FIRST LOOK: ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP Socket 939 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on July 13, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
tRAS and Memory Stress Testing
Memory tRAS Recommendations
In past reviews, memory bandwidth tests established that a tRAS setting of 11 or 12 was generally best for nForce2, a tRAS of 10 was optimal for the nForce3 chipset, and a tRAS of 7 was the best choice for the nForce4 chipset. Since this is our first review of a ULi chipset, tRAS timings were first tested with memtest86, a free diagnostic program with its own boot OS that will boot from either a floppy disk or optical disk. Bandwidth of OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, based on Samsung TCCD chips, was measured from tRas 5 to tRAS 13 to determine the best tRAS setting for the ULi chipset.| Memtest86 Bandwidth ULi M1695 with Athlon 64 4000+ |
|
| 5 tRAS | 1874 |
| 6 tRAS | 1913 |
| 7 tRAS | 1953 |
| 8 tRAS | 1953 |
| 9 tRAS | 1994 |
| 10 tRAS | 1994 |
| 11 tRAS | 1994 |
| 12 tRAS | 1874 |
| 13 tRAS | 1974 |
The best bandwidth was achieved with this combination of ULi M1695/4000+/TCCD in the 9 to 11 range, so a mid-value tRAS of 10 was chosen for all tests. It appears that optimal tRAS timings may also be memory dependent, so we recommend a quick series of memtest86 to establish the optimum tRAS timings for other memories on the ULi chipset.
Memory Stress Test
Our memory stress test measures the ability of the ULi to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the lowest memory timings that OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 modules will support. All DIMMs used for stress testing were 512MB double-sided (or double-bank) memory. To make sure that memory performed properly in Dual-Channel mode, memory was only tested using either one dual-channel (2 DIMMs) or 2 dual-channels (4 DIMMs).| Stable DDR400 Timings - One Dual-Channel (2/4 DIMMs populated) |
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| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 1T |
Using two DIMMs in Dual-Channel 128-bit mode, the memory performed in all benchmarks at the fastest 2-2-2-10 timings at default voltage, which was the only memory voltage available.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 2T |
Tests with all four DIMM slots populated on the ULi M1695 required a 2T Command Rate with 4 DIMMs in two dual channels. This is the pattern seen on other top-performing Socket 939 boards. However, the ULi had no problem running at a 200 CPU speed setting with 4 double-sided DIMMs. This performance is certainly competitive with the best that we have seen on nForce4 motherboards for Socket 939.
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Jalf - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
Sorry if I missed this, but any word on when we're going to see this chipset in retail?mino - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
I believe there are many typo's. A least this:"...Ventilation was just able..." should be
"...Ventilation was just NOT able..."
and
"... 5°C higher temperature..." should be
"...5°C higher temperature than outdoors in average..."
mino - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#59 Yeah, thats right. I just didn't want someone to fell in mistake by believing val on his 20W figure. I have to explain this a lot of times and it is sometimes hard to undo the damage done.val: actually I live in central Europe and here 1kWh costs ~ EUR 0.15 which IS cheap in Europe. I have made my own measurements and the problem is only 6xx series chips consume some reasonable amounts of energy. If they tested some older 5xx series model teh idle consumption easily reaches 120W with i865G while our AMD systems on SIS755/R9200 consume about 70W in C'nC mode and those are 130nm Newcastle chips !.
Try this: place 30 of those machines in classroom without clima and here is the difference:
Prescotts(Q3/04 530's) are overheating any time you trow something heavier o them. This poorly insulated room is ~30°C in the winter with heating OFF(outdoor -10) !!! Despite they bought LCD's to conserve space, after this summer courses they had to install clima for about 1/4 price of the whole IT instalation bought last year. The room was simply unusable anytime outdoor temperature reached 20C or more. Ventilation was just able to come around the problem since many could not work in the wind.
This happened on another faculty we are sharing building with. In similar room (+/-0.5m, same situation) we have 30 A64 3000+ Newcastle chips w/Radeon 9200 passive cards. The machines are (except heavy multitasking which is rare there) equally powerfull but more responsive _and_ more reliable. The enviroment is also ways better, in the summer there only about 5°C higher temperature in average with moderate ventilation(one window). Clime would certainly help, but we consider investing into another IT room more important at this time. Now I'm happy my arguing last year time brought some fruits
The prescott machines have to date(3/4yr timeframe) about 30% failure rate. Mainly caused by underrated power circuitry on MB's and PSU's. I know, they should have bought better PSU's. But that would only extend the price delta of 10% at the time of purchase (same suplier). I still remember how my friend from IT dep. of that faculty laughed at me then how stupid I am by using so underdog and unreliable config for our project.
To sum it up:
1) Prescott will have to cost $50 less to assure same reliability system at the same price/perf as A64
2) If 1) is fulfilled(i.e. some Dell machines) such a system could a good buy for causual use and definitelly a sngle choice if heavier multitasking is a must.
3) However for larger and especially for dense envirements prescott-based solution colud be a real pain in the ass.
4) 6xx somwhat improve this but after arrival of 90nm A64's just com pensate for AMD's improvement in power consumption thus the absolute delta remains approx. the same, the relative one even worsens.
5) On hugely positive aspect of prescott's existence is undoubtedly the fact that it forced even the cheapest case manufacturers to make some arflow in the case. I believe this could not have been achieved byt any other means that prescott. For that we should all be really thankfull.
huh, jet another novel ;-(
Jep4444 - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
why are you people arguing over power consumption, its irrelevant to the topicval - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
München last year wasted only for people's comfort (more often street train than would be needed) over 270 MW hours.This means 1.000.000 people gaming whole year 3 hours a day. For stupid people comfort.
val - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#54 one mid size advertising panel on building takes about 20000W, you have in USA them on one street more than we have people in some villages.And i hope that you and all your hippie friends are not using plasma TVs or worse CRT TVs and monitors to screw my nature.
val - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#54 i know, but i am trying to tell you, that one useless powerplant only for military researches will cover milions of people possible waste. Who cares power plants, you change nothing.What i am saying is, that if it would be important, people should first STOP USING THEIR CLIMA, change the bulbs to energy efficient ones, do YOUR MATH.
Minos bulbs harm the world much more than mine pc!
And how much takes your clima? Your hot water collector?! use brain please. You cannot tout on intel for poor 100W of average use no more than 2 hours full PC load.
Your car damages nature and costs you more than difference to me having some VIA cpu to save your nature. Get it to your head.
So stop talk like hippie.
SilverTrine - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
So can this board handle 2 ATi cards if one is a crossfire or it just for Nvidia SLI?nserra - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#52200 euro for you, but 200 euro x 10.000 people is 2.000.000€.
I win 800€ month, make the 2.000.000€/800€ how many months of salary is it?
Isn’t just 20W as you say, it's 20W to 100W. You are right that people aren’t playing games the all day, but is the all day idle? , in fact put some complex 3D screen saver and you will see how idle it is.
Also 20W for you but 20W x 10.000 people is 200.000W (best case scenario), but if it's 100W x 10.000 people its 1.000.000Watts!!!
So do you your math, because the world isn’t just you!
val - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#50 while intel usually works from first release when the mobo brand quality is not underestimated.