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virtual edge
Last revised:
07/24/2000
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Premio 815EA Performance Analysis
page 1 of 10
The
Intel 440BX chipset has been around for almost two years now. Since then, we have moved from 66MHz to 100MHz to the
current 133MHz CPU bus. And IDE hard drives have gone from ATA-33 to ATA-66 to the current ATA-100. It's obvious
Intel needs a successor to the 440BX chipset. The 820 chipset was the original replacement for the 440BX, but, due
to the high cost of Rambus memory and instability issues with the 820+SDRAM, the 820 never really took off.
This
left the market wide open for a high volume chipset that is able to support SDRAM and the faster 133MHz CPU bus.
VIA Technologies, Inc. stepped in with their Apollo Pro 133A (694X) chipset family, and it quickly gained acceptance with major motherboard and
system manufacturers. Granted it was a non-Intel chipset, but it supported all the current desktop system technologies
(PC133 SDRAM, ATA-66, AGP 4x, etc.).
Of course,
Intel did not get to where they are today by standing still. They are countering the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset
with their new 815E chipset, which will have all the features of the VIA chipset... and more. In the past,
Intel was pushing Rambus memory as the successor to SDRAM. But unfortunately, that didn't work very well.
As such, the 815E will support PC133 SDRAM natively. Refer to the table below for a comparison
between the Intel and VIA chipsets.
| FEATURES | 815E | VIA 694X | 440BX |
| SDRAM Speed | PC100/133 | PC100/133 | PC100 |
| AGP | 2x/4x | 2x/4x | 2x |
| IDE HDD | ATA-100 | ATA-66 | ATA-33 |
| CPU Host Bus | 66/100/133 | 100/133 | 66/100 |
| Maximum Memory | 512MB | 1.5GB | 1GB |
| Maximum CPU Speed | 1GHz or higher | 1GHz or higher | 850MHz |
| # of USB Ports | Four | Two | Two |
| Onboard Video | Intel Direct AGP | None | None |
The
815E is the first desktop chipset to handle ATA-100 IDE hard drives.
Note that the 815E comes with the Intel Direct AGP video, in addition to providing an AGP 2x/4x slot. You
can use either the onboard video or add your own AGP video, but not both at the same time. To improve 3D performance with
the Intel Direct AGP, you can add a 4MB AIMM (AGP In-line Memory Module) to the AGP slot.
The
440BX top processor speed is 850MHz; this is not a chipset limitation. It's simply because Intel does not make any 100MHz FSB CPU beyond 850MHz. Technically,
if Intel does make a 1GHz CPU running at 100MHz FSB, the 440BX chipset should be able to handle it.
Here's
the summary of the components used in the test system:
| System Board | Premio 815EA (MS-6337/210631) |
| Chipset | Intel 815E AGPset |
| BIOS | Award version 1.0 - 06/29/2000 |
| Processors | Intel Pentium III FC-PGA @ 100MHz and 133MHz FSB |
| Memory | 128MB PC133 SDRAM |
| Hard Drive | Maxtor 30GB (53073H6) 7,200RPM ATA-100 |
| CD-ROM | Creative Labs 52X ATAPI |
| Video Card | nVidia GeForce 256 SDR 32MB |
| Operating Systems | Microsoft Windows 98SE, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation SP6, and Windows 2000 Pro |
The
table below is the list of Pentium III FC-PGA processors tested. The 100MHz FSB processors are listed
in blue, while the 133MHz FSB CPUs are listed
in green. The "B" designation after the CPU speed means
the CPU is running at 133MHz CPU host speed.
| Processor | L2 Cache | CPU and Memory Bus Speed |
| 550 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 600 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 650 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 700 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 750 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 800 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 850 | 256K | 100MHz |
| 533 | 256K | 133MHz |
| 600B | 256K | 133MHz |
| 667 | 256K | 133MHz |
| 733 | 256K | 133MHz |
| 800B | 256K | 133MHz |
| 866 | 256K | 133MHz |
| 933 | 256K | 133MHz |
| 1,000 | 256K | 133MHz |
Before
proceeding, here's a quick explanation of each benchmarking test. For each tests, a higher score means better
performance:
Winstone 99 Business - tests overall system performance when running common business applications such
as Microsoft Office 2000, Lotus Suite, etc.
Winstone 99 Highend - tests overall system performance when running engineering/processor intensive applications such
as CAM/CAD packages.
Content Creation 2000 - tests overall system performance when running web content creation applications such
as Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, etc.
Winbench CPUmark99 - measures a processor's performance.
Winbench Business GraphicsMarks - measures a system's video card 2D performance under business applications
Winbench Highend GraphicsMarks - measures a system's video card 2D performance under highend applications
3D Mark 2000 - measures a system's video card 3D performance
With
these tests, we can focus on each part of a system's performance. We are targeting overall system (Winstone 99
Business/Highend and Content Creation 2000), CPU (CPUmark99), 2D graphics (Winbench 99 Business/Highend GraphicsMarks),
and 3D graphics (3D Mark 2000) performance. And we will run these tests across three different Microsoft operating
systems: Windows 98 Second Edition (98SE), Windows NT 4.0 Workstation (NT), and Windows 2000 Professional (W2K). Winstone 99 Business
will be used for 98SE, while Winstone 99 Highend will be used for NT and W2K, since these two operating systems
are geared toward higher end applications.
Select
the performance results or section you wish to go to, or click on the "Next" arrow at the bottom:
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