VIA PT880 Chipset Preview
A Performance Preview of VIA's Dual-Channel P4 Chipset

By: Chris Angelini
December 8, 2003

How We Configured Our Test Systems:

As mentioned on the outset of our preview, our test board had some trouble loading Windows XP on either a Western Digital Raptor or Maxtor 250GB Serial ATA drive.  Support representatives from VIA confirmed that the problem had been encountered before, and we simply moved on to use a 30GB IBM parallel ATA hard drive instead.  The rest of our testing went relatively smoothly.  Understandably, we're looking to evaluate platform performance here.  And so, to minimize the biases that might favor an ABIT board over an AOpen board (clearly, one is going to be more "tuned" than the other), we tested using relatively automatic settings.  For example, the Corsair "Pro" series is tuned to run at 2-3-2 settings.  Thus, we let each motherboard operate according to the SPD modules on the memory.  Further, each board was set to utilize comparable options, like a 256MB AGP aperture.  And because the PT880 board wouldn't function with a Serial ATA drive, we used the same IBM parallel ATA drive across all three platforms.

For each set of tests, the drive was reformatted for a fresh installation of Windows XP with Service Pack 1, DirectX 9.0b, and all of the latest drivers.  Accessory features, such as System Restore and automatic update, were disabled for consistency.  We also disable the screen saver, all power saving features, and the aesthetic options available under the "Advanced" tab in the "System Properties" applet.

HotHardware Test Setup
VIA goes head-to-head with Intel
Platforms Tested:
VIA PT880 Reference Board (VIA PT880/VT8237)
AOpen AX4C Max (Intel 875P/ICH5-R)
ABIT AI7 (Intel 865PE/ICH5-R)

Common Hardware:
Intel Pentium 4 Processor 3.2GHz / 800MHz FSB
1GB of Corsair TwinX1024-3200LLPRO
Sapphire RADEON 9800 XT 256MB
IBM 30GB 7200RPM P-ATA HDD
Software & Drivers:
Windows XP with Service Pack 1
DirectX 9.0b
ATI CATALYST Driver 3.9
VIA 4-in-1 Driver 4.49

Benchmark Software:
PC Magazine Content Creation 2003
PC Magazine Business Winstone 2002
SPECviewperf 7.1
MadOnion.com PC Mark 2002
SiSoft Sandra 2004
Futuremark 3D Mark03 v.330
AquaMark 3 Standard Measurement
id Software Quake III (1.32) 'four' Demo
SiSoft Sandra 2004
Synthetic Benchmarking

The first test is comprised of the Dhrystone and Whetstone benchmarks.  They are both multi-threaded 32-bit tests and the Dhrystone test contains a sample of numerical operations employed by various applications, while the Whetstone test contains the sort of operations you'd expect to find in scientific and engineering programs.  While not significantly slower, VIA's PT880 does turn in the lowest numbers in both metrics.  The difference is slight, though, varying by less than three percent, which is in the benchmark's margin of error.

The second test generates an 860x750 picture of the Mandelbrot fractal using 255 iterations for each data pixel in 32 colors.  Like the previous test, it's multi-threaded for up to 64 processors and because we're using a Pentium 4, both the integer and floating-point benchmarks run in SSE2 mode, measuring performance in iterations per second.  This time, the results are even closer together than before, indicating that, at least for multimedia performance, platform selection is far less important than your processor of choice.

Finally, the SiSoft Sandra 2004 Memory Bandwidth benchmark attempts to quantify the amount of sustainable throughput from a system's main memory.  It's like the old STREAM benchmark, in a way, but it employs dynamic data rather than static.  When we first started talking to VIA about PT880, representatives were most excited about the platform's memory bandwidth numbers.  After a quick look over our results, it's easy to see why.  Not only is the PT880 able to edge out Intel's 865PE, but it also tops the 875P, purportedly tweaked out in its own regard with Performance Acceleration Technology.  Do those higher bandwidth numbers translate into better real-world performance, though?

Winstones and PC Mark 2002