Introduction
Since we have already provided all the technical details behind the new i810 chipset architecture, let’s look at the performance results this new i810 chipset has to offer. Because this new chipset includes it’s own unique integrated video solution, providing some comparative results was quite interesting. I decided to use several platforms & video solutions to help map out where the performance of this new i810 product stands.
SiS 620 Overview
Because the SiS620 and the i810 are targeted towards the same low-end market, it only makes sense to compare the features and performance each has to offer. We mentioned the SiS620 chipset in our i810 Overview – Part I. The SiS620 chipset was the first available integrated chipset for Pentium II CPU’s (e.g. Pentium II/III, Celeron). SiS released the 620 integrated solution last year in August of 1998. SiS basically integrated their SiS6326AGP chip into the SiS620 chipset. The companion chip to the SiS620 is the SiS5595 PCI system controller. The SiS5595 incorporates the PCI to ISA bridge, DDMA support, SIRQ, ACPI/Legacy PMU, environmental controller, and USB. Some of the noteworthy features the SiS620 chipset includes are:
- Supports 66/75/83/100 MHz (synchronous/asynchronous) host/SDRAM bus frequencies
- MS PC’99 and PCI 2.2 compliant.
- PC 100 DRAM controller, supports 3 DIMMs and up to 1.5GB main memory.
- Ultra DMA-66 IDE controller with dual independent channels
- Supports non-UMA and UMA modes for frame buffer
All of these features are also supported by the Intel 810 chipset excluding the non-UMA support. The SiS620 allows the flexibility to support external frame buffer memory up to 8MB (SDRAM or SGRAM). By adding the external frame buffer memory the video performance would go up, along with the overall motherboard price, due to the additional cost of the video memory. Looking at the SiS620’s feature list you can see that it doesn’t support the infamous AC’97 nor the wonderful, currently not supported by any available software, RNG (Random Number Generator).
In order to paint a good picture of where the performance of the i810 sits we decided to use several configurations. Besides just beating up on the video portions of both the i810 and SiS620 chipsets we decided to also configure each of these platforms with a TNT based PCI video board. This allows us to do an apples-to-apples comparison, between the i810, SiS620 and i440ZX chipsets, keeping the performance of the integrated video out of the picture. And to be fair to TNT we also configured the i440ZX based board with an AGP based TNT to see how the i810 and SiS620 integrated video fairs against a good performing AGP video adapter. Although you will not find any 440BX results in any of the graphs I actually did include Intel’s 44BX in my testing. The 440BX based platform scored identically to the 440ZX based platform.
i810 Chipset
- Motherboard = DFI PW65-81 Rev.2
- BIOS revision = 4/23/99-i810-AD-6A69MD4AC-00
- Onboard Video driver date = 3-19-1999
SiS629 Chipset
- Motherboard = ASUS MES-VM
- BIOS revision = 3-03-1999-SiS620-MES-VM
- Onboard Video driver date = 2-26-1999
I440FX Chipset
- Motherboard = SOYO SY-6IZA
- BIOS revision = 01/12/1999-i440ZX-W977-2A69K52KC-00
Common hardware
- Celeron 400 MHz
- 128MB PC100 SDRAM
- Hard drive = Western Digital AC418000 (7,200 RPM) ATA-66
Add-in Video boards
- Diamond Multimedia Viper V550 AGP
BIOS revision = 1.93E
Driver = Detenator - Diamond Multimedia Viper V550 PCI
BIOS revision = 1.93E
Driver = Detenator
Benchmark Applications
- Winstone 99 (Business) v1.0 ran with a resolution of 1024x768x16bpp
all benchmarks were run with 85Hz refresh
all benchmark results are averaged across 3 runs - Quake II v3.20
- Shogo v22.14
Operating System
- all benchmarks were run under Windows 98
- DirectX v6.1
Office Application Performance under Windows 98
To demonstrate real world 2D and system performance we chose Winstone 99’s Business Suite benchmark. Since all of these products are targeted for the low-end of the market we decided to stick with Windows 98 for our Winstone 99 testing.
Looking at the Winstone 99 Business results you can see that the DFI i810 based board does quite well with its integrated video. The difference in performance between the i810’s integrated video versus the same DFI board with a V550 PCI installed is minimal. The ASUS SiS620 board however suffers miserably in Winstone with its integrated video scoring merely 16.5 Winstones. It is apparent the integrated video on the SiS620 steals performance from the ASUS platform. I went ahead and stuck a V550 PCI board in the same platform and the Winstone score jumped up to 19.0! If you think that 2.5 points aren’t a big deal in Winstone you are wrong! To receive 2 additional Winstone points with the ASUS SiS620 and its integrated video would require the CPU to be changed from the tested 400MHz Celeron to a 466MHz Celeron.
OpenGL Performance under Quake II – DEMO1.DM2
To help paint a decent picture of the i810’s OpenGL gaming performance I included some results using Quake II v3.20 using DEMO1.DM2, the famous CRUSHER.DM2 demo created by Brett “Three Fingers” Jacobs, and to provide an example of AGP performance S3’s MON2.DM2 high texture demo.
Right off the bat you will notice that there are no SiS620 results plotted on the graph using the SiS620 integrated video. Why? Because the SiS620 chipset doesn’t provide OpenGL drivers for Quake II. Because the SiS620 chipset was aimed at the low-end/low-cost market OpenGL gaming must not have been of great importance. However, I did include the ASUS SiS620 based platform configured with a V550 PCI board. The SiS620 based board configured with the V550 PCI was barely able to outperform the i810. The i810 performance looks pretty good for the average gamer. Single player Quake II is acceptable up to the resolution of 800×600. Definitely the best OpenGL performance I’ve ever seen in an integrated chipset. The visual quality of the i810 is also quite good, very similar to its older sibling the i740. The i810 integrated video couldn’t match up to the TNT1. The i810 based DFI board with the V550 PCI board was able to outperform the i810’s integrated video by 12FPS (frames per second). Another very interesting set of data points on this graph is the SOYO (i440ZX) and the DFI (i810), both configured with the V550 PCI. I find it very interesting that the DFI (i810) is able to outperform the SOYO (i440ZX) by at least 3FPS in each resolution. The DFI (i810) with the V550 PCI was almost able to achieve the high scores that SOYO was able to get with the V550 AGP configuration.
OpenGL Performance under Quake II – CRUSHER.DM2
The results given by running the crusher demo gives an excellent idea of what performance to expect from online/multi-player game. A multi-player game of Quake II requires more video horsepower than a simple single-player game of Quake II. Let’s see how the performance of the i810 platform fairs.
By looking at the results it is quite apparent that the DFI i810 with integrated video is limited to 640×480 resolution when playing multi-player Quake II. However, it is pretty impressive that the DFI i810 can almost keep up with the SOYO i440ZX based platform at this resolution. Even though most serious gamers play Quake II at resolutions above 800×600. The average gamer should be completely content with multi-player gameplay at 640×480.
AGP-Performance Test using S3’s Quake II MON2.DM2 Demo
The S3 Quake II mon2 demo does a great job exercising AGP memory transfers. This demo, created by S3, uses a whopping 9MB of textures. Again, the DFI i810 based platform does provide a respectable score up to 800×600. But still doesn’t provide any threat to a V550 based platform, unless of course the V550 PCI board is installed into a SiS620 platform.
Direct X Performance using Shogo and the THG2214 demo
Since the introduction of Direct X a couple of years ago, it has quickly become widely used by game developers. Monolith’s game title Shogo is a great game title that utilized Direct X functions. Shogo has been going through several revisions in the past months. Unfortunately, demos created with previous versions of Shogo are not necessarily compatible with newer versions. Tom Pabst created yet another great demo that provides a realistic measure of performance using Shogo v2.214.
The i810 based platform provides a respectable score at 640×480. But doesn’t quite cut the mustard at the higher resolutions. The serious game player would frown at the i810’s scores. But the average gameplayer should be quite content with the performance at 640×480 resolution. I guess Monolith’s game Shogo should be called NoGO for the SiS620 based platform! Even though the SiS620 provides support for Direct X it’s gaming ability get a Great Big Zero! The SiS620 is best left running productivity software.
Summary
I must say that Intel did a fine job with their newest chipset member, the i810. Although the performance offered by this solution isn’t mind blowing it is very respectable for an integrated low-cost solution. Most Celeron based systems shipped by Tier 1 companies to date are configured with video solutions that provide less than spectacular 3D gaming. With the introduction of i810 based systems these same companies can provide a platform that provides reasonable performance for the occasional/average 3D gamer. However, with the release of upcoming more demanding 3D game titles, the i810 chipset solution could soon fall short in performance for the next generation of 3D gaming.