Twelve Pentium 4 Motherboards With Intel’s 845/Brookdale Chipset
Though hardly any home user would really buy a system based on Intel’s high-tech Pentium 4 processor and the aging SDRAM, Intel chose to use this platform to introduce their flagship CPU to the mass market. The main problem that the chip giant has to fight against is the high price tag of the Pentium 4, plus Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), which is the only memory platform that can boost performance as fast as Athlon XP. In comparison to an Athlon system with Double Data Rate (DDR) memory, the Pentium 4 requires RDRAM (i850 chipset), or at least DDR memory to compete.
Brookdale, or i845, is meant to solve many problems: to regain market shares that were taken away by AMD’s Athlon family; to introduce an affordable platform and make high clock speeds affordable, too; and, finally, to replace Socket 423 with the new socket mPGA478 – which we hope will stick around for at least one year.
Home PC users normally try to make reasonable decisions; often, this means choosing to go with the most “reputable” company. So, for many, it’s not a question of whether an Athlon XP plus DDR memory is the faster, cheaper and, thus, smarter solution, when compared to others. We can take a look at the huge business market that is dominated by an alliance of companies like Intel, Microsoft and Dell, for example. This team works perfectly together and has provided good products with excellent support over the years, so why would any business customer suddenly decide to buy AMD-based systems if he’s never had trouble with his Intel machines? Performance differences are given less importance here, as well; a system with ‘2 GHz and 512 MB RAM’ sells a lot better than a second one with ‘1800+ and 256 MB’ – even though the latter is considerably faster, due to the use of DDR memory.
As you may know, all motherboard manufacturers offer at least one model based on the Brookdale chipset. This effort can be seen as preparatory work for the i845D chipset, which (finally) supports DDR memory.
Pentium 4 + SDRAM: Does This Make Sense?
From either a performance or a price/ performance point of view, most people would rather pick a system based on RDRAM or an Athlon machine with DDR memory. So, now that Intel is coupling Pentium 4 with SDRAM, many of you might be wondering what direction Intel is taking. Well, there are several points that speak to the value of Intel’s Brookdale:
1. Socket mPGA478
The 845 chipset is available with Intel’s new socket mPGA478. It was developed in order to meet the tight specs for even faster clock speeds. The general opinion in the industry is that Socket mPGA478 plus the Brookdale chipset (with DDR support) will enjoy a lasting success similar to that of the 440BX chipset for the Pentium II/III, which had been the premier choice for almost two years. Under this opinion, it follows that any motherboard that is based on Brookdale and Socket 478 will be able to run Pentium 4 CPUs far beyond 2 GHz.
2. SDRAM Is Cheap: Business Computers
The tremendous price drops in the memory sector have made most kinds of memory affordable. Computers with 256 or 512 MB RAM are normal today, but most of them are still based on SDRAM! This is mainly due to the fact that computer manufacturers try to assemble cheap systems, so many prefer a KT133A motherboard plus SDRAM over a KT266A and DDR memory, in the interest of saving a few bucks.
3. SDRAM Is Cheap: Upgrading
There are many people that already have 256 or 512 MB SDRAM and possibly bought additional memory only a short time ago. An argument to buy Brookdale could be the memory issue, but, be aware that this argument speaks even more in favor of Athlon systems, as they provide the better value: a KT133A motherboard plus Athlon 1400 CPU is clearly cheaper than any 845 motherboard and a Pentium 4 1.5 GHz. In addition, the Athlon system is faster, as well.
4. Overclocking!
Many Pentium 4 systems with Rambus DRAM disappoint the hard-core overclockers out there, as they are hardly easy to overclock – the only way to overclock a Pentium 4 CPU is to increase the FSB speed. Simultaneously, the memory clock will also rise. RDRAM already runs at 400 MHz double-pumped and is quite sensitive in terms of overclocking; high-quality SDRAM modules easily run at 20-30% faster clock speed than the speed for which they were specified. That opens the way to 133 MHz FSB with the Pentium 4 (by overclocking) – with Brookdale!
Requirements For The Pentium 4
The only practical issue of real importance for anyone who wants to upgrade to a Pentium 4 machine is the power consumption of this CPU. Depending on the model, the CPU can easily gobble up 60 Watts! This made it neccessary to change power supply standards and to add two new connectors. So, be sure that your power supply is able to cope with a Pentium 4.
FSB Speed: Approximately 100 MHz
A factor which has been neglected for years is the true FSB speed. According to Intel’s white papers, the quad-pumped CPU interface of the i845 wants to be operated at 100.0 MHz. Overclocking is interesting not just for end users, but also for the motherboard companies. This time we are not talking about running systems at 15% more FSB speed, but about a scope as little as 1 MHz. Raising the FSB speed by 0.2, 0.5 or 0.8 MHz certainly won’t affect stability. But today there are only very small differences in performance among motherboards using the same chipset. With this small an increase in FSB speed, a company could dramatically enhance their chances to win motherboard roundups through the resulting performance increase.
There are several ways for us to deal with this effect. One the one hand, this measure could be considered normal. For example, in the automobile industry it’s standard practice for companies to pick the best engine model to ensure that it will reach at least the performance for which it was specified, before the car magazines test it. On the other hand, we wouldn’t want this habit to get out of hand, since this cannot possibly be the way manfacturers should be working.
Of course, we could pick a maximum FSB speed that we can tolerate, but then again, everyone would simply realign themselves to this speed until one manufacturer breaks it. What should we do with a motherboard that is generally good but only reaches superior performance when its FSB speed is 1.5% faster?
For the time being, our decision is to include all motherboards in our reviews, regardless of what the true FSB speed is. The exact FSB speed of each motherboard will be measured and taken into account for the final considerations. What we would like to accomplish is to convice the manufacturers to do away with overclocking. Ultimately, they are cheating the customer! A model that wins all benchmarks by running slightly overclocked is not our first choice.
In this review, most companies stick exactly to the specified 100 MHz. Epox and Chaintech run their boards slightly overclocked, while the Fujitsu-Siemems runs at less than 100 MHz. Fortunately, the clock modification affects the test results. It seems as if there were other chipset parameters with similar weight to overclocking which have not been optimized by all companies. So, there are no reasons for complaints this time.
ABit BL7-RAID
Board Revision: 1.0
BIOS Version : July 16, 2001
The BL7 comes with an extraordinary list of features: AGP 4x; six PCI slots; CNR slot; AC97 on-board audio; three DIMM sockets; HighPoint HPT370 IDE RAID controller; on-board LED debug system; three USB ports at the back panel; on-board PC speaker; and optional LAN. In addition, it features ABit’s Soft Menu III, which moves all CPU and clock speed options into the BIOS, thus making overclocking as easy as possible.
There are three line-ins for the sound system and a total of three fan headers. Next to the connectors for the LEDs, reset and power switches are two little buttons: one for power-on; the other for reset. They can be used to start or restart the system without finding the required connector pins. This is a useful add-on that does not raise the motherboard’s price.
A look at the design reveals good work from ABit. All IDE connectors are placed as high as possible (not interfering with long PCI cards), which ensures that the maximum IDE cable length of 40 cm will be enough, even in huge tower cases. The AGP connector with card lock system prevents the graphics card from falling out of the slot during shipping.
ABit includes a comprehensive manual, a driver and utility CD, a driver disk for the RAID controller, a game port adapter cable (the game port is not included in the backpanel), a suitable ATX cover, two 80-pin IDEs and one floppy cable. It performed as expected, there were neither positive nor negative surprises.
AOpen AX4BS Pro
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: R1.02 (Oct 8, 2001)
AX4BS Pro is the name of AOpen’s i845 motherboard. As do all Pro versions, it comes with black PCB and a cool aluminum heatsink for the MCH. The basic components can be enumerated quickly (5 PCI, CNR, AGP 4x, UltraATA/100, AC97 sound, 3 DIMMs), but there are also several nice features that have been introduced by AOpen some time ago. The first is the Die Hard BIOS, which is basically a backup BIOS. Unfortunately, our test sample was not equipped with the backup chip. The second feature is called Dr. Voice; while the system boots, Dr. Voice tracks all activity and uses the PC speaker to inform you, via voice announcements, why your system does not boot. The language can be set, using two jumpers, to English, Chinese, Japanese or German. This feature may sound funny, but it is definitely the fastest way to locate hardware errors (e.g. “”). There is another debug feature called Dr. LED which provides enhanced LED for system monitoring. You will need the Dr. LED module (for 5.25″ bay) from AOpen to make use of it.
The BIOS allows the FSB to be set to one of 31 different clock speeds between 100 and 200 MHz. You can also choose a multiplier between 8 and 24. Last but not least, the CPU core voltage can be altered between 1.1 and 1.85 V.
Asus P4B
Board Revision: 1.01
BIOS Version: 1005 (Oct 17, 2001)
This board has an unpleasant characteristic: you cannot install Windows 2000 on another motherboard and then simply attach the system hard drive to the P4B – it won’t work. The only way to get a working version of Windows 2000 is to install from scratch.
But besides that, this motherboard is a typical Asus model – it is fast and stable. There are six PCI slots, one CNR, AGP 4x with card lock, and three DIMM sockets. There’s also the option to configure the CPU either in the BIOS or using DIP switches; the latter may be the better solution for OEMs who assemble systems and would like to prevent inexperienced users from changing the BIOS parameters.
An on-board AC97 sound system with three line-ins and one SP-DIF digital out makes the board multimedia-ready. All flat cable connectors have been accomodated at the top of the board, and, thus, are kept out of the way of full-sized PCI cards.
Epox EP-4B2A
Board Revision: 1.2
BIOS Version: B06 (November 6, 2001)
Epox sent in their 4B2A, a full-sized ATX motherboard with Socket mPGA478. We received this motherboard with an early BIOS dated August, which operated the Front Side Bus at 101 MHz instead of 100.0 MHz. The latest version runs with 100.49 MHz now, which results in a CPU clock speed of 2009.7 MHz. Generally, we prefer not to have companies reach higher benchmark results through higher clock speeds. Please consider this when studying the benchmark results.
The latest BIOS version includes a special option for the memory timing set-up. Usually, you can either set all memory parameters manually or have this done by the BIOS, by reading data of the SPD. Here, the CAS Latency is to be set independently (2, 3 or AUTO). This is particularly important if you have CL2 SDRAM, but don’t know any of the other parameters.
In PnP/PCI Configurations, you can freely assign interrupts to all important devices, such as the AGP slot, the AC97 module and all six PCI slots. In particular, the specific assignment to the AGP has not been possible, so far. Though this should not be too important, you could still run into resource conflicts when using many add-on cards.
Besides that, this motherboard comes with lots of interesting options for overclockers: manual multiplier selection; FSB selection between 90 and 200 MHz in 1 MHz increments. Different from other BIOSes, you will also see the resulting CPU and SDRAM clock, which is very useful in helping to avoid overclocking mistakes by crazy settings. You can equate the memory clock with the FSB speed or run it at 4/3 of it – also important if you’d like to increase the FSB speed considerably.
A look at the motherboard reveals nothing exciting: six PCI slots; one CNR; the AGP 4x; three DIMM sockets; UltraATA/100 controller; a total of three fan headers; and AC97 sound system.
Chaintech 9BJA
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: Oct 10, 2001
Chaintech equipped this board with three DIMM sockets, five PCI slots, a CNR slot and a PCI sound chip from C-Media with support for six-channel sound. The only additional gimmick is the on-board PC speaker; besides that, it can be considered a standard Pentium 4 motherboard, likely to be sold via OEM channels.
A reason for this may be the FSB clock of 102 MHz. That’s clearly too high, but, as you can see in the benchmark section, it performed well, though not much better than its competitors.
Inside the box is a manual, jumper reference, cables and a driver CD.
Fujitsu-Siemens D1327
Board Revision:
BIOS Version: 1.02.1327
It’s quite difficult to find out what key to press in order to enter the BIOS. The D1327 uses a PhoenixBIOS just like Asus, but the post message is only displayed for about one second. Press F2 if you want to enter the BIOS setup.
Fujitsu-Siemens’ D1327 can be called one of the best manufacturers, in terms of quality. Still, they usually take the conservative route. As with many of its predecessors, the D1327 is the slowest motherboard in this review. That’s not so tragic, as it is usually sold via OEM channels rather than directly to end users. Thus, it also comes with on-board 100 MBit LAN, AC97 sound with two line-ins and AGP card lock. At first glance, the design does not seem to be very smart, as one IDE connector is placed in front of the AGP and two of the six PCI slots. However, this motherboard gets by with the smallest number of components and jumpers; the board surface is cleaner than any other i845 motherboard. One very nice feature is Fujitsu-Siemens’ advanced thermal management with automatic clock speed reduction and system monitoring.
Of course we measured the FSB speed, as we did with every motherboard. Surprisingly, the FSC does not allow the FSB to be determined exactly; WCPUID detected several values between 98.9 and 99.79 MHz. This may also be one of the reasons for the apparently below-average performance of this motherboard. The other reason could be the automatic acoustic management for ATA/100 IDE drives: if your hard drive supports it, the BIOS will automatically switch to silent mode, which is, of course, the slowest possible setting.
Fujitsu-Siemens includes a driver CD, an 80-pin IDE cable and a short manual (maybe a bit too short).
Gigabyte GA-8IDXH “P4 Titan”
Board Revision: 1.0
BIOS Version: F6B (Nov 5, 2001)
Gigabyte sent us their 8IDXH for this review. Like all the others, it is based on Intel’s Brookdale chipset plus the ICH2 (82801BA) featuring standard I/O components like UltraATA/100 and USB. This motherboard comes with quite a lot of hardware features that are useful for multimedia desktop computers, including: on-board LAN (Realtek RTL8100L); on-board PCI sound chip from Creative (CT5880) with two internal line-in connectors; Gigabyte’s DualBIOS; CNR slot; six PCI slots; AGP 4x; 2+2 USB ports (two are meant for use on the front of the computer case, as practiced by Dell, for example).
Gigabyte placed three DIMM sockets on the P4 Titan. Each of them can hold up to 512 MB SDRAM, which results in a maximum memory size of 1.5 GB. Two fan headers plus a third one for the CPU fan are available in order to cool down the system.
A quick look at the motherboard design reveals excellent work from Gigabyte: at least five PCI slots can be equipped with full-sized expansion cards. Both power connectors are placed at the very top of the board, making them easily accessible, even if you’ve got a power supply with short cables.
The performance of this motherboard was within the expected range.
MSI MS-6528 / 845 Pro 2
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: 1.2
The MXI 845 Pro 2 comes with a full range of features: six PCI slots; AGP 4x with card lock; CNR slot; three DIMM sockets; C-Media PCI sound chip with two line-ins; Promise 20265R IDE RAID controller chip; and a security system called SmartKey.
This is a little Flash memory, about the size of a key. It will store a unique ID number that is randomly generated. There are two security barriers: the first one is the BIOS itself, which boots the system only if the SmartKey is inserted into a USB connector; secondly, MSI bundles special Windows software that makes it possible to render the system in a safe state (while working) as soon as you remove the SmartKey. Anyone who wants additional security for their system should take a closer look at MSI’s solution.
As with other MSI motherboards, this one comes with D-LED. This is an on-board debugging system, based on four LEDs. The LEDs will light up, depending on the current system state. For example, if your system hangs with only the 2nd LED lit up, there must be something wrong with the memory.
The 845 Pro 2 ran properly and quickly, so there is nothing left to criticize. The only thing that I missed is on-board LAN.
QDI Platinix2
Board Revision: 1.0
BIOS Version: 2.1 (Dec 10, 2001)
The PlatiniX 2 has six PCI slots, one CNR, one AGP 4x, AC97 sound with two line-ins and on-board LAN. A maximum of 3 GB RAM can be installed using all three DIMM sockets. Three fan headers are available to keep the system cool.
QDI allows the CPU to be configured directly in the BIOS, via the SpeedEasy setup menu.
This board attracts neither extraordinarily positive nor negative comments. Everything went well, performance was at an average level.
Soltek SL-85SD+
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: 1.1 (Oct 23, 2001)
You can identify this motherboard by its nice red PCB color. It carries six PCI slots, one CNR slot, AGP 4x plus card lock, Promise IDE RAID controller, Creative PCI sound chip, three DIMM sockets and three fan headers.
The Soltek board belongs to the fastest of this test, though the differences are very slight.
The box contains a rather comprehensive manual, plus an additional manual about the bundled software (PC Cillin 2000, Virtual Drive, Partition Magic 6.0 and Drive Image 4.0). In particular, Drive Image and Partition Magic are very useful utilities that make it easy to change partitions and partition sizes (Partition Magic), or to back-up complete drives or partitions (Drive Image). Also, there are two 80-pin IDE cables and a floppy cable, as well as a driver disk for the on-board RAID controller.
Soyo P4ISR
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: 2AA2 (Sept 26, 2001)
On this motherboard, you can find six PCI slots, CNR, AGP 4x, UltraATA/100, AC97 sound, a Promise on-board IDE RAID controller and three DIMM sockets. The IDE connectors for the RAID controller will hinder the installation of full-sized PCI cards, while all other connectors have been placed appropriately.
Soyo is the only company that ships a motherboard with on-board RAID and a full set of cables. There are three 80-pin IDE cables and a floppy cable. Two CDs are included, one with the drivers and utilities, and another one called the 8-in-1 Bonus Pack. This contains Norton Anti Virus 2001, Ghost, Adobe Active Share, AutoSave, WinDVD, eWalla, Imagemore and Acrobat Reader.
Soyo includes their security system, MightyBolt, in the package. It consists of a module that has to be installed into a free 3.5″ or 5.25″ drive bay. At the front are two USB ports plus the slot for the MightyBold chip card. The chip card is required in order to access the system (much like MSI’s SmartKey).
Transcend TS-ABD4
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: ?
Transcend does not allow for much adjustment of the SDRAM timings in the BIOS, making it less suitable for end users. However, this could be ideal for OEMs that want to avoid problems caused by incorrect memory setup.
The hardware configuration consists of the following: an AGP 4x Pro slot; CNR slot; five PCI slots; three DIMM sockets; and an AC97 sound system. The TS-ABD4 is also available with on-board IDE RAID controller (Promise). Unfortunately, the IDE connectors for the optional RAID chip are at the bottom of the motherboard, which can easily cause problems in big computer cases, due to the limited IDE cable length.
There were no problems with stability during the tests; the TS-ABD4 performed well and ran reliably.
Zida A845SD
Board Revision: ?
BIOS Version: 1.2
It’s been quite some time since Zida sent us one of their so-called “Tomato Boards.” The A845SD has six PCI slots, CNR slot, AGP 4x, AC97 sound system, on-board LAN and three DIMM sockets. The sound system has three line-ins, which should be enough.
There is not much to complain about with this motherboard. It is simple and attractively priced. The only thing is that the floppy connector has been placed at the bottom of the motherboard, so the cable ends up cutting across all PCI slots and the AGP.
Performance was good and there were no stability issues.
Test Setup
| Hardware | |
| Processor | Intel Pentium 4, 2 GHz |
| Memory | 128 PC133 SDRAM, CL2, Micron |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital WD1000BB; 7.200 U/Min, 8 MB Cache |
| Graphics Card | GeForce 3 Memory: 64 MB DDR-SDRAM Memory Clock: 400 MHz Chip Clock: 250 MHz |
| Network | 3COM 3C905B-TX |
| Drivers & Software | |
| IDE/AGP Driver | Intel Application Accelerator 1.1 |
| Graphics Driver | Detonator 4 Serie V21.88 |
| DirectX Version | 8.1 (english) |
| OS | Windows 2000 (Service Pack 2) |
| Benchmarks and Settings | |
| Quake III Arena | Retail Version command line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0 Graphics detail set to ‘Normal’, 640 x 480 x 16 Benchmark using ‘Q3DEMO1’ |
| SPECViewPerf | Version 6.1.2 1280 x 1024 x 16 x 85 |
| MPEG-4 Encoding | Flask Mpeg 0.6 DivX Codec 4.02.01b Compression: 100 Data Rate: 1500 Kbit 720 x 480 Pixel, 25 fps no Audio |
| Sysmark 2000 | Patch 5 |
| Lame | Lame 3.89 MMX, SSE, SSE 2 |
| WinACE | V2.04, 178 MB Wave-Datei, Best Compression, Dictonary 4096 KB |
| Suse Linux 7.3 | Kernel 2.4.13 Compiling |
| Unreal Tournament | Version 4.36Timedemo 1Demoplay utbench |
OpenGL: Quake III Arena
Direct 3D: Unreal Tournament UT Bench
Business: SYSmark 2000
Archiving: WinACE 2.04
MP3 Audio Encoding: Lame
Professional OpenGL: SPECviewperf 6.1.2
Professional OpenGL: SPECviewperf 6.1.2, Continued
Conclusion
The question of whether or not to buy an i845 motherboard for SDRAM shouldn’t be an issue for most users. Brookdale is a chipset best suited to the OEM market, and for making Pentium 4 systems suitable for low-cost PCs. This forms the basis for our conclusion.
Two motherboards attracted our attention with their innovative security features: the MSI 845 Pro 2 and Soyo’s P4ISR. Both products use an external piece of hardware (MSI: USB Flash module; Soyo: Chip card) to act as a type of lock, protecting the system against unauthorized use. Both solutions work fine and are useful. The SmartKey easily fits into your pocket, while Soyo’s MightyBold card can be accomodated between your credit cards.
There are only very small performance differences between the motherboards we tested, and considering the tremendous gap to i850 and RDRAM (we added the test results of such a system for your reference), you might have no preference. All motherboards basically ran stably and stuck to the specified 100 MHz. My personal favorites were ABit’s BL7, AOpen AX4BS Pro and Gigabyte’s 8IDXH, as they all come with a wide range of features. ABit offers Soft Menu III plus hardware debug system, AOpen has a similarly good BIOS and the best user’s manual/ installation instructions in the bunch, and Gigabyte even uses a PCI sound chip rather than AC97 sound.
None of the boards in this test gave cause for worry, so we can basically assert good work from all companies. We can assume that motherboards with i845 and DDR support run as smoothly as the SDRAM versions, but we have to also assume that price conscious buyers are still going to opt for SDRAM over DDR, irrespective of performance. Again, this is of great importance to the OEM, and corporate market where the extra performance may not warrant the extra price. Performance isn’t as much of an issue, obviously, when considering i845 products with SDRAM, as we have stated previously.
