850E or Granite

[qquizz]

I am considering builing my 4th computer. Price is not an obstacle. In reading Tom's articles, it seems to me there is a perfomace decline in the new Granite chipset with dual ddr vs Rambus 1066. I am interested in other peoples experiece and opinions on this matter to resolve my quandry. Also, are there any other advantages to the Granite chipset that 850E doesnt support. In other words if I choose an 850E mobo, is there any thing I wont be able to do? Thanks to all.

 

[Mephistopheles]

If price is really no obstacle, then I think you should consider i850. The only problem I see is that there is little upgradeability for i850... And well, i850 doesn´t support some new techs like AGP 8x.

But what I´d <i>really</i> do if I were you is to wait for Canterwood, which debuts 11th May (if you can wait, that is) Not only will it be a top performer, it´ll support Prescott as well, and you´ll have a clear upgrade path for 2003 and 2004. So you should probably get the newest 3.2Ghz P4 w/ 800Mhz FSB once it gets out... In less than two months... No doubt about it. Canterwood will have an integrated Serial ATA controller and support for AGP 8x.

 

[qquizz]

Thanks for info. Do you know of any good articles on Prescott or Canterwood?

 

[Mephistopheles]

Some additional info on canterwood can be found on <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,907059,00.asp" target="_new">extremetech´s article on "Secret Intel Roadmap Info"</A> as well as <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20030314/cebit2003_2-09.html" target="_new"> this little treat</A> that gives you a nice idea of just how close to us these Canterwood-beasts really are right now.
For something on prescott, you could check out <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20030220/idf_2003_2-01.html" target="_new">tomshardware´s article on Prescott</A> or even <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1677" target="_new">Anandtech´s report on the 90nm process</A> or <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1592&p=2" target="_new"> Anandtech´s Main report on the Prescott</A>, which will do fine also.

Uh, I think that´s enough for now... Tell me if this has been of any use to you whatsoever.

 

[Crashman]

Read the SiS 655 chipset board reviews at Anandtech. The 655 can outperform the i850E when used with PC3200 running at full speed. Tom's test underclocked the RAM to PC2700 speed.

The 655 gives you the latest features and the best performance if you set it up right.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[Mephistopheles]

Yes, the SiS 655 is a fine board, but I think it´ll be overshadowed by Canterwood anyway in one month, maybe two. Its list of "latest features" can´t possibly match the one Canterwood has... The most important, in my opinion, being support for Prescott.

 

[Crashman]

It really depends on how soon you need to build.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[qquizz]

The upgrade path would defininetly be an important factor considering its coming out soon. Thanks for the info to all

 

[drednox]

here you go man

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/linecard.htm?iid=ipp_850echpst+hghlght_compare&

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/linecard/svr_wkstn.htm

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/linecard/valuepc.htm

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/embedded/

as you see the 7205 is a low end workstation board, which will also do well for home and gaming PCs. as such i would naturally expect it to have a tiny bit less performance on things such as games and multimedia, and instead be more solid compatibility, relaibility wise and have far superior networking optimizations over the 850 chipsets. but to me the most important difference between the 2 is that if you go with best possible type of RAM that both support, the 850 goes only up to 1.5 gig, whereas the 7205 up to 4 gigs. since i will be geting 2 gigs of RAM right off the bat when i put my box together in about 2 weeks or so, that automatically rules out any chipset that wont support the amount i want.

then there is of course the AGP 8x thing. i would definetly go with the 7205 because of it. the reason is simply that there arent that many products that can take advantage and make use of teh 8x over 4x AGP yet. but i plan to have my system about a year and a half, 2 years, and i know that in couple months there will be more MS OS features, games, etc to use 8x AGP fully. when that happens the performance gap between the 2 should be at most so miniscule you wont even notice it. it will be something rediculously low like 3-5 frames a second out of around 160 or so. it will not make a practical difference, while the extra stability from the 7205 will. you should have less headaches, less updates to do, better security and networking.