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The market has been waiting for
this one for a long time. Intel has authorized OEMs to
begin shipping Brookdale (i845) based solutions, now with
DDR SDRAM support. Finally, an Intel native
alternative to RDRAM, for their flagship Pentium 4 Processor
has arrived. Current success in the OEM sector, for
Intel's PC133 incarnation of this platform, has paved the
way for a natural migration path. With PC2100 DDR
SDRAM on price parity with PC133 solutions, it is the
proverbial "no brainer" for motherboard manufacturers and
system level OEMs, to shift their product offerings to this
higher performance solution at very competitive price
points. Frankly, why Intel didn't roll the i845 out
with DDR support initially, is a bit of a mystery that most
likely, only the corporate legal types at Intel and RAMBUS
can completely comprehend. Regardless, we're not
looking a gift horse in the mouth. We're here for the
hardware and not for explaining life's mysteries such as
these.
Which bring us to our next topic
of discussion, since we have a new higher end DDR based
solution
for the P4, what are the motherboard manufacturers capable
of with respect to building solutions with this new memory
interface on the Brookdale chipset. Fortunately for
you, we will try to answer that question and more in the
pages to follow, as we look at the features, functionality
and performance of two motherboards, one from
MSI and
one from
DFI.
We'll also try to give you a good feel for what these
products can do, against the back drop of our reference
Intel test system, based on their D845BG motherboard, an
i850/RDRAM combination and even a new VIA P4X266A board.
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i845D
Motherboards |
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The P4, DDR and all
the trimmings |
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The i845
Chipset - Block Diagram - Socket 478 System Architecture W/
DDR Support
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DFI
NB70-SC
Chipset
Intel 845 /ICH2
CPU Socket
Socket 478
CPU Supported
Intel Pentium 4 processor (Supports 400MHz system data
bus)
Memory
2 DDR DIMM sockets
max. 2GB
PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM
PCI IDE
Dual PIO mode 4 EIDE channels up to 4 IDE devices
UltraDMA/100 transfer rate up to 100MB/sec
Super I/O
2 x NS16C550A compatible UARTs
1 x SPP/ECP/EPP parallel port
External Connectors
2 x USB 1.1 ports, 2 x DB-9, 1 x DB-25, 1 x mouse,1 x
keyboard, 1 x game/MIDI, 3 x Audio jacks
Internal Connectors
1 x connector for 2 additional external USB, 1x IrDA, 2
x IDE, 1x Floppy, 3 x ATX power, 3 x fan, 1 x WOL,1 x
WOR, 2 x internal audio connectors
Power Management
ACPI and OS direct power management
Wake-on event: RTC/USB Keyboard/Modem/LAN/Keyboard/Mouse
Hardware Monitor
System, processor temperature, voltage and fan speed
Expansion Slots
1 AGP slot (Supports 1.5V AGP 4x)
5 PCI slots
1 CNR slot
Audio On Board
AC`97 Audio codec
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Intel
D845BG
Chipset
Intel 845 /ICH2
CPU Socket
Socket 478
CPU Supported
Intel Pentium 4 processor (Supports 400MHz system data
bus)
Memory
2 DDR DIMM sockets
max. 2GB
PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM
PCI IDE
Dual PIO mode 4 EIDE channels up to 4 IDE devices
UltraDMA/100 transfer rate up to 100MB/sec
Super I/O
2 x NS16C550A compatible UARTs
1 x SPP/ECP/EPP parallel port
External Connectors
7 x USB 1.1 ports, 2 x DB-9, 1 x DB-25, 1 x mouse,1 x
keyboard, 1 x game/MIDI, 3 x Audio jacks
Internal Connectors
1 x connector for 2 additional external USB, 1x IrDA, 2
x IDE, 1x Floppy, 3 x ATX power, 3 x fan, 1 x WOL,1 x
WOR, 2 x internal audio connectors
Power Management
ACPI and OS direct power management
Wake-on event: RTC/USB Keyboard/Modem/LAN/Keyboard/Mouse
Hardware Monitor
System, processor temperature, voltage and fan speed
Expansion Slots
1 AGP slot (Supports 1.5V AGP 4x)
6 PCI slots
1 CNR slot
Audio On Board
AC`97 Audio codec
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MSI 845
Ultra-ARU
Chipset
Intel 845 /ICH2
CPU Socket
Socket 478
CPU Supported
Intel Pentium 4 processor (Supports 400MHz system data
bus)
Memory
2 DDR DIMM sockets
max. 2GB
PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM
PCI IDE
Dual PIO mode 4 EIDE channels up to 4 IDE devices
UltraDMA/100 transfer rate up to 100MB/sec
Super I/O
2 x NS16C550A compatible UARTs
1 x SPP/ECP/EPP parallel port
External Connectors
4 x USB 2.0 ports supported by NEC chipset, 2 x DB-9, 1
x DB-25, 1 x mouse,1 x keyboard, 1 x game/MIDI, 3 x
Audio jacks
Internal Connectors
1 x connector for 2 additional external USB, 1x IrDA, 2
x IDE, 1x Floppy, 3 x ATX power, 3 x fan, 1 x WOL,1 x
WOR, 2 x internal audio connectors
Power Management
ACPI and OS direct power management
Wake-on event: RTC/USB Keyboard/Modem/LAN/Keyboard/Mouse
Hardware Monitor
System, processor temperature, voltage and fan speed
Expansion Slots
1 AGP slot (Supports 1.5V AGP 4x)
6 PCI slots
1 CNR slot
Audio On Board
CMI8738/PCI - 2/4/6 channel audio
IDE RAID (for 845 Ultra
ARU)
ATA133 w/ RAID 0,1 support by Promise PDC20276
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Our apologies
for the fine print here but there is a lot of information to
squeeze into one place. There are a few notables with
respect to the above specifications for the three boards we
tested in this piece. First amazingly enough, the
Intel board is the only one in the round-up with 6 PCI
slots. Our first thoughts were, come on now MSI and
DFI, if Intel can do it, so can you! In the future, we
hope to see more i845D boards with 6 PCI slots. This
Intel board is the only one we've seen thus far.
Other than that,
the board is a fairly straight forward design with the
typical bells and whistles including hardware monitoring
functions. On the backside header however, we were
treated to a nice surprise. There are 4 USB port
connectors bolted on, which eliminates the need for one of
those header cable assemblies we've seen in some kits.
Let's have a
look at our other two contenders here.
DFI's NB70-SC and MSI's 845 Ultra-ARU,
Details
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