µATX Part 2: Intel G33 Performance Review
by Gary Key on September 27, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
We selected the Intel Pentium E2160 Core 2 derived processor as our main choice for the Intel boards since it represents a great bargain when comparing price against performance in the low end of the market where we will concentrate our review efforts. We also switched to Microsoft Vista Home Premium 32-bit as our operating system of choice for this category. After speaking with several of the larger OEMs, we found out this OS choice is the one most widely offered to consumers. It was a natural then that we would test on Vista Home Premium with a 4GB memory configuration due to rapidly falling memory prices. Even though Vista 32-bit cannot take advantage of the entire 4GB of memory address space, we found the additional 1.2GB (on average) of memory available provided slightly improved performance during multitasking events and gaming with an external video card. We would not recommend anything less than 2GB with Vista Home Premium.
Our hard drive choice is a little out of the norm but since we will be testing the multimedia capabilities of our boards in the HTPC article we felt like the PVR designed drive would be a natural fit. Our OCZ memory choice was determined based upon a combination of price and performance levels that will be required during the overclocking testing with the higher end G33 boards. We did test each board with a wide variety of budget DDR2-800 memory from several suppliers that will be listed in our compatibility charts at the end of this article series. Our boards were set to utilize 256MB of memory for the IGP solution. The ASRock X1250 based board supported up to 512MB of shared memory but we left the setting at 256MB.
We will also present GPU comparison testing using external video cards from AMD and NVIDIA. Our results today will include gaming performance results with the AMD HD 2600XT from Gigabyte. All other components in our test configurations are identical with the boards being set up in their default configurations except for memory settings being optimized to ensure maximum throughput on each board. We will cover image quality analysis, audio, installation, and peripheral components in detail in separate articles.
Our choice of software applications to test is based on programs that enjoy widespread usage and produce repeatable and consistent results during testing. Microsoft Vista has thrown a monkey wrench into testing as the aggressive nature of the operating system to constantly optimize application loading and retrieval from memory or the storage system presented some interesting obstacles. This along with what we still see as a lack of driver maturity will continue to present problems in the near future with benchmark selections. Our normal process is to change our power settings to performance, delete the contents of the Prefetch folder, and then reboot after each benchmark run. A lengthy process to be sure but one that results in consistency over the course of benchmark testing. All applications are run with administer privileges.
Our MSI G33M results will be different compared to the last article. We retested the board with the latest 1.10 release that allowed us to change our memory timings from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12. Also, significant improvements were noticed in relationship to overclocking, power management, and general memory throughput.
| MSI G33M / Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R / ASUS P5K-VM Testbed | |
| Processor | Intel Pentium (Core 2 Based) E2160 Dual Core, 1.8GHz, 1MB Unified Cache, 9x Multiplier, 800FSB |
| CPU Voltage | 1.2750V |
| Cooling | Scythe Ninja Mini |
| Power Supply | Seasonic S-12 II 430W |
| Memory | OCZ HPC Reaper PC2-6400 (4x1GB) |
| Memory Settings | 4-4-4-12 (2.0V) |
| Video Cards | On-board GMA3100, Gigabyte HD 2600XT |
| Video Drivers | Intel 15.6, AMD 7.9 |
| Platform Drivers | Intel - 8.3.1.1009 |
| Hard Drive | Seagate DB35.3 7200RPM 750GB SATA 3/Gbps 16MB Buffer |
| Optical Drives | Plextor PX-B900A, Toshiba SD-H802A, Pioneer BDC-S02BK |
| Audio Card | Realtek ALC-888, ASUS Xonar D2 |
| Audio Drivers | Realtek 1.73, ASUS 5.12.01.0008.17.19 |
| Audio Test Equipment | Swans M10 (2.1), Swans D1080 (2.0), Acculine A2 (5.1) Onkyo TX-SR605 A/V Receiver |
| Case | Zalman HD160XT |
| BIOS | MSI 1.10, Gigabyte F5, ASUS 0401 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit |
| . | |
We selected the Intel Pentium E2160 Core 2 derived processor as our main choice for the Intel boards since it represents a great bargain when comparing price against performance in the low end of the market where we will concentrate our review efforts. We also switched to Microsoft Vista Home Premium 32-bit as our operating system of choice for this category. After speaking with several of the larger OEMs, we found out this OS choice is the one most widely offered to consumers. It was a natural then that we would test on Vista Home Premium with a 4GB memory configuration due to rapidly falling memory prices. Even though Vista 32-bit cannot take advantage of the entire 4GB of memory address space, we found the additional 1.2GB (on average) of memory available provided slightly improved performance during multitasking events and gaming with an external video card. We would not recommend anything less than 2GB with Vista Home Premium.
Our hard drive choice is a little out of the norm but since we will be testing the multimedia capabilities of our boards in the HTPC article we felt like the PVR designed drive would be a natural fit. Our OCZ memory choice was determined based upon a combination of price and performance levels that will be required during the overclocking testing with the higher end G33 boards. We did test each board with a wide variety of budget DDR2-800 memory from several suppliers that will be listed in our compatibility charts at the end of this article series. Our boards were set to utilize 256MB of memory for the IGP solution. The ASRock X1250 based board supported up to 512MB of shared memory but we left the setting at 256MB.
We will also present GPU comparison testing using external video cards from AMD and NVIDIA. Our results today will include gaming performance results with the AMD HD 2600XT from Gigabyte. All other components in our test configurations are identical with the boards being set up in their default configurations except for memory settings being optimized to ensure maximum throughput on each board. We will cover image quality analysis, audio, installation, and peripheral components in detail in separate articles.
Our choice of software applications to test is based on programs that enjoy widespread usage and produce repeatable and consistent results during testing. Microsoft Vista has thrown a monkey wrench into testing as the aggressive nature of the operating system to constantly optimize application loading and retrieval from memory or the storage system presented some interesting obstacles. This along with what we still see as a lack of driver maturity will continue to present problems in the near future with benchmark selections. Our normal process is to change our power settings to performance, delete the contents of the Prefetch folder, and then reboot after each benchmark run. A lengthy process to be sure but one that results in consistency over the course of benchmark testing. All applications are run with administer privileges.
Our MSI G33M results will be different compared to the last article. We retested the board with the latest 1.10 release that allowed us to change our memory timings from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12. Also, significant improvements were noticed in relationship to overclocking, power management, and general memory throughput.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
sprockkets - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
Sad how an AMD 7050 board can be had for $80, $40 cheaper with the same features. It is the premium you pay for having dvi.Oddly enough too is that the Gigabyte board you quote doesn't use all solid caps yet the lower end board does. And of course, they didn't bother with solid caps on their new AMD boards period, cause "AMD is second tier."
tayhimself - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
Preposterous!! Why do they even bother making this junk without DVI. More and more I find that I don't want a leet board that overclocks 100 Mhz higher but a stable board with the right features. -sigh-8steve8 - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
and on top of it, these igp's are not suited well for gaming or videos,,, (the two applications where you may not notice the difference between a digital and analog interface), so they will be used for text/office work... an application where the discrepancies in the user-experience of analog vs digital interfaces with an LCD are undeniable.again, great article.,, but in the end, I sort of wonder why waste ur time exploring these boards when your time is better spent on solutions that deserve our money?
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I think both of those G33 + SDVO models launched long after Gary had started work on this uATX stuff. Good to see that some people are including the necessary chip, as uATX without DVI is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, testing some of this stuff takes a lot more time than we would like. We're working to address that, however.jenli - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I would love to see a review of motherboards with igpthat can be converted to raid servers by using the lone
pcie 16x slot.
Have fun,
CK804 - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I'm doing exactly what you mention with an Intel DG965RY. I have an Areca ARC-1210 fitted in there with 3 320GB WD Caviar SE16s in RAID 5.