Intel P35: Intel's Mainstream Chipset Grows Up
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on May 21, 2007 3:45 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Audio Encoding Performance
Our audio test suite normally consists of Exact Audio Copy v095.b4 and LAME 3.98a3. We did run these tests with basically the same results but for our purposes today we will utilize iTunes 7.1 as it is one of the most utilized audio applications available due to the immense popularity of the iPod. As in previous articles, we are using an INXS Greatest Hits CD for testing, which contains 16 tracks totaling 606MB of songs.Our first test consists of utilizing iTunes to rip our INXS CD in WAV format onto our hard drive. Even though CPU speed and optical drive selection have a great impact on these test results we are using the same optical drive between platforms for each test.
It's interesting to see our two boards from ASUS and Gigabyte at the top showing a clear separation from the rest of the pack. It wouldn't be surprising if the results of the two top boards are a result of a BIOS tweak not present on the other boards (yet). Excellent memory bandwidth and latencies are a plus for encoding although, even though these tests remain CPU and at times storage system sensitive.
Our next two tests have us utilizing iTunes to convert our WAV files into ACC or MP3 compatible formats. We utilize the 320kbps setting for both tests with the MP3 test also utilizing the variable bit rate option.
We see iTunes favoring boards with excellent CPU throughput with the 1333FSB showing a slight advantage in this test. All of the P35 boards place ahead of the older chipsets, with the exception of the MSI board. As we have mentioned already, the MSI board appears to be about two BIOS updates behind the Gigabyte and ASUS offerings right now, so we expect its scores to improve to match the other offerings with a few more updates.
Our final test has us creating a legal use copy CD from the base WAV files we collected when ripping the INXS Greatest Hits CD. Not that the world needs any more of these CDs but it makes for a good closing test. We promise all CDs are destroyed after testing much to the pleasure of our ears and those at the RIAA.
Once again our test results are extremely close with the optical drive playing a leading role in ensuring our results are fairly close. The minor differences are all attributable to the better disk performance of the P35/ICH9R combination in this case. We noticed in this test that the ICH8, ICH7, and 680i LT equipped boards always started writing to the DVD drive a little slower on the first track than the P35 boards.
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Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
The power could be attributed to the DDR3. With it not being so mature there may be a lot of signaling going on that isn't necessary. Also- with all the new technologies, these boards simply have more going on on them. With more transistors on a cpu its is expected they will use more power- more connections and circuits on a board would mean the same. Everything is running faster too. The power consumption doesn't make sense given the lack of matching real-world performance enhancements, but as the article makes good sense in pointing out, Bios are a big contributing factor here.TA152H - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
Except they ran the power tests with DDR2 on P35 based machines as well, and they were higher than P965 with the same memory. So, obviously, that isn't the cause in this instance.Gary Key - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
After speaking with the board manufacturers and Intel, our original thoughts (briefings/white paper review) were confirmed that the additional circuitry required on the P35 DDR3 boards and in the MCH result in the increased power consumption on the DDR3 platform compared to the DDR2 platform. This holds true for the P35 DDR2 boards when compared to the DDR2 P965, the additional DDR3 circuity/instruction set is still active even though it is not being used. This is why you will see the DDR2/DDR3 combo boards shortly. However, the BIOS engineers believe that can work a little magic with the SpeedStep and C1E wait states to reduce power consumption, however we are talking just a few watts at best. More on this subject in the roundup, at least we hope we will have more... ;)TA152H - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
Gary,Thanks, it's useful to know. Are they going to shackle the x38 with DDR2 support too?
Just confirms my earlier opinion, they should have gotten rid of DDR2 support. Intel is an interesting company, they can come out with a great product like the Core 2, and then have some monkey decide to include DDR2 and DDR3 on the P35. You never know if they'll have a clue, or not. I guess it's a good thing they make turkeys like this and the P7, otherwise we wouldn't have AMD. Although AMD might be the cause of this.
The monkey that decided to do this probably thought, "Oh, look what we can do that AMD can't". It seems to me they did that with the P7, a technological marvel way beyond AMD's capability to design, thank goodness, and the groundbreaking Itanium. Except neither one worked great. AMD's pragmatism has paid off nicely, and even though they can't realistically support DDR2 and DDR3 on the same motherboard, I don't think they really care. Of course, I'm just guessing, when a company does something this stupid, it's always difficult to understand why they did it. It would have been so simple to just have DDR3 support for the P35, and let the P965 handle the DDR2 crowd. It's perfectly adequate.
Thanks again for the information. It's disappointing, but with Intel you get used to it. They can't do everything right after all, and still be Intel.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
There might be a more practical reason, such as lack of production capability for DDR3 or HP and Dell threatening to use VIA chipsets instead of P35 in order to keep using DDR2 and keep their prices competitive. I doubt consumers would like their prices increasing by a few hundred dollars for no noticeable performance improvement. And if they only keep the computer 3 or 4 years they will probably spend less on energy than on that DDR3.Who knows about X38, I'd guess DDR2 support won't disappear until the chipset revision for Nehalem.
TA152H - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
Well, I agree if P35 were the only choice from Intel, this would be the case, but again, would you buy VIA if you could get a P965? I wouldn't. If the P965 were a lousy, and seriously obsolete chipset, yes, sure, you'd have to come out with something that replaced it. But they could have easily validated it for FSB of 1333, and at the point the only thing really new in the P35 would be the DDR3 support. So, why would you need it?I was going to get the P35 rather than the x38 because I figure x38 will be even more of a power hog considering the, to me, useless features it has. I don't plan on getting two high-end video cards, and I don't think I will run anything that requires twice the performance of the current PCI-E, but if they drop the DDR2 support, it might the one to go after. If you ever look at an Athlon 64 CPU, you can see the memory controller is simply enormous, so dropping it on the x38 could be significant. With it being high end, they may decide DDR2 isn't a high end technology so they drop it. I hope so.
JarredWalton - Monday, May 21, 2007 - link
Could be the Vista factor? I dunno what else to think about the power numbers.XcomCheetah - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
Could you do a little testing on it... why so high power numbers..Secondly if i remember correctly the power number difference between 680i and P965 chipsets was greater than 20W.. but in your current tests the difference is pretty small.? So any guess what has caused this positive change.?
Reference
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/...">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/...
current power numbers on Anandtech
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...