brookdale and northwood benchmarks

[salehrules]

hi guys,
the brookdale and northwood benchmarks have been published by some odd german site (no offense to you germans out there). here's the link to the link... http://aceshardware.com/#N55000294


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[Un4given]

IMHO a chipset for the P4 using SDRAM wasn't a very good idea. They should have developed the chipset for DDR support. However, I guess their contract with Rambus was the primary factor behind not doing this.

If anyone has specific information as to why Intel chose SDRAM rather than DDR, information would be nice.

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[salehrules]

well, i guess rather than go for a board with ddr, they probably decided to just keep it simple. sounds tacky. :P
i have no idea! arcadian....!
doesn't make sense if they want to sell, but then again, who reviews these preview benchmarks anyway apart from... nerds.

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[Moridin]

Originally posted by Un4given:
IMHO a chipset for the P4 using SDRAM wasn't a very good idea. They should have developed the chipset for DDR support. However, I guess their contract with Rambus was the primary factor behind not doing this.

If anyone has specific information as to why Intel chose SDRAM rather than DDR, information would be nice.

The i845 does support DDR, IIRC you should start seeing some DDR motherboards using this chipset in Q4

The reason may be the contract Intel signed with Rambus in which they agreed to support RDRAM as the only "high performance" memory type until sometime next year. I do recall seeing something recently about that being renegotiated to allow DDR chipsets later this year.

Sorry about being so scarce on detail, but I just don't have the time to look up the references right now. I'm sure somebody will have the exact details along with the references though.




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[Un4given]

Originally posted by Moridin:
The i845 does support DDR, IIRC you should start seeing some DDR motherboards using this chipset in Q4

The reason may be the contract Intel signed with Rambus in which they agreed to support RDRAM as the only "high performance" memory type until sometime next year. I do recall seeing something recently about that being renegotiated to allow DDR chipsets later this year.

Sorry about being so scarce on detail, but I just don't have the time to look up the references right now. I'm sure somebody will have the exact details along with the references though.

I guess as long as the support is there, better late than never.



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[Moridin]

Originally posted by Un4given:
I guess as long as the support is there, better late than never.

Here is a link to Anand's where he talks about it. It looks like we are looking at Jan or later for DDR support.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1482&p=2

He also has Intel's performance estimates. Intel say's the i850 should perform about 25% better then the i845 + SDRAM. And it does in games. The interesting thing is that in business apps the difference is more like 10%.

They also say RDRAM should outperform DDR by about 10%. This looks to me like the i845 + DDR could actually have a performance advantage over the i850 in business applications.




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[SSXeon]

Originally posted by Moridin:
The i845 does support DDR, IIRC you should start seeing some DDR motherboards using this chipset in Q4

The reason may be the contract Intel signed with Rambus in which they agreed to support RDRAM as the only "high performance" memory type until sometime next year. I do recall seeing something recently about that being renegotiated to allow DDR chipsets later this year.

Sorry about being so scarce on detail, but I just don't have the time to look up the references right now. I'm sure somebody will have the exact details along with the references though.

Yes the i845A supports SDR and i845B will support DDR, and RDRAM they will still use on the i850. It will also be seen in the Tulloch chipset, thats when intels 133MHz quad pumped (533)fsb comes out. Useing PC-1066 and independent RAMBUS moduals and Using 512k full speed cache.

We will see the northwood w/ a i850 mobo out at end of year then the i845A(SDR) begining of 2002, i845B(DDR) Q2 2002. Northwood is gunna apeal to everyone ..... hints SDR and 256k cache and 512k RDRAM flavors. Looking like a great roadmap for intel. But im still getting a Willy .... and no ones stopen' me lol.

SSXeon

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[This message has been edited by SSXeon (edited July 06, 2001).]

[Un4given]

Originally posted by SSXeon:

Yes the i845A supports SDR and i845B will support DDR, and RDRAM they will still use on the i850. It will also be seen in the Tulloch chipset, thats when intels 133MHz quad pumped (533)fsb comes out. Useing PC-1066 and independent RAMBUS moduals and Using 512k full speed cache.

We will see the northwood w/ a i850 mobo out at end of year then the i845A(SDR) begining of 2002, i845B(DDR) Q2 2002. Northwood is gunna apeal to everyone ..... hints SDR and 256k cache and 512k RDRAM flavors. Looking like a great roadmap for intel. But im still getting a Willy .... and no ones stopen' me lol.

SSXeon

"But im still getting a Willy .... and no ones stopen' me lol."

It's a good thing I know what you are talking about it, otherwise this would sound really bad!



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[Arcadian]

Originally posted by salehrules:
well, i guess rather than go for a board with ddr, they probably decided to just keep it simple. sounds tacky. :P
i have no idea! arcadian....!
doesn't make sense if they want to sell, but then again, who reviews these preview benchmarks anyway apart from... nerds.

DDR platforms have taken a very long time before they could be sold in volume. After their release late last year, it wasn't until March before they began showing up online. And now, there are still some OEM's that continue not to use DDR, such as Gateway.
http://www.gateway.com/home/prod/hm_sel_Matrix.asp

A lot has gone on behind the scenes that you may not know about. DDR has had some stability problems with running at PC2100 speed, and although tests often pass in reviews or among enthusiasts building their own machines, actual OEMs demand a larger amount of stability, and thus run more aggressive tests. So far, it has been a long process for AMD to get DDR working enough for OEMs to begin selling it.

Intel does not want to make that mistake.

Intel has already said that they will be finished with SDRAM validation before DDR validation, and even though some Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers think that the Intel DDR solution is stable already, it may still have unfound bugs.

Testing is a very important process to follow through, and cutting corners introdcues many risks. Intel tried cutting corners when they released the Pentium III 1.13GHz last year. It worked in 99% of applications, but only crashed when running a linux compile, and that made all the difference in initiating the recall.

Intel is not about to risk that again.

Now, people like Tom from Tom's Hardware are throwing a fit because they want DDR released *now*.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/...ndence-01.html

Of course, I assume that they would also prefer a *stable* DDR solution, but they aren't thinking about it that way. They are too rolled up in their rants to realize that Intel cannot magically turn out a chipset based on a memory technology that they have never worked on, overnight.

For me, I would want Intel to make sure that the chipset is completely debugged so that there aren't any nasty surprises later on. I applaud them for releasing the SDRAM version first in order to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the DDR version later.

And one other thing... that German web site does not have a Northwood chip. They mistook a socket-478 Willamette chip for Northwood, just because of the different look of the socket. How do I know? Well, Northwood was never released at the slow speed 1.5GHz, even in engineering samples. And, even if Tech-channel happened to get a pre-engineering alpha-silicon sample, there is no guarentee that it is even working right, or that it even has the cache enabled. There is just too much fishy about that review to take it seriously, yet.

[Kunal]

How far are we from Tulloch? Because if im going to buy northwood, I'd rather wait for the PC1066/1200 and tulloch.

Although as i mentioned in another recent post, I dont believe we'll see PC1066 before Q202. Tulloch boards will prob be announced Q4, sampling in Q102, and mass prod in Q2o2?

Whats going to be the code for it 855i?

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developerXnet - Summer 2001

[Moridin]

Nice post Arcadian. Intel’s bread and butter is supplying a reliable platform to the major vendors. It makes a lot of sense that that would work hard on validating DDR thoroughly before letting it reach the public. Especially for a chipset that looks so ideal for the corporate market. The last thing they would want to do is get the i845 a bad rep early on.

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[Arcadian]

PS... Tecchannel issues an appology for mistaking the socket-478 Willamette chip for a Northwood processor.
http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/740/index.html

Note to our english speaking readers: Despite saying so in the first place, the CPU reviewed here is probably not Intels Northwood. Instead, it is the standard Pentium 4 (Willamette) packaged for Socket 478. We apologize for the error we made. On the other hand, this review shows how an identical core of the Pentium 4 performs with Rambus- or PC-133-memory.

[Mandorallen of Molynnr]

Originally posted by Arcadian:

Now, people like Tom from Tom's Hardware are throwing a fit because they want DDR released *now*.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/...ndence-01.html

Of course, I assume that they would also prefer a *stable* DDR solution, but they aren't thinking about it that way. They are too rolled up in their rants to realize that Intel cannot magically turn out a chipset based on a memory technology that they have never worked on, overnight.

Never thought about the fact that Intel had never worked with DDR based platforms before. Nice post Arcadian. Especially if anyone remembers how long it took VIA to get their Socket A DDR chipset out, and how it still had a few issues.

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