
As recently as a few months ago, there was no arguing that the best chipsets for Pentium processors came from Intel. While ATI, ULi, SiS, and VIA all offer competing products, Intel's reputation as the market leader left no doubt about who was in the driver's seat. But with the Intel Edition of its nForce4 chipset, NVIDIA has become the first vendor to call Intel's dominance of the high-end segment of the market into question.
So today, those who want everything from their motherboards have a choice: the Intel 955X, or the NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition chipsets. The "Intel Edition" (IE) nomenclature is necessary to distinguish this chipset from the original nForce4 offerings, which were designed for AMD Athlon 64 systems. In that arena, you'll find differing versions of the nForce4 called the Ultra, Professional, and SLI. For the Intel platform, however, the only nForce4 offering available is both SLI-capable and also equipped to the max.
That kind of high-end configuration is important for attracting buyers, because Intel's 955X sets a high standard, with outstanding performance and an unusually rich feature set. This means High Definition Audio 7.1 surround sound, one or two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four SATA-II ports (with support for maximum data transfer rates of 300 MB/s and Native Command Queuing for hard disks), a memory controller for DDR2-667, up to 10 USB 2.0 ports, and numerous PCI and PCI Express expansion slots.
You'll find differences between Intel and NVIDIA where RAID support is concerned, and in the areas of graphics and network interfaces. Intel's MatrixRAID is more flexible than NVIDIA's NVRAID, but to counter that, the graphics specialist offers two x16 PCIe slots for simultaneous use of two graphics cards in SLI mode. As a nice finishing touch, NVIDIA's networking capabilities also include a hardware-supported firewall (even if this item has made headlines recently due to a software bug).
As a quick refresher, let's summarize both players' relative strengths. Intel still leads the pack by a noticeable margin in terms of anything related to CPU sales, but that's about it. Despite significantly slower clocking, the Athlon 64 outperforms comparable Pentium models, and also consumes less power - and this applies equally to both single- and dual-core Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 processors. Scientific and professional applications are the exceptions, because Intel's Hyper Threading fits those business niches quite profitably.
In terms of functionality, all the expensive Intel processors in the Pentium D 600 series support the 64-bit extensions called EM64T, which will be important for Windows Vista (due out in Summer 2006 at the latest). Virtually all of them provide support for the Execute Disable Bit (XD) as well. Faster processor models also employ SpeedStep power management technology too; this is found in the Pentium 4 600, Pentium D, and Pentium Extreme Edition series.
The Celeron is available as an alternate choice, which Intel designed as a cheaper processor option for business customers. More interesting are the Pentium 4 and dual-core Pentium D processors (easy to recognize as such; "D" stands for "dual"). The 500 series is equipped with a 1 MB L2 cache; the faster 600 family has 2 MB and supports all the advanced functionality described in the preceding paragraph. The Pentium D is aimed at users who need exceptionally high performance, especially fans of heavy multi-tasking - the simultaneous execution of numerous applications.
Perhaps you've been following these developments for some time now, but it seems that product offerings from the market leader have become so wide and varied that Joe Sixpack might have trouble picking his way through the roster without a program guide. It's also possible that one might be swayed by one or another of the widely discussed deficiencies often attributed to one competitor or the other.
Anybody who chooses a well-outfitted Intel system nowadays should be prepared to spend some money on its various components. A good machine calls not just for a well-equipped motherboard but speedy RAM as well; for a 955X or nForce4 motherboard, this means DDR2-667. But where fast timings increase memory throughput by only a few percent, they can nearly double the prices you'll pay. Still, if you're considering overclocking your system, your RAM should be ready to do likewise - any savvy reseller will be glad to help you pick out compatible DIMMs for such a system.
Two 512 MB modules are the bare minimum for today's active PC users. It's better to buy DIMMs in pairs anyway, so as to get best use from dual-channel memory architectures, which can nearly double throughput - at least in theory. In practice, you'll improve performance by at least a couple of percentage points, and at no added cost.
Don't forget the hard disks, either. Not everybody needs a 400 GB drive, but whatever hard disk models are the newest at any given moment are also likely to be the fastest in their class as well. Important numbers to consider include data transfer rates and disk access times, as well as support for enhanced functionality such as Native Command Queuing (NCQ). This last feature lets the drive execute read and write requests in the optimal order for best performance.
If you really want to go full out, we recommend Western Digital's WD740 Raptor drives. In contrast to the more usual 7,200 RPM rate at which most hard disks operate, these run at 10,000 RPM; this extra speed can make a noticeable difference in performance when hard disk speed matters. You pay for the speed of course; $200+ for 74 GB is not cheap by any means. For the same money you can buy a 7,200 RPM 300 GB SATA-II drive with change left over.
How much money you decide to invest in graphics cards depends in large part on how much real-time 3D support you need. If you only game every now and then, a cheap graphics card for under $100 will probably suffice. In that case, you might want to look at passively cooled models, whose quiet operation may cost a little more but will also soothe your nerves. Ordinary features related to 2D or video handling are so commonplace today as to provide little ground for distinguishing the graphics cards from each other.
As you move up in price from $150 to $600 you gain increasing amounts of 3D capability, to help improve real-time 3D graphics rendering and boost display resolutions in tandem. Buzzwords to watch for here include anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing.
Those who want to spend even more on graphics need one of the nForce4-based motherboards with the Intel Edition chipset that we're about to cover in this story. These permit the installation and use of two GeForce graphics cards, 6600 GT or better. This doesn't do much for anything except gaming, where it can offer nearly double the performance of single card configurations. You'll find the details about this technology covered in our SLI Tutorial: NVIDIA's Double Graphics Whopper: SLI Comes to Market .
Board-Revision: 1.0
BIOS Version: F2
The GA-8N-SLI Royal is Gigabyte's flagship offering for the Pentium processor family. As is typical for Gigabyte, nothing's missing from this motherboard - in fact, they've crammed every square inch with added functions and capabilities galore.


Most noticeable among these accoutrements is the yellow auxiliary connector next to the power socket. This mates with a DPS (Dual Power System) cable from the power supply. While it's not absolutely necessary for a system to work, it's worth using because of the improved power-handling and switching capability it delivers.


This board also compares favorably to earlier versions, because Gigabyte has completely done away with noisy cooling fans in its designs. Thus you'll find the Northbridge chipset equipped for silent operation: the nForce4 IE is cooled with a heat pipe. For ordinary operation this should suffice, but those inclined to overclock or to cram systems full of expansion cards should probably go ahead and clip the fan to the Northbridge heatsink, which Gigabyte includes in the motherboard's retail package.


The board includes a treasure trove of added functions, such as DualBIOS, a second EEPROM that stores a BIOS backup to permit fast, easy recovery from problems with the primary copy; it is useful after excessive tweaking or installing a bad update. The GA-8N-SLI Royal also features Firewire 1394a and 1394b (400 to 800 megabits per second), six SATA-II ports, three UltraATA/133 channels (two for optical drives), six additional USB 2.0 connectors, digital outputs for the HD sound system (optical and coax) and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. Buyers of this motherboard will also find a USB Bluetooth dongle, and a set of extra goodies in the retail package that has to be seen to be believed.


By default, the GA-8N-SLI Royal starts up with overclocking set to 0.5%, which you can restore to normal operation only by disabling all performance boosting options in the BIOS (as we did for our benchmark testing). Gigabyte also outdoes itself with the wide variety of options that its BIOS offers, which also manages to make overclocking seem both easy and comfortable. At the same time, this facility isn't just for show; depending on what CPU you install, running the system clock at 300 MHz is no problem on this motherboard.

Board-Revision: 0.1
BIOS version: unknown
Three slots for PCI Express graphics? That's right! But those who already own SLI systems can safely exhale, as that doesn't mean you can use all three: two graphics card remain standard for SLI, and Jetway can't do much to change that. You populate either the single yellow x16 slot or the two green X16 slots; only in the latter case will SLI Dual Graphics work.
Jetway is pursuing system upgraders, because it outdoes both Gigabyte and MSI with three slots for 32-bit PCI cards. That said, you have to ask yourself which of the other expansion bus slots you really need to populate on this motherboard, in light of the large complement of built-in components. An ever-increasing number of USB-based external components are also available, further reducing the need for internal expansion space.


The red 775GT4-SLI Jetway motherboard is also equipped with two Gigabit Ethernet controllers - one from NVIDIA, and another from Marvell. But only the first of these includes an integrated hardware firewall with stateful packet inspection (ActiveArmor). Because the nForce4 chipset lacks Firewire support, you'll also find a VIA controller for 1394a (400 Mbps) included on this colorful board.
We liked the dual LED indicators in the built-in Port 80 module, designed for system diagnosis, and the board’s built-in power-on and reset switches, which are useful when trying out extreme overclocking settings. Jetway also provides a wide variety of such options in its BIOS as well.
On the downside, we found that it’s not possible to completely deactivate energy saving options for the CPU. This had a mild influence on our benchmarking results, but it wasn’t terribly dramatic. In addition, we couldn’t get our Corsair memory modules to work at ideal timing values of CL3-2-2-8 or 1T Timing ; only when we boosted CAS latency to CL4 did system operation stabilize (for reasons unknown).
More annoying was the fact that the motherboard changed the Active-to-Precharge timing value from 8 to 24 every time it rebooted, forcing us to reset that value manually. Selection of the "BIOS Cacheable" option caused the operating system to hang without starting up, and Windows only recognized the four logical processors in the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 after we manually entered the right multiplier value (16) in the BIOS.
In the final analysis, only one of these issues led to really massive problems. But the abundance of bugs shows that the vendor still has to do some work to get this product really right.
Board-Revision: 1.0
BIOS Version: 1.3
We first (and briefly) introduced MSI's P4N Diamond in the context of a highly controversial article . The board hasn't changed much in our estimation since that coverage. It demonstrated no problems, and its equipment is entirely comparable to that of the Gigabyte board covered earlier in this story.


The board's overclocking functions and its many built-ins are as valuable as those of the Gigabyte board, though not exactly the same. For example, MSI offers a Creative Labs sound chip, while Gigabyte counters with an extra UltraATA/133 port. The Northbridge fan is canceled out by an automatic SLI switch, which bests the jumpers that most other boards use to turn SLI on or off.


MSI's onboard power switch, which includes CMOS reset capability, also impressed us favorably. This also stops users from fumbling with jumpers, but care around the switch is necessary, since it could easily be toggled when inserting a SATA cable onto nearby connectors.



For additional details on this motherboard, please consult our recent story: "Premium or Budget Boards: Is the extra cost worthwhile?" .




| Processor | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840
(3.2 GHz, 2x 1 MB L2 Cache) |
| Memory | |
| Intel Platform (Premium) | 2x 512 MB - DDR2-667 (333 MHz)
Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL (XMS5400 V1.2) (CL3-2-2-8-1T @ 333 MHz) |
| Motherboards | |
| Sockel 775 | Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal (Rev. 1.0, BIOS F2)
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Jetway 755GT4-SLI(Rev. 0.1) NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition MSI P4N Diamond (Rev. 1.0 , BIOS 1.3) NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition |
| System Hardware | |
| Graphics card (PCIe) | Asus Geforce 7800 GT
GPU : NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GT (400 MHz) Memory : 256 MB DDR-SDRAM (500 MHz) |
| Hard drive | Hitachi Deskstar 7K250
250 GB, 8 MB Cache, 7200 RPM |
| Network | 3Com 3C905B-TX |
| DVD-ROM | Gigabyte GO-D1600C (16x) |
| Power supply unit | Tagan TG480-U01, ATX 2.0, 480 W |
| Software | |
| Chipset driver | NVIDIA Forceware 7.13 |
| Graphics driver | NVIDIA Forceware 77.77 |
| DirectX version | Version : 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) |
| OS | Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2 |
| Benchmarks and Settings | |
|---|---|
| OpenGL | |
| Doom III | Version : 1.0.1262
1280x1024, 32 Bit Video Quality = High Quality demo1 Graphics detail = High Quality |
| DirectX 8 | |
| Unreal Tournament 2004 | Version : 3204
1280x1024, 32 Bit, Audio = off THG8-assault-single |
| DirectX 9 | |
| FarCry | Version 1.1 Build 1256
1280x1024 - 32 Bit qualtity options = High |
| Video | |
| Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus | Version : 9.4.1
from : 352x288 MPEG-2 41 MB to : 720x576 MPEG-2 95 MB Encoding and Transition Rendering to MPEG-2/DVD no Audio |
| Auto Gordian Knot
DivX 5.2.1 XviD 1.0.3 |
Version : 1.95
Audio = AC3 6ch Custom size = 100 MB Resulution settings = Fixed width Codec = XviD and DivX 5 Audio = CBR MP3, kbps 192 182 MB VOB MPEG2-source |
| Audio | |
| Lame MP3 | Version 3.97.1 Multi-threaded Alpha
Wave 17:14 minutes (182 MB) to mp3 32 - 320 kbit VBR = level 3 |
| Applications | |
| WinRAR | Version 3.41
283 MB, 246 Files Compression = Best Dictionary = 4096 kB |
| 3DS Max 7 | Characters "Dragon_Charater_rig"
1600x1200 Rendering Single |
| Synthetic | |
| PCMark 2005 Pro | Version : 1.0.1
System, CPU and Memory Tests |
| SiSoftware Sandra Pro | Version 2005, SR1
CPU Test = Multimedia Benchmark Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
OpenGL

DirectX 8

DirectX 9

Video




Applications








Predictably, the two motherboards from Gigabyte and MSI showed no noticeable omissions or defects; they also demonstrated good performance, along with "best of breed" built-ins and add-ons.
By contrast, Jetway's motherboard manifested numerous failings. Taken individually, any of these would be tolerable; however, taken together, they raise serious doubts about quality. The vendor should make some quick fixes to put things right. If they do, they could have a solid contender, because the Jetway board is technically on a par with the Gigabyte and MSI offerings, and less costly as well.
In the first round of this series, we also give the nForce4 motherboards high marks across the board (Jetway's glitches had nothing to do with the chipset). Ambitious users should be every bit as satisfied with an NVIDIA chipset as with its Intel counterpart. In our next article in this series, we'll tackle a horde of 955X motherboards, raising - and answering - the question about which chipset and which vendor together offer the best overall motherboard.


