The ASUS P4T533 i850E Motherboard Review
i850E Armed with 32-bit RIMM 4200

By -Chris Angelini and Dave Altavilla
June 17th, 2002


HotHardware Test Systems
A New Processor for a New Front Side Bus

 

ASUS P4T533 i850E Motherboard

512MB RIMM 4200 RDRAM


ASUS P4T-E i850 Motherboard

512MB PC800 (PC1066) RDRAM

 

MSI 845G Max i845G Motherboard

512MB Corsair PC2700 DDR SDRAM

 

MSI 645 Ultra SiS 645 Motherboard

512MB Corsair PC2700 DDR SDRAM

 

Common Hardware:

Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 (Drivers - v.28.32)

IBM 30GB ATA-100 7200RPM Hard Drive

Sound Blaster Live! Value

A Few Words About The Benchmarks:
In setting up our test machines, we install Windows XP on a formatted, FAT32 hard drive.  After installing the relevant drivers (yes, this includes the latest IDE and AGP drivers for the SiS board) we disable system restore, all of the graphical enhancements in Windows XP, and the Automatic Update feature.  The desktop on each test bed is set to 1024x768, 16-bit color and a 75Hz refresh rate. 
 
Benchmarking with Sisoft Sandra 2002
Bandwidth Makes the Difference

Although the RIMM 4200 module only occupies one memory slot, it serves the same purpose as two 16-bit PC1066 modules.  Needless to say, the P4T533 equipped with 512MB of RIMM 4200 scored within one percent of the ASUS P4T-E overclocked to 533MHz with PC1066.  Running at its default frequency of 400MHz, the P4T-E was able to transfer 2.5GB per second using PC800 memory.  Our SiS 645 system fared just as well, sustaining 2.5GB per second with PC2700 DDR memory.  Intels recently released i845G placed last, transferring less than 2GB per second.

As indicated by the chart, disk performance increases substantially in an IDE RAID environment.  However, Sandra thoroughly saturates the I/O subsystem, which is not really indicative of normal usage.  If you can afford the luxury of IDE RAID, you can expect faster load times for applications, that can similarly send these types of loads through the IDE bus.
 

Benchmarks and Comparisons
The CPU Tests

SysMark 2002

Now that weve established the bandwidth gains provided by PC1066 (more specifically, RIMM 4200), we can test the actual performance gains using SysMark 2002.  Despite comparable bandwidth capabilities, the P4T533 is able to outperform the PC1066 platform by more than two percent.  The 400MHz, PC800 machine takes third place with 249 points six percent behind the RIMM 4200 platform we are evaluating.  Even though the SiS 645 runs very stably at 533MHz and supports PC2700 DDR memory, horrendous disk performance seemingly puts the board in last place, behind Intels i845G.

Comanche 4

At high resolutions, Comanche 4 makes a great video card benchmark thanks to DirectX 8 support.  Simulators also make good processor benchmarks though, and at 640x480, Comanche serves our purpose well.  The P4T533 and overclocked P4T-E perform on par with each other again, while the P4T-E takes third place in its default form.  The i845G takes fourth and the SiS 645 brings up the rear.

PC Mark 2002, 3D Mark 2001 SE and Quake III