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LOSTCIRCUITS	SHORTCUTS: PCI Express for Graphics Test Platforms Sysmark2004 Overview Sysmark2004 Take 2 3D Rendering Cinebench 2003 Gaming Performnance The Final Analysis Give Us Some Feedback to Help Us Improve our Reviews
Intel LGA775 SocketT Part 2 System Performance
(Review by MS, August 16, 2004)

Summary

New Platform, New Performance?

In our last article we looked at the new Intel platforms with respect to their overall configuration as well as with regard to their memory performance. Briefly, some of the results came unexpectedly but most of what we did was concerned with theoretical memory benchmarks. Overall, the streaming performance was comparable with the older DDR(1) platform, whereas the latencies were higher, as expected. The write performance of the new platform was unexpectedly high, however, keep in mind that chipset buffering as well as the streaming algorithms used by AIDA32 may not paint an overall relevant picture.

Today we'll move on from theoretical benchmarks to more practice-relevant applications. That is, we are going through an entire slew of office and content creation applications, from Sysmark2004 to Cinebench2003 and 3ds max amongst others. We’ll round up the picture with a number of gaming applications. One issue we were running into concerning the benchmarking was the fact that we had one nVidia GeForce 6800GT (PCI express) but no equivalent counterpart with the AGP interface. We solved this issue by borrowing a GeForce 6800 from Sudhian and underclocked it to run at the same clock and memory speed as the PCIe GeForce 6800 GT for a 1:1 comparison between platforms. In most cases, the results were within 1 fps margin of those obtained with the ATI RADEON 9800 Pro – we were running at low resolution to test the CPU and memory, therefore this was to be expected. Wherever this held, we are comparing the new Intel ‘925 DDR2 chipset with our benchmark data base, if the deviations from the GeForce to the ATI card were greater than 1% we only show a comparison between the ‘875 AGP-set and the ‘925 PCIe-set.

             

nVidia's GeForce 6800 Ultra in AGP flavor. Note the two power connectors, both of which are necessary to run the card at its destined speed.

PCI Express vs. AGP

As a brief recapitulation, AGP or accelerated graphics port was introduced to solve the limitations of the PCI interface. The main improvements were the increased speed (66 MHz) and features such as improved direct memory access and DiME, short for direct in memory execution, with the latter meaning that graphics operations could be carried out without the need of load - store the data into a local frame buffer. As history has taught, DiME is hardly used, it is much more efficient to load the data into the on-board memory or local frame buffer and run the operations on textures and geometry locally than trying to push the data through an interface, regardless of how fast it may be. For the fastest operational speed, that is, e.g. early z-coordinate comparison most graphics processing units even employ on-chip caches since even the memory on the graphics boards is way too slow.

                           

nVidia's GeForce 6800 GT in PCIe flavor. Note the PCI card edge and the 6 pin power connector that feeds three 12V lines into the card, enough to supply up to 180W to the GPU. A little tidbit on the side is the SLI connector at the top edge of the PCB

Along these lines it is only natural to wonder why, at a point where nobody can even utilize the bandwidth offered by AGP 4X, we have to move on to a 16 x interface to overcome the limitations of AGP 8X that seemingly don't exist other than in marketeering lingo. The truth is, though, that we are looking at the AGP interface solely from a gaming or even professional graphics standpoint. There is, however, a third application that is becoming increasingly important and that is streaming video editing with massive amounts of data being streamed into the GPU and back to the memory for further use.

Bottom line is that it appears as if also the classic video editing is at a turning point when it comes to e.g. live streamiung editing but a lot of this appears still out in the future with respect to practicality and demand. On the other hand as the saying goes: "The principal applications of any sufficiently new and innovative technology always have been and will continue to be applications created by that new technology". Only time will tell if those applications materialize.

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