µATX Part 2: Intel G33 Performance Review
by Gary Key on September 27, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
We selected the Intel Pentium E2160 Core 2 derived processor as our main choice for the Intel boards since it represents a great bargain when comparing price against performance in the low end of the market where we will concentrate our review efforts. We also switched to Microsoft Vista Home Premium 32-bit as our operating system of choice for this category. After speaking with several of the larger OEMs, we found out this OS choice is the one most widely offered to consumers. It was a natural then that we would test on Vista Home Premium with a 4GB memory configuration due to rapidly falling memory prices. Even though Vista 32-bit cannot take advantage of the entire 4GB of memory address space, we found the additional 1.2GB (on average) of memory available provided slightly improved performance during multitasking events and gaming with an external video card. We would not recommend anything less than 2GB with Vista Home Premium.
Our hard drive choice is a little out of the norm but since we will be testing the multimedia capabilities of our boards in the HTPC article we felt like the PVR designed drive would be a natural fit. Our OCZ memory choice was determined based upon a combination of price and performance levels that will be required during the overclocking testing with the higher end G33 boards. We did test each board with a wide variety of budget DDR2-800 memory from several suppliers that will be listed in our compatibility charts at the end of this article series. Our boards were set to utilize 256MB of memory for the IGP solution. The ASRock X1250 based board supported up to 512MB of shared memory but we left the setting at 256MB.
We will also present GPU comparison testing using external video cards from AMD and NVIDIA. Our results today will include gaming performance results with the AMD HD 2600XT from Gigabyte. All other components in our test configurations are identical with the boards being set up in their default configurations except for memory settings being optimized to ensure maximum throughput on each board. We will cover image quality analysis, audio, installation, and peripheral components in detail in separate articles.
Our choice of software applications to test is based on programs that enjoy widespread usage and produce repeatable and consistent results during testing. Microsoft Vista has thrown a monkey wrench into testing as the aggressive nature of the operating system to constantly optimize application loading and retrieval from memory or the storage system presented some interesting obstacles. This along with what we still see as a lack of driver maturity will continue to present problems in the near future with benchmark selections. Our normal process is to change our power settings to performance, delete the contents of the Prefetch folder, and then reboot after each benchmark run. A lengthy process to be sure but one that results in consistency over the course of benchmark testing. All applications are run with administer privileges.
Our MSI G33M results will be different compared to the last article. We retested the board with the latest 1.10 release that allowed us to change our memory timings from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12. Also, significant improvements were noticed in relationship to overclocking, power management, and general memory throughput.
| MSI G33M / Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R / ASUS P5K-VM Testbed | |
| Processor | Intel Pentium (Core 2 Based) E2160 Dual Core, 1.8GHz, 1MB Unified Cache, 9x Multiplier, 800FSB |
| CPU Voltage | 1.2750V |
| Cooling | Scythe Ninja Mini |
| Power Supply | Seasonic S-12 II 430W |
| Memory | OCZ HPC Reaper PC2-6400 (4x1GB) |
| Memory Settings | 4-4-4-12 (2.0V) |
| Video Cards | On-board GMA3100, Gigabyte HD 2600XT |
| Video Drivers | Intel 15.6, AMD 7.9 |
| Platform Drivers | Intel - 8.3.1.1009 |
| Hard Drive | Seagate DB35.3 7200RPM 750GB SATA 3/Gbps 16MB Buffer |
| Optical Drives | Plextor PX-B900A, Toshiba SD-H802A, Pioneer BDC-S02BK |
| Audio Card | Realtek ALC-888, ASUS Xonar D2 |
| Audio Drivers | Realtek 1.73, ASUS 5.12.01.0008.17.19 |
| Audio Test Equipment | Swans M10 (2.1), Swans D1080 (2.0), Acculine A2 (5.1) Onkyo TX-SR605 A/V Receiver |
| Case | Zalman HD160XT |
| BIOS | MSI 1.10, Gigabyte F5, ASUS 0401 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit |
| . | |
We selected the Intel Pentium E2160 Core 2 derived processor as our main choice for the Intel boards since it represents a great bargain when comparing price against performance in the low end of the market where we will concentrate our review efforts. We also switched to Microsoft Vista Home Premium 32-bit as our operating system of choice for this category. After speaking with several of the larger OEMs, we found out this OS choice is the one most widely offered to consumers. It was a natural then that we would test on Vista Home Premium with a 4GB memory configuration due to rapidly falling memory prices. Even though Vista 32-bit cannot take advantage of the entire 4GB of memory address space, we found the additional 1.2GB (on average) of memory available provided slightly improved performance during multitasking events and gaming with an external video card. We would not recommend anything less than 2GB with Vista Home Premium.
Our hard drive choice is a little out of the norm but since we will be testing the multimedia capabilities of our boards in the HTPC article we felt like the PVR designed drive would be a natural fit. Our OCZ memory choice was determined based upon a combination of price and performance levels that will be required during the overclocking testing with the higher end G33 boards. We did test each board with a wide variety of budget DDR2-800 memory from several suppliers that will be listed in our compatibility charts at the end of this article series. Our boards were set to utilize 256MB of memory for the IGP solution. The ASRock X1250 based board supported up to 512MB of shared memory but we left the setting at 256MB.
We will also present GPU comparison testing using external video cards from AMD and NVIDIA. Our results today will include gaming performance results with the AMD HD 2600XT from Gigabyte. All other components in our test configurations are identical with the boards being set up in their default configurations except for memory settings being optimized to ensure maximum throughput on each board. We will cover image quality analysis, audio, installation, and peripheral components in detail in separate articles.
Our choice of software applications to test is based on programs that enjoy widespread usage and produce repeatable and consistent results during testing. Microsoft Vista has thrown a monkey wrench into testing as the aggressive nature of the operating system to constantly optimize application loading and retrieval from memory or the storage system presented some interesting obstacles. This along with what we still see as a lack of driver maturity will continue to present problems in the near future with benchmark selections. Our normal process is to change our power settings to performance, delete the contents of the Prefetch folder, and then reboot after each benchmark run. A lengthy process to be sure but one that results in consistency over the course of benchmark testing. All applications are run with administer privileges.
Our MSI G33M results will be different compared to the last article. We retested the board with the latest 1.10 release that allowed us to change our memory timings from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12. Also, significant improvements were noticed in relationship to overclocking, power management, and general memory throughput.
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strikeback03 - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
When building a couple computers for work using the MSI P35 Platinum board, it appears they don't support eSATA hot-swapping, at least not in XP. I know my Foxconn G965 board at home can do it. Is this behavior still present in the MSI board here? Is it a P35 limitation, or BIOS, or what?hans007 - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
I dont get it...an svdo card (add2-n) with dvi output costs what $6 on ebay. why dont you guys just buy one, so you can test these with digital.
also the video driver in vista 32bit is not as mature still as the recently released gma 3000 compatible XP driver.
most people actually have XP so could another round of benchmarks in XP be run? I probably wont even get vista for at leas tanother year, since well its pointless and has no reason for being bought at this point.
lopri - Saturday, September 29, 2007 - link
Well.. it seems like you're using Windows XP and a monitor via VGA. Then why bother with these new IGP-based mATX boards? 915G/945G (or GeForce 6100) series would be a better choice for you. They are a lot cheaper (~$50 probably) and XP support is as mature as can be.In the center of this new wave of IGPs is the advent of HD contents. Vista is kinda necessary-evil in a sense but in general it handles HD and multimedia contents a lot better than XP and has a more intuitive/prettier UI for a living room environment. CRT has long been dead in living rooms, and if you prefer CRT over LCD for some reason (professional gaming maybe?) IGP wouldn't be an option to begin with.
I'd say DVI is the minimum requirement, HDMI w/HDCP being a preferred solution in these days and nights.
veritronx - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
One thing that may have been overlooked.. The MSI board is the only one suitable for people looking to use a dual-slot graphics card as well as, say, a creative sound card, with some space between them. For that reason the only board reviewed that I would look at buying would be the MSI.Ajax9000 - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
From page 1:Read the following Nvidia pages and the news is somewhat disappointing re HD video.
Summary PDF -- http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_35712.html">http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_35712.html
AMD (MCP78) features -- http://www.nvidia.com/object/mobo_gpu_features_ben...">http://www.nvidia.com/object/mobo_gpu_features_ben...
AMD (MCP78) specs -- http://www.nvidia.com/object/mobo_gpu_tech_specs.h...">http://www.nvidia.com/object/mobo_gpu_tech_specs.h...
Intel (MCP73) features -- http://www.nvidia.com/object/mcp_features_benefits...">http://www.nvidia.com/object/mcp_features_benefits...
Intel (MCP73) specs -- http://www.nvidia.com/object/mcp_intel_techspecs.h...">http://www.nvidia.com/object/mcp_intel_techspecs.h...
PureVideo is only listed for the MCP78 (7050PV+630a) combination. All the other AMD chipsets and none of the Intel chipsets have PureVideo HD.
If, in the future, they release an MCP73 using (say) 7050PV+630i then memory will be limited to DDR667.
There is no details thus far, but what would be good is if the new chipset fixes the HD Audio problem that all current HDMI video cards seem to suffer from (i.e. the problem whereby the chipset supports HD Audio, but the video cards can only accept SPDIF-grade audio for HDMI pass-through).
BansheeX - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
Everyone who is letting these boards have it for not including HDMI/DVI is completely right. It makes no sense. Sure, I could buy a cheap DVI graphics card and stick in there, but if I have to do that, why would I buy a board with onboard graphics in the first place?Sadly missing from this review is the board that DOES include onboard DVI, Intel's own DG33TL. Even sadder is that it takes Intel to make the feature-full board while the OEM companies go for the minimum.
Emma - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I agree with the others, as most computers I build have IGP's, being able to directly compare each of the available IGP's on the market would be about the best thing from a review for a long time.The 6100/6150SE should also be included as this is still widely sold.
Also of interest would be a summary of what other nVidia and AMD IGP's are on the horizon.
Thanks!
Owls - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
"We generally feel that users like to install games into the same colored slots for dual channel operation, but MSI chooses to color channel A orange and channel B green."I wasn't aware you could install games into DIMM slots.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
Sorry 'bout that - I was helping Gary out a bit and managed to mangle the text. Blame the speech recognition. That or I'm just slurring my words a bit. :)8steve8 - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
great article tackling most the issues that we care about!question #1: why bother reviewing boards without DVI or HDMI?
whether we are building pc's for friends/offices etc, or an office/server box for ourselves, or we want it to find a home in its post-gaming life when we ditch it for something better... DVI will be key. inexcusable that they pinch pennies there and frankly not worth your time considering these boards. gigabyte has a g33 board with dvi/hdmi, as does intel...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
question #2: this would have been muuuch more useful like 5 months ago when G33 was new. now it's about to be eclipsed by the 7150 and g35.
overall i cant wait to see a similar roundup with modern chipsets like g35/nvidia 7150/ g690 and 7050pv for amd...
would be interesting to see a cost/perf of integrated platforms including cpu costs...
mobo + cpu costs... it seems amd has some good cheap 690g boards out there, with dvi/hdmi for around $75. (almost $50 cheaper than a g33 board with dvi)...