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| DFI 855GME-MGF and Intel Pentium M 735 Along came a Dothan | |
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(Review by MS, Jan 2, 2005) |
Conclusion
A After looking at the benchmarks, there is not much room for interpretation left. The Pentium M, even on a somewhat outdated platform like the i855 chipset has swept the benchmarks like hardly any other processor before and done so despite some obvious handicaps in the area of memory bandwidth and SATA interface, where admittedly, we avoided the latter by excluding certain benchmarks. AGP4X hardly qualifies as state of the art anymore and that is especially true when it comes to video editing. Likewise, the entire chipset make-up with its Hub-Interface 1.5, supporting only 266 MB/sec total bandwidth between the GMCH and the I/O controller looks like something from the last millennium. Yet, for most applications, it suffices.
There are a number of exceptions to the killer performance. For example, 3DMark05 CPU test returned scores of 1.8 and 2.5 for the CPU Test1 and 2, respectively, the rest of the benchmarks are not comparable since the graphics card we originally used needed a rework and we had to resort to a standard ATI Radeon X800 Pro, sufficient for low quality gaming tests but not adequate in this case. Another interesting scenario came up when we were running SpecViewPERF 8.0. At 1.6 GHz, the Dothan and Banias were running flawlessly, however, even at 2.0 GHz clock speed, the system tended to exit the benchmark suite. At 2.13 GHz, only a few selected applications could be willed into finishing and at 2.26 GHz none of the individual tasks within the suite completed.
This situation was completely independent of memory ratio or latency settings, if anything, higher memory frequencies and more agressive timings worked better than relaxed settings, and only seemed to depend on the clock speed of the CPU. In repetitive runs we also found performance degradation, even at the 1.6 GHz setting, which we interpret as throttling. Keep in mind that the highest junction temperature of the CPU is 100 centigrades at the hottest spot, which can easily be offset by 10-20 centigrades from the area where the thermal diode is located (at the I/O interface), at least according to some Intel white papers.
Despite the fact that we were using Arctic Silver, and the temperatures as monitored in the BIOS Hardware Monitor stayed within accpetable ranges, we still believe that local overheating of the CPU was the main culprit. Getting this issue under control should be straightforward, just get a slightly better heatsink instead of the Liliput version shipping with the board.
Interestingly, even though we used an nVidia Quadro FX3000 for SPEC ViewPERF, the scores did not change between the different CPU frequency settings which made the entire exercise a moot point, we were simply graphics adapter limited. More interestingly, the scores we obtained were very close to those shown on AnandTech for a dual Opteron system. Since we know that this type of application is amongst the few where the AGP transfer rate makes a difference, the limitation to AGPX4 could have also played a role in the results hitting a brickwall. Otherwise, we could argue that even a 1.6 GHz Dothan suffices for even the most demanding professional CAD applications.
All of this is pretty much negligible for the average user. Anybody who is into gaming or photo editing or just looking for the best bang for the money cannot ignore the Pentium M platform which even in raw numbers performs superior to any P4 platform we have tested. If one adds the cost factor, the equilibrium is shifted even more towards the Pentium M since existing DDR can be reused, the mainboard should retail for less than $100 and the CPU ... well, we have some prices listed below. In other words, for a bit over $300.- one can get the absolute killer upgrade for any existing system.
All of this has too leave Intel in a rather uncomfortable situation. On the one hand, there is finally again a processor that can keep up with AMD's offerings, on the other hand, all of the platform improvements like PCIe and DDR2 are basically for nothing. Just the thought of the $83 Million that Intel invested in DDR2 with Elpida alone should be enough to roll up some toe nails with the roadmap planning committees. Not to mention the poor PR staff.. Oops, I didn't say that ...
In all seriousness, what is Intel going to do next? The P4 and especially the ExtremeEdition is not a bad processor at all and especially, as we showed in this article, those working primarily with office applications should definitely consider it. The same goes for video editing where at this time, the P4 is unmatched. Everything else belongs to Dothan. I can already hear the "but"s and "still"s but it appears as if Intel is at a very important crossroad that could decide over the fate of the company. Of course, there is always the ostrich way but by sticking the head into the sand, the problems won't go away.
There is, however, a mobile 915 chipset coming up as the potential Deus ex Machina. Given the fact how little memory bandwidth the Dothan needs, low latency DDR400 appears to be the memory of choice here, too. So what are we going to do with all the DDR2 now? Well, there are things like office applications and video editing but some of the DRAM manufacturers could be hurting very badly in the near future if the golden rug is pulled out from under their feet.
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Pentium M 735 (Dothan 1.7 GHz) |
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