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| Sunday, June 01, 2008 |
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Intel X48 vs. Nvidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI
The high-end chipset offerings from Intel and Nvidia couldn’t be more similar — at least at first glance. Both were designed to power the latest Core 2 Duo, Quad or Extreme processors, both support the latest technologies such as PCI Express 2.0 and DDR3-1600 memory, and both combine these with a plethora of interfaces. Both are highly overclockable and offer proprietary features to enhance performance.
The two target different types of enthusiast customers, however. Intel is the old bull in the chipset arena, owning roughly 50% of the core logic market, but has come a long way from providing reliable business products to also catering to the enthusiast. The X series, starting with the 925X, has been the enthusiast chipset line for some time, yet the Intel enthusiast series isn’t necessarily the best choice for everyone. The mainstream chipsets, such as the P965 and P35, have provided similar performance, interfaces and overclocking features as the 975X and X38 models. The enthusiast chipsets mostly support faster system speeds or optional dual graphics configurations.
The X48 release once again introduces a new chipset that does not offer substantial advantages over the mainstream products — the main difference this time is its qualification for FSB1600 system speeds. At the same time, X48 had support for DDR2 memory and ECC DIMMs removed on the specification sheet, although DDR2 is physically still supported.
Nvidia has addressed the enthusiast audience ever since, which is obvious by its aggressive branding and graphics-centered strategy, paired with a strong feature set. Not only was Nvidia the first firm to introduce Scalable Link Interface (SLI) dual graphics with the nForce 4 family, but it also introduced SLI-ready memory with EPP in the nForce 600. EPP stands for Enhanced Performance Profiles, a technology that allows the motherboard to automatically enable the fastest memory speed and aggressive memory timings. The Nvidia chipsets also were first to introduce comfortable management tools, and the overclocking utility nTune. The latest nForce 700 chipset family focuses on DDR3 memory, two-, three-way and four-way SLI based on two x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots, plus an additional x16 PCI Express 1.0 slot.
Though Nvidia is the multi-GPU graphics specialist, supporting both dual SLI with two SLI-ready graphics cards, three-way SLI with GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra and quad SLI using two GeForce 9800 GX2 double whoppers, Intel does in fact also support dual graphics. With the introduction of the 975X chipset, two x16 PCI Express lanes were available in X series chipsets to host two ATI Radeon graphics card in Crossfire mode.
If you favor either ATI’s Crossfire or Nvidia’s SLI technology then your chipset choice has been made. If not, then you’ll find our comparison of a Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 and an Asus Striker II Extreme useful. Look at the features, performance, overclocking abilities and power consumption of the two high-end choices before making a decision.
Some Chipset History
Despite being first to market with new interfaces, storage controllers and other motherboard-related features, Intel had always been more than conservative with regards to hardcore features. This in spite of having a hardware basis that has been powerful, flexible and usually possessing a lot of headroom for clock speed increases. Overclocking was a taboo that had to be broken carefully over time, and it wasn’t until overclocking had progressed from being an unwanted phenomenon to everybody’s favorite pastime that Intel finally acknowledged it.
Although the X48 is still a 90 nm part, it is highly overclockable, and combines maximum performance with a rich feature set. However, the X48 is only a moderate advance over the X38: the main difference is official support for FSB1600 speeds. Intel has always had a focus on strong interface subsystems, which includes many flexible USB 2.0 ports as well as a powerful storage solution, which it calls Matrix Storage Technology. Although the feature set isn’t richer than Nvidia’s storage feature lineup, Intel has provided better throughput and I/O performance (see storage benchmarks for details). Dual PCI Express interfaces were also introduced with the 975X chipset, supporting ATI’s Crossfire standard.
Nvidia has gone in an entirely different way. For them, entering the chipset business was a logical consequence in order to provide enthusiast and mainstream solutions, rather than just graphics cards. The 3D company had a hard time entering the chipset market with the first nForce chipset generation. AMD’s Athlon 64 success was a key driver for Nvidia’s success of the nForce 3 chipset family. The fourth nForce generation was the first product to also support the Intel platform, as Nvidia wanted to introduce SLI dual graphics support for the AMD and the Intel worlds at the same time.
The nForce chipset family has for some time had more sophisticated dual network controllers that allow users to combine two Gigabit Ethernet ports and to prioritize network traffic (via the DualNet and FirstPacket technologies). The storage management for the six SATA/300 ports and one UltraATA/133 channel is consolidated under what’s called MediaShield technology.
The X48 is a classic chipset that consists of two building blocks: the northbridge 82X48 MCH (Memory Controller Hub) and the southbridge ICH9 (I/O Controller Hub). Intel’s MCH includes the Front Side Bus interface to the processor, the dual channel DDR3 memory controller and two x16 PCI Express 2.0 interfaces. The memory controller supports Intel’s XMP technology, which stands for Extreme Memory Profiles. This is very similar to Nvidia’s SLI-ready memory, as it allows the motherboard to configure the memory according to its maximum capabilities. This means that memory clock speed and timings will automatically be set to ideal performance values. Other auto-configuration mechanisms rely on memory’s Serial Presence Detect (SPD) ROM data, setting workable timings that won’t deliver maximum performance. Intel’s and Nvidia’s approaches are similar, yet you have to get either XMP or SLI-ready memory if you want to use this feature. This chipset not only supports DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333, but for the first time DDR3-1600 is supported as well.
The ICH9 southbridge is available in three different flavors: ICH9, ICH9DO (Digital Office) and ICH9R (RAID). The last of these is used for enthusiast-class motherboards, as it offers six AHCI SATA/300 ports with Native Command Queuing (NCQ) support, together with flexible RAID configuration options (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5). A High Definition audio sound system is mandatory today, and Intel also included a Gigabit Ethernet port (10/100/1000 Mbit/s). Although Intel’s block diagram doesn’t mention 32-bit parallel PCI anymore, it is still part of the ICH9 southbridge. However, Intel wants the industry to focus on PCI Express: the ICH9 offers six lanes, which can be turned into one x4 PCIe slot and two x1 slots, or into a larger number of x1 PCI Express slots. Finally, the ICH9 comes with 12 USB 2.0 ports; SATA and USB ports can be disabled for security.
Technically, the X48 chipset can support all Socket 775 processors, as the socket has only undergone small modifications. However, BIOS support from manufacturers will be limited for Pentium 4 or Pentium D class processors. You can be sure that all X48 motherboards will support the entire Core 2 processor lineup, though.
If you don’t want to go for an expensive X48 motherboard, you can certainly select a P35 or one of the upcoming P45 motherboards. These offer almost the same feature set, with the exception of dual x16 PCI Express dual graphics. Native FSB1600 support requires P45, but most upper-mainstream P35 motherboards will run reliably when overclocked from FSB1333 to FSB1600, if you planned on overclocking your system anyway.
Unlike Intel’s strict split between enthusiast products (X48) and the mainstream line (P35, G35), Nvidia has a more comprehensive chipset portfolio. The nForce 790i Ultra SLI, as reviewed in this article, is the top model for enthusiasts. The key feature for the Ultra version is SLI-ready memory support, which goes as high as DDR3-2000 speeds. None of the nForce 790i chipset versions supports DDR2, only DDR3. The nForce 790i SLI (non-Ultra) also supports SLI-ready memory, but only up to DDR3-1333. FSB1600 support is available with both 790i SLI versions.
Apart from the 790i flagships, the nForce models 680i and 780i also support three-way SLI (twin x16 PCI Express 2.0 plus one x16 PCI Express 1.0 slot), but these go with DDR2 memory instead of DDR3. There is SLI-ready memory support for automatic settings of ideal RAM clock speed and timings, which is limited to DDR2-1200 speed. Since there won’t be much faster DDR2 memory, this is more than adequate.
Finally, there is an nForce 750i SLI entry-level model, which is limited to two x8 PCI Express 2.0 slots, and so does not support three-way SLI. Memory support is restricted to DDR2-800, and SLI-ready memory is not supported. The nForce 750i has to live with one instead of two Gigabit LAN ports, and with only four instead of six SATA/300 plugs. While Intel is about to release single PCI Express 2.0 into the mainstream with P45 at Computex, the nForce 750i SLI is already there.
The block diagram of the 790i Ultra SLI is similar to that of Intel’s X48. The 790i Ultra SLI SPP northbridge (System Platform Processor) connects to the CPU via a 400 MHz quad data rate bus (FSB1600). There are as many as 62 PCI Express lanes; 2 x 16 of them are used by the northbridge to provide two x16 slots, the remainder are provided by the southbridge. The dual channel DDR3 memory controller supports speeds up to DDR3-2000, although SLI-ready DIMMs are necessary to have the system select ideal clock speeds and timings automatically.
While Intel connects its MCH and ICH via a 2 GB/s interface called the Direct Media Interface (DMI), Nvidia utilizes HyperTransport. This is particularly interesting since this is the interface that AMD uses to connect its processors and core logic — and it is being used on an Intel platform. However, HyperTransport is necessary, as the third x16 PCI Express slot for three-way SLI (using eight lanes) has to be provided by the Media and Communications Processor (MCP) southbridge.
The 790i Ultra SLI MCP provides two Gigabit Ethernet ports with teaming features, ten USB 2.0 ports (versus 12 ports with Intel), and six SATA/300 ports plus an UltraATA/133 channel for two legacy devices — Intel dropped support for parallel ATA with the introduction of the P35 chipset line. Nvidia also still supports up to five 32 bit PCI bus master slots for legacy expansion cards. High Definition audio is pretty much essential these days, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to find an appropriate unit on the MCP as well.
Intel X48: Gigabyte X48T-DQ6
BIOS version: F7
As mentioned in our introduction, we used a Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 to represent Intel’s X48 chipset. The DQ6 family is Gigabyte’s top model, offering a 12-phase voltage regulator. There are massive copper coolers and a copper heat pipe connecting the voltage regulators, the northbridge and the southbridge. The two x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots are blue; there are more x1 PCI Express slots, and two 32-bit PCI slots are available for add-in cards (these are black and white). Gigabyte didn’t want to offer only the six SATA/300 ports of the ICH9R southbridge, so it put an additional controller on the motherboard, which provides two more SATA ports and an UltraATA/133 channel. The latter is important for legacy hard drives or optical drives. eSATA is supported via a separate slot panel.
If you still have a non-USB keyboard or mouse then you’ll be happy to find PS/2 connectors on the back panel. There we also found optical and coaxial digital audio outputs, standard audio jacks, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a Firewire port and as many as eight USB 2.0 ports — four more are on the motherboard, but those require a slot adapter.
The energy-saving feature called Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) enables or disables voltage regulator phases depending on the processor load. Using a large number of phases ensures reliable voltage supply at high-performance environments, but it decreases power efficiency. With DES, the system switches off up to eight of the 12 phases, even when using a Core 2 Extreme QX6850. DES, however, requires a driver and software to be installed, so it can monitor the CPU load.
The CPU Throttling Feature is supposed to help to further reduce power consumption, but it reduces system performance noticeably: we found that WinRAR took 2:40 instead of 2:10, and we didn’t detect any reduction in power consumption either. These are the power requirement levels using DES and its various settings:
Idle DES Off 12 Phase = 105W DES Level 1 Normal 6 Phase = 100W DES Level 2; Advanced Power Savings 6 Phase = 100W DES Level 3; Extreme Power Savings 4 Phase = 94W
Load (using Prime95) DES Off 12 Phase = 201W DES Level 1 Normal 6 Phase = 191W DES Level 2; Advanced Power Savings 6 Phase = 187W DES Level 3; Extreme Power Savings 4 Phase = 180W
Please be aware that you can either use the EasyTune overclocking utility, or enable the DES power saving mechanism: combining both isn’t possible, which we believe is a shame. Even when overclocked, there are ways to avoid unnecessary power draw. EasyTune is based on a graphically overloaded interface, but it allows you to tweak and overclock all the major settings in order to overclock the system without having to go into the old-fashioned BIOS.
We reached FSB2100 speed on this motherboard, which is 100 MHz faster than the maximum system speed on the nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard by Asus. FSB1800 can be reached without any modifications: just select the FSB speed and leave everything else on auto.
nForce 790i Ultra SLI: Asus Striker II Extreme
BIOS version: 0402
The Asus Striker II Extreme is called the “ultimate gaming/overclocking platform” on the Asus website. This seems to be the right product to represent the Nvidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, then!
It is equipped with an eight-phase voltage regulator together with Asus’s Energy Processing Unit (EPU). Depending on the power saving settings, EPU is intended to reduce power consumption by modifying the use of the voltage regulators depending on the processor load. Even the two memory channels are supplied by two independent voltage regulators, which may not be ideal for power efficiency, but for performance and stability reasons. The voltage regulators, northbridge and southbridge are connected with a massive heat pipe solution, and these components are also covered by heat sinks. The northbridge has been prepared for liquid cooling solutions by the addition of an integrated water block called Fusion; Asus also includes the necessary mounting materials.
The two x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots are blue; the third slot using eight PCI Express 1.0 lanes is white. In addition, there is one x1 PCIe slot — the second (black) one was designed for the SupremeFX II sound module, which carries all necessary 3.5 mm jacks for audio. Digital coax and optical audio outputs can be found on the motherboard back panel, together with the two Gigabit LAN ports, six USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, Firewire and a PS/2 mouse port. The remaining element on the back panel is a light switch called EL I/O that illuminates the back panel connectors if you want to plug in cables under your desk, where you typically lack light.
The Q connector is a small adapter that you use to connect all the internal cables such as power, reset or HDD cables. Once this is done, you can connect the adapter to the pin panel — obviously, this is easier and in fact, almost hassle-free. Finally, the LCD poster is a little LCD display that can be used to monitor system parameters without invoking any Asus application, such as while gaming. Other motherboard features are the Extreme Tweaker overclocking and tweaking software, COP EX component monitoring to prevent damage when components run overclocked, Q-Fan Plus temperature controlled fan speed management, and an on-board power switch.
We found that memory bandwidth and Prey performance were slightly faster on the nForce 790i SLI motherboard by Asus, but the X48 solution from Gigabyte provided the better results across almost the entire benchmark suite. Please be aware that the differences are minor and far from being noticeable, but for the record, Asus and the nForce 790i Ultra SLI won the benchmark comparison. Of course, this would be different for most of the 3D graphics and game benchmarks once two GeForce 9800GX2 dual-GPU graphics cards or up to three GeForce 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra faced two high-end ATI Radeon HD3870 cards. In this case, Nvidia would win due to its current superiority in the graphics space.
We weren’t able to update the BIOS version using the Windows BIOS update utility, as the update feature didn’t find the appropriate files — we had to look for BIOS updates on the Asus FTP instead, which is a rather cumbersome task. We reached up to FSB2000 speeds on this motherboard, while the X48 board by Gigabyte was able to show even better overclocking results.
Source: TomsHardwareLabels: 790i, GeForce, Intel, nForce, Nvidia, X48 |
| posted by Perimbean @ 2:21 AM |
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