There is no question that an 820 based system with RAMBUS memory will outperform a 440BX system with SDRAM. 820 brings to the table these advancements: ATA-66 and AGP 4X, as compared to ATA-33 and AGP 2X for the 440BX chipset. But most people today are not willing to pay that much solely for performance gain. As a side note, it is possible to design an 820 based system board that uses SDRAM instead of RAMBUS. This may be accomplished through Intel's MTH (Memory Translator Hub), which will act as the translator for the 820 chipset and SDRAM memory.

What all this means is the Intel 440BX AGPset is going to be along for a little bit longer, possibly even until as late as Q2/2000. (Intel may be releasing a new 815 chipset around Q1/2000 that is essentially a redesigned 820 that works with SDRAM without the need of a MTH.) Peering into the crystal ball, I don't see RAMBUS pricing coming down until the end of Q1/2000 at the earliest.

With that background information, let's take a look at the performance comparison between the Pentium III Coppermine and Katmai CPU on a 440BX based slot 1 motherboard. Click here for the performance comparison of an 810E based slot 1 platform. The main disadvantage of an 810E slot 1 board is the video and sound is integrated onto the motherboard. The 440BX board used here does not have this limitation. Before we dive into the performance figures, let's review the main differences between the Intel Pentium III CPU based on the Katmai and Coppermine core:

Features	Katmai	Coppermine
Front Side Bus (FSB)	100MHz	100/133MHz
L1 Cache Size	64K	64K
L2 Cache Size	512K	256K
L2 Cache Speed	Half CPU Speed	Full CPU Speed
Multimedia	MMX/SSE	MMX/SSE
Interface	Slot 1	Slot 1/Socket 370
Micron	0.25	0.18
Maximum Speed	600MHz	800+MHz

Here's the quick rundown of the components used in testing:

System Board	PREMIO BX3 (6163)
Chipset	Intel 440BX AGPset
BIOS	Award BIOS version 2.5 - 11/11/1999
Processors	Intel Pentium III Katmai and Coppermine @ 100MHz FSB
Memory	Kingston 128MB PC133 SDRAM
Hard Drive	Western Digital 27GB 7,200RPM ATA66 (WD273BA)
CD-ROM	Mitsumi 48X ATAPI
Video Card	Diamond Viper 770 Ultra AGP 2X (32MB)
Operating Systems	Microsoft Windows 98SE and NT 4.0 Workstation SP5

The table below is the list of Pentium III (both Katmai and Coppermine core) processors tested. (The Katmai processor are listed in blue, while the Coppermine CPUs are listed in green.) Processors with 512K L2 cache is based on the Katmai core, while those with 256K is based on the Coppermine core. The "E" designation after the Coppermine 500, 550, and 600MHz CPUs mean the CPU is based on the Coppermine core.

Processor	L2 Cache	Front Side Bus (FSB)
350	512K (half CPU speed)	100MHz
400	512K (half CPU speed)	100MHz
450	512K (half CPU speed)	100MHz
500	512K (half CPU speed)	100MHz
550	512K (half CPU speed)	100MHz
600	512K (half CPU speed)	100MHz
500E	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz
550E	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz
600E	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz
650	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz
700	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz
750	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz
800	256K (full CPU speed)	100MHz

Ziff-Davis Winstone 99 measures overall system performance by running through a series of commonly used business and engineering applications. Higher number means better performance. Winbench 99 measures the performance of a specific part of the system; such as CPU performance. For both test suites, higher numbers mean better performance.

The chart above measures a system's overall performance under Windows 98SE. It's interesting to note that the Coppermine 550E overtakes the Katmai 600. Although raw CPU speed does play an important role in performance, the speed and size of the L2 cache also dictates how fast a system will perform.

The graph above shows the relative system performance under Windows NT 4.0. The same scenario also holds true for NT 4.0. A Coppermine 550E CPU is just as fast or faster than the Katmai at 600MHz.

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