX will support
nVidia’s SLI mode.VIA PT880
ProPentium 4,
Celeron400,
533,
800,
1066Six lanes: 4 for PCI
Express, 2 in the
south bridgeDual Channel
DDR266-
DDR400 and
DDR2/400-
DDR2/5334 SATA
3Gb, 2PATA
with VT8251
south bridge1066MB/s Can run PCI
Express
graphics and
AGP simulta-
neouslyOffers only x4 PCI Express graphics.nVidia
nForce4
SLI, Intel
EditionPentium 4,
Celeron (possibly
Pentium D and
Pentium Extreme
Edition)800,
106620 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 4 in north
bridgeDual Channel
DDR2/400-
DDR2/6674 SATA 3Gb Not disclosed The only Intel
chipset to
support SLI,
hardware
firewall and
SATA 3GbbnVidia’s SLI chipset is a no-brainer for
gamers, but the lack of official support for
dual-core CPUs leaves us a little worried.nVidia
nForce4 SLISempron, Athlon
64, Athlon 64 FXN/A * 20 lanes: 16 for
graphics, plus 4Dual Channel
DDR266–
DDR4004 SATA 3Gb N/A to single-
chip designSLI, hardware
firewall, SATA
3Gb, RAIDWe’ve been very happy with the
nForce4, and so is nVidia: The company
has already shipped 1 million of these
chipsets.
VIA K8T890
ProSempron, Athlon
64, Athlon 64 FXN/A * 22 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 4 in the
north bridge, 2 in
the south bridgeDual Channel
DDR266-
DDR4004 SATA
3Gb, 2 PATA
with VT8251
south bridge1GB/s VIA Envy24
audio chip,
RAIDDespite the K8T890 Pro chipset’s debut,
boards using the chipset have been dif-
ficult to find.SiS 756 Sempron, Athlon
64, Athlon 64 FXN/A * 18 lanes: 16 for
graphics, 2 in south
bridgeDual Channel
DDR266-
DDR4004 SATA, 2
PATA1GB/s RAID SiS was once the main purveyor of
single-chip core logic, but the company
went back to a two-chip design for the
SiS 756.ËDon’t get caught up in fancy names. For the
most part, the dollar words are there to sex-up
something that would otherwise sound pretty
boring. Dig beneath the market-speak to get at
the cold, hard specs.ËInterconnect speeds between the north and
south bridges used to be 133MB/s, but now they’ve
reached speeds as high as 2GB/s. What’s the
minimum you should expect? That’s a complicatedquestion, but 800MB/s to 1GB/s seems to be the
standard. You also need to consider how the chip-
set is configured: If there are four x1 PCI Express
lanes in the south bridge, you’ll need a 1- to 2GB/s
connection to support the potential bandwidth. If
the x1 lanes are hooked directly to the north bridge,
the interconnect speed isn’t as critical.ËCheck your six. In some chipsets, the mobo
manufacturer can swap the south bridge for adifferent chip that might have more or fewer fea-
tures. Make sure you know what you’re buying.ËA good portion of a chipset’s magic lies in its
memory controller. Chipset and mobo makers
rarely disclose performance numbers, so you’ll
have to rely on the media for evaluations of chip-
set speeds. Remember that the motherboard’s
design can also affect memory performance, so
read multiple reviews of the same chipset.How to Pick a Chipset
Judging a core-logic chipset can be a tricky proposition, but here are a few tips to help
you separate the wheat from the chafe.* The memory controller is built into AMD’s Sempron, Athlon 64, and Athlon 64 FX processors.MOTHERBOARDS:A-Z