Dual Core Intel Platform Shootout - NVIDIA nForce4 vs. Intel 955X
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 14, 2005 1:01 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Intel's 955X Chipset
With pricing out of the way, let's have a look at the 955X chipset itself. The Intel slide below provides a good overview of the chipset:
For the most part, the features are pretty straightforward, but there are a few interesting points. Note that Intel shows support for dual PCI Express x16 slots with the use of an external bridge, meaning that motherboard manufacturers could effectively offer SLI support on 955X platforms. We firmly believe that Intel will introduce support for SLI once both ATI and NVIDIA have introduced their SLI technologies. It has yet to be seen how Intel will implement this bridged dual x16 solution and whether it will be a true dual x16 setup, or two x8 slots like NVIDIA's SLI.
The board that we used for this review actually featured two x16 slots, but only one was a true x16 slot - the other was a x4 slot with a x16 connector.
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Spajky - Saturday, May 7, 2005 - link
Some comments:Memory Performance:http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
Here should be included also WinRAR´s built_in benchmark & hardware test" in KB/s,
since it can be treated as a real life memory subsystem benchmark (& NOT a Data
Compression Bench! for CPU for example)
WinRAR´s built_in benchmark & hardware test" :
some tests/benchmarks & explanation HOW IT WORKS, here:
http://freeweb.siol.net/jerman55/HP/benchMem.htm
Pontius - Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - link
Didn't realize there was no hardware XOR. Thanks for clearing that up elecrzy.xsilver, RAID 5 is a big deal and is a long way ahead of RAIDs 0 and 1. Most motherboards offer RAIDs 0 and 1, but only high end expensive ones offer onboard RAID 5. Without it, you need a SCSI or SATA RAID card which will run you a couple hundred bucks. To have that on a desktop board is a major deal. But again, since it's done by the CPU without XOR hardware, it's not that big a deal I guess.
elecrzy - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
sorry i meant #88elecrzy - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
#89: the chipset doesn't offer its own XOR processor for RAID 5 so it has to rely on the cpu to do the calcs. this basically means you lose alot of performance(high cpu usage) when compared to hardware raid cards.mickyb - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
RAID 5 and 10 is indeed a big deal for a built in chipset. It is a little outside the scope for a desktop, but cool none the less. I would have to also give a win to nVidia for providing GbE on the chip. I guess Intel would rather people use their GbE separate chip.Zebo - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
Zebo - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
Intel has a nice chipset, as usual. Nvidia, as usual, clueless about audio desires which would add insignifigant price to chipset at great gains to most consumers. I don't really see the Nvidia recomendation at all unless you NEED, Sli. Intel has more feature, way better audio, the NCQ differences are really none and it's cheaper.xsilver - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
#88 -- I think it is old news... I think the older 9xx chipsets offered raid 0,1 for free so offering raid 5 on the newer chip may not be so crash hot??and questar, talking to you is a bit like talking to a brick wall....
a lot of us here already explained that we are arguing about performance NOT volume... what you specify as "qualifications" is due to the sheer volume intel ships.... most people are aware that AMD only has 15% of the market.
If IBM,HP,Dell dont want to "qualify" AMD systems, its their loss, not ours
but no matter how you argue it, AMD has the performance advantage on everything, high end, middle and low end right now and only the laptop pentium M is the performance advantage for intel right now
Pontius - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
Am I the only one that noticed that the Intel chipset supports on board RAID 5?!?! That's amazing! No need to buy expensive raid cards anymore. I'm surprised they didn't pay any attention to that in the article.stevty2889 - Saturday, April 16, 2005 - link
My case meets the standards for running prescotts..my 3.2 ES and my 2.8@3.5ghz ran perfectly fine in the same case, the 3.2ES also on the same motherboard, with all the same components, and neither my 2.8 or 3.2ES had the heat issues of my 3.4ghz chip. Not all of them run too hot, but some seem to do so no matter what cooling you throw at them. The 3.4 is still running warmer with water cooling, than my 3.2 ES(which I got from the chip loaner program) is with air.