Core 2-Compatible Chipsets Compared

theraindog writes "Intel's Core 2 Duo is clearly the most attractive processor on the market, but which motherboard chipset is it best paired with? The Tech Report has rounded up four of the most common Core 2-compatible chipsets on the market to find out. The chipsets' features are compared and their performance is tested in a wide range of application, peripheral, and even power consumption tests. One emerges as a lemon, two as solid options, and the other as a clear winner." From the article: "Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog, but most enthusiasts have seen the light and are looking at Core 2 for their next upgrade or system build. The prospect of a Core 2 system build can seem a bit daunting for enthusiasts who have spent years focused solely on the Athlon 64. Core 2 processors need new motherboards for those switching from the Athlon 64, and that requires navigating a whole new world of core logic chipsets. Since the Core 2 processor relies on the chipset for its memory controller, one's chipset choice can also have a much more profound impact on performance. "

Comments

Hardware TCP/IP acceleration

[Aardpig]

From the article:I can't understand why Nvidia would drop a unique feature like hardware TCP/IP acceleration.

Might I suggest it's because this acceleration has been found to cause serious data corruption on some NFORCE4-based AMD motherboards? I'm surprised the authors weren't aware of this problem.

Myself, I'm wary of NFORCE4 for other reasons. I've recently found that my quad-core Opteron box, built on a Tyan S2895 (K8WE) mobo with an NFORCE4 chipset, will undergo spontaneous data corruption under Linux when I transfer large (>GB) files. I'm not the only one who's had this problem; looks like there's a bug in the NFORCE4 SATA controller. Caveat Emptor.

CONCLUSION

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the 21 pages...Concusion:
Conclusions
The landscape of Core 2-compatible chipsets is an interesting one. On one hand, you have tried and true chipsets like the 975X Express and nForce4 SLI X16 appearing on boards that have been updated to support Core 2 processors. These chipsets aren't new or particularly flashy, but they're proven designs that don't sacrifice performance when compared with the latest and greatest core logic.

Of course, the Core 2 chipset market isn't all retro refits. Nvidia's nForce 570 SLI is new, at least in name. Unfortunately, the chip's features make it look more like a minor update to the aging nForce4 SLI than a legitimate member of the nForce 500 series. The discrepancies between the chipset's features and those offered by the nForce 570 SLI for AMD processors are striking, and for the life of me, I can't understand why Nvidia would drop a unique feature like hardware TCP/IP acceleration. Extra features have long been a tenet of nForce chipsets, and on that front, the 570 SLI comes up well short.

Compounding the 570 SLI's disappointing feature set is comparatively high memory latency with two-DIMM configurations. This particular problem might be a quirk of the Asus P5NSLI motherboard we used for testing, but it's a retail board with a production BIOS--a board Nvidia itself provided for review.

Intel P965 Express
September, 2006

Unlike the nForce 570 SLI, which feels like little more than an uninspired retread, Intel's P965 Express still has that new chipset smell. It also has a number of new features, including Fast Memory Access optimizations and additional south bridge Serial ATA RAID ports. The P965 also has relatively low power consumption, competitive performance, more robust Matrix RAID options, and evolving CrossFire support that should be complete by the end of the year. No wonder this chipset has proven so popular with motherboard manufacturers, who are building everything from budget $100 wonders to high-end enthusiast boards based on it.

The Intel P965 Express chipset's mix of features, performance, and power consumption make it the perfect partner for Intel's new Core 2 processor and our Editor's Choice. Really, it's an easy call to make. The P965's upcoming CrossFire support kills the one reason we might have recommended the 975X. If SLI's your bag, the nForce4 SLI X16 is a solid--albeit power-hungry--option, but the more attractive nForce 590 SLI should be just around the corner. The nForce 570 SLI, meanwhile, doesn't even measure up to its own name, let alone to the P965

Re:Conclusion

[Daverd]

Which is strange, because from most of the benchmarks I looked at, the nForce4 mobo did better than the P965.

Conclusion

[neonprimetime]

I'll save you the time of scrolling thru all 21 pages by skipping right to the conclusion...
The Intel P965 Express chipset's mix of features, performance, and power consumption make it the perfect partner for Intel's new Core 2 processor and our Editor's Choice. Really, it's an easy call to make.

micro-ops fusion - 32 bit only. DMA - lower 32bit

[hxnwix]

The core2 is fast in 32bit mode and certainly a step in the right direction for intel. Kudos to them, but fie on their 64 bit support. In deference to the Itanium, they think of it as existing to provide extended memory support, and only because AMD was flanking them. Two important factors drag down core2 64 bit performance: micro-ops fusion, which welds multiple trivial ops into a single macro op, works on 32 bit instructions only, and they support DMA on only memory addressable with a 32 bit pointer. The message from intel is clear: for 64 bit performance, buy an Itanium or an opteron.

Re:No bias there...

[Visaris]

Quite correct.

What ever happened to evauating the performance of a chip based on the actual application that is going to be run? I can honestly tell you right now that almost every application that is memory bandwidth limited is going to perform better on an AMD K8 chip than Core2/conroe. The K8's integrated memory controller supports much better memory throughput.

I suppose it is out of style to recognize the good and bad charictaristics of each offering. The current trend is to call one the all around "winner" and call everyone else a fanboy..

Context matters

[EconolineCrush]

"Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog, but most enthusiasts have seen the light and are looking at Core 2 for their next upgrade or system build." Nowhere does it say when that next upgrade or system build has to come, or that anyone needs to upgrade from AMD64.

Re:Fanboyism at its hight

[Frobozz0]

For gaming, which requires the most performance, AMD is soundly beaten. Period. That doesn't mean they won't come out with something to one-up Intel in the future, but right now only a fanboy would recommend AMD if performance is the number one criteria.

If you move away from performance as the only criteria, I think AMD competes well with the cost-to-dollar performance. HOWEVER, if you are willing to overclock, even the sub-$200 Core 2 Duo will outperform any desktop AMD chip you can buy-- at any price.

It's not a matter of fanboy-ism. It's a matter of numbers. Right now Intel wins on performance. That's just a fact. However, AMD could very well get back into the mix and make this argument mute in the near future.

Barcelona / K8L

[Visaris]

As a side note; does anyone have any info on what AMD are planning, if anything, to compete against the Core 2 Duo in the near future? I read something a while back about them switching to 65nm at a new fab, but I don't follow the processor market that closely anymore.

AMD has a couple of interesting products comming out:

- First is 4x4, comming out in 4Q2006. This is essentially a dual-socket platform designed for the high-end desktop and low-end workstation/server market. This isn't a product for everyone, but it will make for a very price attractive dual-socket workstation. To start with, it will support two dual-core chips for a total of four cores. AMD has stated that later, when they release quad-core chips, 4x4 will support two of them for a total of eight cores. It's a niche market, but a neat idea.

- Second, AMD is releasing a new core in 2Q2007. This core has double the number of FP (floating point) pipelines, double the L1 cache bandwidth, larger reorder buffers, a L3 cache, and will come in dual and quad-core versions. This chip is going to be a beast, and will be supported in any current socket AM2 mother board. For more, read this: HardOCP, HardOCP. This new core is the direct answer to Core2/conroe, and I expect it to be a good one. It looks really good on paper, and after seeing AMD's delivery of K8, I expect the new core to live up to the hype.

Eh.. it depends.

[Visaris]

Intel had what, 5 years to top K8 and 5%-10% better speeds was the best they could manage?

Well, it depends. Core 2 is really good at 32-bit single threaded tasks that fit inside a 4MB cache or have sequential memory access patters. On these workloads Core 2 will wipe the floor with AMD's K8, hands down. Just look at SuperPI scores for an example.

Here's the question though: What happens with heavily threaded 64-bit tasks that use much more than 4MB of memory in a random access pattern? AMD's K8 wipes the floor with Core 2, hands down.

There is a reason most gamers/encoders buy Core 2 for their desktops and many businesses and universities buy K8 Opterons for their servers and HPC centers.

Re:and you have to be a fanboy to get it right?

[jandrese]

The worst parts about these fights is that it's millions of words in thousands of forms and blogs over what amounts to a 2% performance difference. BFD.