DDR333 for P4: 16 Boards with Intel 845G - Part I

Integrated Graphics: 3D Is Unconvincing

First, the good news: the Intel 845G offers the best on-board graphics currently available. And now for the bad news: while Intel is comparable to the GeForce 2 MX 200 (with a 64 bit memory interface) in terms of performance, our test results show a very different picture. Here, it should be mentioned that Intel's own, similar graphics chip with 175 MHz GPU and 143 MHz memory never showed up on the market. The performance values of the 845G can be briefly summed up: with 200 MHz core clock and 133 MHz memory clock in combination with DDR 266, or 166 MHz when used with DDR333, the technical foundations are not bad at all. The only restrictions are in the BIOS: a maximum of 8 MB can be assigned as 2D memory, as dictated by the shared memory concept.

If certain applications need more graphics memory, as is the case with 3D Mark 2001 SE, then the graphics driver automatically allocates more memory. Because the operating system also needs to access the system memory, the graphics performance is dampened considerably. An overview of the Intel 845G's graphics performance is shown by the three benchmark charts with Quake III and 3D Mark 2001 SE.

Comparison: Chipsets For Pentium 4

The table above lists all of the chipsets currently available for the Intel Platform (Socket 478). Older chipsets with SDRAM support (e.g., the Intel 845) are not included here, because boards with these chips are no longer produced or haven't been available on the market for a while.