Comparing Northwood and Prescott
One of the biggest surprises when testing began on the RS350 was ATI's strong recommendation that all benchmarking be done with a 2.8E Prescott. Since the 2.8E is readily available, and higher-speed Prescott's are just starting to appear in the marketplace, the 2.8 speed recommendation made sense. You can buy a 2.8E ,and it is the price level chip many might choose to use in an integrated video system.However, in our comparisons of Prescott to Northwood and the 3.2EE, we had found the Prescott to lag behind the 3.2C and 3.2EE. You can see more information on the AnandTech comparisons at:
Intel 3.2E vs. 3.2EE vs. 3.2C: Comparing Baseline Performance
Intel's Pentium 4 E: Prescott Arrives with Luggage
Not only did we find Prescott slower than Northwood at 3.2GHz in our past comparisons, we also found that the performance difference increased as speed decreased. In other words, there should be a wider difference in the performance of a 2.8E and 2.8C than you find with 3.2GHz parts.
ATI was clear that the RS350 had been tweaked for best performance with the 2.8E Prescott. Since we did not have recent baseline benchmark tests with a 2.8C on an Intel chipset board, it was the perfect opportunity to test what ATI was saying. Can the 2.8E Prescott perform as well or better than the 2.8C on a chipset tweaked for Prescott performance? How does this compare with performance of the Northwood and Prescott on our standard Asus P4C800-E motherboard?
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Wesley Fink - Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - link
My apologies. The chart was supplied by ATI and shows a Clock Speed of 300 and a Ramdac of 400.SocrPlyr - Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - link
The comparison sheet on page 10 definately has 400MHz for the RAMDAC...it is a picture, and pictures don't lie :)
Josh
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
The comparison sheet on page 10 states the Ramdac speed is 300MHz, exactly what was stated when the review was published. Where is the comparison sheet that states 400 for the Ramdac speed?quanta - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Are you sure the RAMDAC on 9100 IGP Pro is really 400MHz? The ATI site says it is 300MHz, but the comparison sheet in your site says 400MHz.gofor55 - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Does anybody know whether 9100IGP Pro will run ATI's Multimedia Center 9.0 and EazyShare. This might be just the ticket for a low cost multimedia PC for living room and bedroom to view PVR captures from a networked media server.Pumpkinierre - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
So Wesley any indications in that ATI note as to how they optimise for Prescott?Wesley Fink - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
ATI confirmed SATA RAID was present on RS350, not AOpen. Must have been a petit mal . . .Wesley Fink - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
#12 -AOpen has confirmed that RS350 DOES support SATA RAID 0,1. We confiormed SATA RAID works fine with a pair of WD Raptors in a stripe.
The review will be updated to correct the SATA information.
Kai920 - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
#14 - Very well said.I like how IGPs keep improving --say goodbye to Intel Extreme Graphics 2 and onboard GF4MX. The IGP may very well be a major decision in my future purchases, if not the next.
Wesley Fink - Monday, May 3, 2004 - link
#12 -Asute of you to catch the Sata RAID in the diagram. Unfortunately the diagram also shows IXP 300 when the board had an IXP 320.
We have asked ATI for clarification on whether SATA RAID is an option. They are all in Barcelona, Spain for the big X800 kick-0ff tomorrow, so we might not have an answer for a few days.
#10 -
As for the comment about mfg suck-up, GET REAL. Mfgs HOPE they will get a good review from us because we are honest, but more often than not mfgs complain we are too negative in pointing out failings with their product. That means we probably have it about right.
#4 - If you bothered to read the review you would have found the MAIN message was the RS350 competes very well with Intel AS A CHIPSET, which SHOULD be of interest to you. The other news was that Prescott optimizations make Prescott a better performer than Northwood on the new chips. Yes, we coverd Integrated Graphics, because it mattered, but that was not the main point. It wasn't a slow news day - the NDA expired at 6AM today, as the X800 NDA expires tomorrow. The RS350 is a damn good chipset or I wouldn't have bothered.