Intel 820 'Camino' Chipset

by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 1999 2:31 AM EST

The Memory Translator Hub (MTH)

We’ve mentioned before that the i820 chipset does support SDRAM but the support unfortunately does not come without its costs. In order to support SDRAM on an 820 motherboard a fourth hub must be added to the design, the Memory Translator Hub, or MTH for short.

This MTH allows for the presence of SDRAM DIMM slots on 820 boards but the performance won’t be up to par with SDRAM + BX combos, not to mention that this will obviously raise the price of a motherboard just to gain SDRAM support.

It is very clear that the i820 chipset was intended for use with RDRAM only, however, according to Intel, PC133 SDRAM support is coming in "a future chipset." Take that for what it’s worth, but it seems like Intel has something else up their sleeves.

The Test

Click here for detailed descriptions of all of the tests run.
Click Here for a detailed description of the four visual test modes used in the Quake 3 tests.

Windows 98 SE Test System

Hardware

CPU(s)

Intel Pentium III 600

Intel Pentium III 600B
Intel Pentium III 533B
AMD Athlon 500
Motherboard(s) ABIT BX6 R2 AOpen AX6C FIC SD11
Memory

128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM

128MB PC800 RDRAM

128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM

Hard Drive

IBM Deskstar 22GXP 22GB Ultra ATA 66 HDD

CDROM

Phillips 48X

Disk Controller

Promise Ultra 66 - Ultra ATA 66 Controller

Video Card

Diamond Viper V770 Ultra clocked at 150/183MHz (core/mem)

Ethernet

Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter

Software

Operating System

Windows 98 SE

Video Drivers

NVIDIA Reference Detonator 2.08 drivers

Benchmarking Applications

Business

Ziff Davis Winstone 99
BAPCo SYSmark 98

Gaming

idSoftware Quake 3 Test 1.08 (OpenGL)
idSoftware Quake 2 (OpenGL)
Valve Half-Life (OpenGL)
Rage Expendable (Direct3D)

 

Windows NT 4 Test System

Hardware

CPU(s)

Intel Pentium III 600

Intel Pentium III 600B
Intel Pentium III 533B
AMD Athlon 500
Motherboard(s) Soyo SY-D6IBA2 AOpen AX6C FIC SD11
Memory

128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM

128MB PC800 RDRAM

128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM

Hard Drive

IBM Deskstar 22GXP 22GB Ultra ATA 66 HDD

CDROM

Phillips 48X

Disk Controller

Promise Ultra 66 - Ultra ATA 66 Controller

Video Card

Diamond Viper V770 Ultra clocked at 150/183MHz (core/mem)

Ethernet

Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter

Software

Operating System

Windows NT 4 + Service Pack 5

Video Drivers

NVIDIA Reference Detonator 2.08 drivers

Benchmarking Applications

Business

Ziff Davis Winstone 99
BAPCo SYSmark 98

Professional

3D Studio MAX R2.5

The FWH & Stability Issues RDRAM Performance Comparison
Comments Locked

0 Comments

View All Comments

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now