Intel 810 Chipset Review

** All benchmakrs, results and opinions are based on the world's first i810 motherboard, the DFI-PW65D, which I had for testing. But generally, most i810 boards should have many similarities between them, hence this article should be valid for all i810 motherboards**

Introduction

Ever wondered how basic home and office PC's are getting so cheap (apart from falling component costs)? The keyword here is integration. As technology improves, it gets easier and more feasible to compact more features into a silicon and eliminating many smaller components that are sprawled everywhere on the motherboard or expansion card (if it's a video/sound card) and reducing the area of the PCB needed among other benefits. Just take a peek into a PC of 15 years back; Such a PC needed a separate I/O card, numerous small soldered/socketed cache chips for a tiny (in today's context ) amount of L2 cache, HDD's were as huge and thick as a dictionary (and weighed as much as slim printer), video and sound cards were very long, clumsy and needed many supporting ICs to do rudimentary functions and much more! Shift to the present day and the same items are as follows: The I/O card is gone and it's functions have been integrated on to the motherboard, motherboards basically have only 2 main silicon chips controlling everything on the board and L2 cache has now been integrated within the CPU (Celeron and K6-3), HDD's pack enormous amounts of data (so much that 15 years back, if you told a person you owned a 25GB HDD, he would think you were the richest person in the country!) in only a 3.5-inch form factor, video cards look so small and simple that it basically consists of the chipset, ram and the connectors! Some motherboards just integrate both sound and video on to the spare-space onboard.

Talking about Integration, SIS was the first chipset vendor to combine video and later on, video + audio in it's motherboard chipsets. It was very suitable for simple office and home users, who mainly run typical office applications, play 2D games and listen to audio CDs. Try running database related applications and 3D games and you'll be disgusted with its sloppy performance. The same goes for it's sound quality, which is just adequate for office usage. Recently VIA decided to dabble in built-in video solutions and struck a deal with Trident (a long forgotten video chip giant) to use Trident Blade's core into it's new MVP4 chipset (basically an MVP3 core) with UDMA-66 support. But up till now, all of the integrated video solutions on the motherboard chipsets are not even the least enticing, even the MVP4. Not only the video core isn't powerful enough but also the fact that it uses UMA to utilize part of the system RAM for graphics memory and the bandwidth serving all this is very lacking for 3D applications/games. Most of the other motherboards in the market have an AGP bus to relieve the system a little and provide a dedicated graphics bus, but the rest of the system still uses the PCI bus as the central backbone, which is getting slow and outdated.

With the release of Intel Celeron processors, Intel finally got the point that there is a big enough market to make cheap CPUs and Intel kept on working something for this market, e.g. the Intel 440 EX and ZX chipset. Intel launched the i810 chipset and the Celeron-466 on the 26th of April and is marketing the i810 chipset specifically with Celeron-based systems in mind. The best part is that it uses a new architecture that is far more efficient than the previous generations and it might just set the tone for the future.

The i810 Architecture

Traditionally everything on the system communicates with the CPU and memory via the slow and perhaps saturated central PCI bus, but with the introduction of the i810 chipset, a new architecture is born and is called the Accelerated Bus Architecture (AHA). AHA allows direct communication of the CPU, memory, graphics (built-in to the chipset) and other peripherals. It replaces the PCI as the central bus and the typical North and Southbridge chipsets with a three-hub architecture. The three hubs (which are distinct chips) are the Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH), the I/O Controller Hub (ICH) and the Firmware Hub (FWH). The below diagram will help to explain how the new AHA works and how each hub helps:

Between the ICH and GMCH, there is an exclusive bus with a bandwidth of 266MB/s (double that of the PCI bus ) to make sure that there is no slowdown for any of the connected peripherals like HDDs, AC97 codec, PCI cards and others, to communicate with the processor or system memory. Another point to note is that the i810 chipset can only support a single CPU unlike the popular Intel 440 BX chipset that can support dual CPUs. It's not much of a matter because the i810 chipset is for the value market or system integrators.

The GMCH

The GMCH as the name suggests contains the graphics and memory controllers and the following its break down of components:

• System Bus Interface
• System Memory Interface
• Display Interface
• Display Cache Interface (82810-DC100 only)
• Digital TV-Out
• Clock Signals
• Miscellaneous Interface Signals
• Hub Interface

There are 2 versions of the GMCH, the 82810 GMCH and the 82810-DC100 GMCH. The main difference between them is that the DC100 version has the Display Cache Interface integrated which supports 4MB of external display cache. Both versions of the GMCH are pin-compatible, hence one manufacturer can have a low cost model and the premium model without the need to redesign the base model. Here's a schematic of the GMCH:-

While the Intel BX chipset is able to support up to 1GB of memory, the new i810 can only support 256MB of memory. This is the reason why you'll see up to 4 DIMM slots in the BX chipset based motherboard, which has 8 addressing lines to cater to 4 DIMM slots that can take in single or double-sided DIMMs mixed. The i810 has only 4 memory addressing lines, therefore motherboards based on the i810 chipset come with 2 DIMM slots that can take in either a pair of single or double-sided DIMMs mixed. Take note that double-sided DIMMs need 2 addressing lines each (and single-sided DIMMs need 1 addressing line) and these are usually available in either 128MB or 256MB DIMM modules. Since the i810 is for integrated cost-effective systems that won't run in servers that use ECC memory for safety, ECC support has been removed in the i810 chipset.

The Graphics Core

Graphics is handled by an integrated i752 core, which is basically a spruced up i740. Its key features include dual-rendering pipelines, motion-compensation for DVD, 1600 x 1200 pixels desktop resolution, 230MHz RAMDAC, 16-bit colour support in 3D and a Direct-AGP connection that is essentially a direct access to the system memory to store all graphics data as the GMCH itself has no local memory. What's more, the memory bus is locked at 100MHz, while the FSB can asynchronously run at 66/100MHz (officially, but there are the usual list of unofficial ones implement by the motherboard vendors). This means even if you intend to overclock the system by changing the FSB, the memory bus can still operate at 100MHz. This also means any standard PC-100 memory will do the job without you needing to hunt for those speedier and more expensive RAM. However you can't use your older PC-66 memory unless they happen to be of good quality and are happy to operate at 100MHz.

Now back to the Direct-AGP connection, since the graphics controller in the GMCH has a direct connection to the system memory, the bandwidth is 800MB/s (64-bit memory bus / 8-bits x 100MHz) and that is more than AGP 2X transfer rate of 533MB/s (32-bit / 8-bits x 133MHz)! Don't get excited yet because all the graphics adapters have their own local memory that has far higher bandwidth between the graphics chipset and the onboard memory, but once the graphics data (usually texture data) gets too large for the local memory, they'll have to spillover to the system memory if the graphics adapter uses an AGP connection. In that situation, the GMCH's integrated graphics becomes more favorable because of it's higher bandwidth to the system's memory. Even so, this won't be much beneficial as the graphics engine itself isn't as powerful as Intel's marketing marketing claims (would you believe NVIDIA Riva TNT-like performance from an i752 graphics core?)

Fortunately, the costlier version of the GMCH labeled as the i82810-DC100 can support an optional 4MB of local cache for the integrated graphics (the cheaper i82810 GMCH doesn't have support for the extra cache). The DC100 descriptor just means that it uses 100MHz cache. There is a possibility of a DC133 part because the BIOS of the test motherboard supports a cache speed setting of either 100 or 133MHz. The odd thing is that that there is a separate bus from the GMCH to the optional cache but it's only 32-bits wide, meaning it can only sustain a bandwidth of 400MB/s. Seems odd considering that the Direct-AGP to system memory connection sports a wider 800MB/s bandwidth but only half of that for the dedicated local cache. Fortunately the cache and its memory bandwidth is dedicated to the purpose of serving the integrated graphics engine and it helps reduce the system memory's burden. Overall the idea of dedicated cahce and the Direct-AGP connection is far better than the old UMA-architecture in older motherboard designs. Last but not least, take note that 1MB of your system memory is reserved for display frame buffer purposes from the second you power up your PC. Once in the Windows OS, it will use the Intel Dynamic Video Memory (D.V.M.) technology to freely allocate itself an appropriate amount of system memory as and when it needs to. Here's a snippet from Intel:-

The internal graphics device on both the 82810 and 82810-DC100 support Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology (D.V.M.). With D.V.M, the allocated size of system memory used for display graphics can be dynamically altered. For example, if 2 MB of system memory is needed, the driver allocates this amount. If later, only 1.5 MB is needed, the driver allocates the 1.5-MB size freeing up the remaining 512 KB for system use.

In addition to D.V.M., the 82810-DC100 supports Display Cache (DC). The graphics engine of the 82810-DC100 uses DC for implementing rendering buffers (e.g., Z buffers). This rendering model requires 4 MB of display cache and allows graphics rendering (performed across the graphics display cache bus) and texture MIP map access (performed across the system memory bus) simultaneously. Using D.V.M. all graphics rendering is implemented in system memory. The system memory bus is arbitrated between texture MIP-map accesses and rendering functions.

This kind of integrated graphics solution can use some megabytes of your RAM when playing 3D games on top of the game's own memory requirements, so do make sure you take this into account when buying a game as well as spec'ing out your system memory. On a different note, we would like to reiterate that the integrated RAMDAC rated at a lowly 230MHz, but fortunately in our use, it managed a sharp output up to 1024 x 768 @ 75Hz. Over that limit, you'll get blurry output. If integrated graphics is something you cannot live with, there is a big drawback to expansion options on the Intel i810 chipset platform - it does not support an AGP connector! If this bothers you, you should invest in a conventional platform.

The ICH

The Input/Output Controller Hub (ICH) is is a highly integrated multi-functional I/O Controller Hub that employs the Intel Accelerated Hub Architecture (AHA) to make a direct connection from the graphics and memory subsystems to serve other chipset-enabled functions like the integrated AC97 controller, IDE controllers, dual USB ports, and PCI add-in cards. The following is the proper break down of the ICH's functional components:

• PCI Bus Interface, PCI Rev 2.2 compliant (ICH supports 6 slots and 4 for the ICH0)
• Integrated IDE Controller (ICH supports Ultra ATA/66, ICH0 supports Ultra ATA/33)
• USB host interface with support for 2 USB ports
• AC'97 2.1 compliant link for audio and telephony CODECs
• Power Management Logic (ACPI 1.0 Compliant, ACPI Power States = S1, S3, S4, S5)
• Low Pin Count (LPC) Interface
• Enhanced DMA Controller, Interrupt Controller and Timer Functions
• Real-Time Clock
• System Management Bus (SMBus) compatible with most I2C devices
• Supports ISA Bus via External PCI-ISA Bridge
• Hub Interface to use AHA
• Firmware Hub (FWH) Interface
• Alert On LAN Support (ICH only)

Once more, note that there are two versions of the ICH - the 82801AA (ICH) and 82801AB (ICH0) hubs. The main differences are that the ICH has support for up to six PCI slots, U-ATA/66 and Alert-On-LAN, whereas the ICH0 doesn't have the last feature and only has support for four PCI slots and U-ATA/33. Here's a graphical view of it:

Besides being Intel's first chipset to sport integrated graphics, it is also AC'97 ready. This term means that the chipset has an interface catered to communicate with external audio and/or telephony codec chip(s) that can be mounted on the motherboard and the chipset refers to these codecs by means of the AC'97 link and uses CPU power to execute the sound and/or telephony features. Codecs are like written instructions to tell the system how to utilize it, e.g, an audio codec tells the system how to run and output audio but all processing brunt is tackled by the CPU.

These codecs are very cheap to include, hence an i810 based board can essentially have graphics, audio and modem functionality right on the motherboard, which brings about even cheaper systems based on Intel Celeron Processors, a market VIA and SIS completely missed to cash-in. CPU utilization shouldn't be much of a concern as a Celeron system can easily spare a few percent of processing power to support such all-round functionality in a typical Celeron-class system (targeting low to mid-range home and business users).

But providing the necessary codecs is up to the motherboard manufacturer's choice depending on the audience for which a particular board is targeted for. For example, the motherboard vendor can even forgo this route and integrate the actual sound or telephony chipsets on the board to produce better sound with no performance penalty on the CPU.

Having said that, there is yet one more choice and that is not to provide any of these functions and instead leave it completely optional by the way of  an AMR slot that all i810 chipset boards support. AMR stands for Audio & Modem Riser card. It does just as what it says - provides Audio and Modem functionality on the cheap. It is similar to the motherboard vendor integrating the codecs onboard except that it is now on an AMR add-on card. An AMR card basically contains the codec chips and input/output connectors. The manufacturer can even combine the two methods, e.g. provide an audio codec on the motherboard but if you need modem and telephony functions, you can get an appropriate AMR card to handle only these functions at a very low cost; alternatively, you can get a dedicated PCI card to handle those functions more effectively. It's really giving more choices for the manufacturer and the user to expand their PC functionality at different cost points. At the time of publication, there aren't any commercial AMR cards yet and we guess manufacturers are waiting for the i810 boards to get more popular before offering AMR card solutions.

The i810 chipset does not come with an ISA bridge controller and is the first chipset to omit this, but it is an option that the manufacturer can choose to implement. Since it has now become an option and it is high time for ISA support to be discontinued, it's likely that most manufacturers will forgo supporting ISA add-on cards on their i810 boards.

There is now a new interface called a Low-Pin-Count (LPC) interface that is used to connect floppy drives and other port controllers which used to communicate via the old ISA-bus. Since ISA support is removed from the chipset (but can be included by manufacturer at additional cost), the LPC is a 4-bit, 33Mhz bus that is actually a simplified ISA bus to cater to these low bandwidth devices.

Lastly, the ICH has a Firmware Hub (FWH) interface, which is just a small 33Mhz bus to communicate with the FWH where the BIOS of both the system and integrated graphics are located.

The FWH

If you're searching for the traditional big and bulky BIOS chip on an i810 board, you won't find one! In it's place is a tiny chip called the Firmware Hub (FWH) which may or may not be socketted (it was socketted on the DFI motherboard we've obtained for evaluation). It's size is similar to that of the new BIOS chips on the new Gigabyte-BX2000 motherboard. Even for the FWH, there are two variants of it! The i82802AB is a 4Mbit (512KB) part and the i82802AC is an 8Mbit part (1MB!). Currently most motherboards will use the 4Mbit parts, as it's more than enough for typical systems.

The FWH contains the BIOS for both the system and integrated graphics. The system BIOS has been greatly improved from the Award BIOS that we've been using for ages; for tweakers, there's plenty more fine-tuned options to choose from. Beside the BIOS, the FWH also contains the all-new, Random Number Generator (RNG). Intel claims it is used for greater security. This is a snippet from the Data-sheets:

"Intel will provide a Windows driver to give third party software access to our RNG for use as a security feature. Also provided will be a device driver developer kit (DDK) for operating system vendors who wish to design security drivers for their platform."

Well, one thing is for sure - RNG really works! How do I know? When I booted up the PC using the DFI i810 motherboard, during the HDD auto-detection, it will auto-detect your HDD and assign a unique number. Since I had two HDDs, I found two very different numbers assigned to them. When I restated the PC, the assigned IDs were radically different for both. I've since re-booted numerous times, never seeing the same pair of numbers again. Intel has featured this RNG function in hardware because hardware generated numbers have a far less chance to repeat themselves in a certain given period and the fact that the numbers generated are a bigger string than software generated numbers - as claimed by Intel. There are more security related features but if you need to know more and are comfortable getting technical, do read the data sheets.

At this juncture, we've concluded how the i810 platform architecture works, so here's a photo of how an i810 boad would look like and the location of the many new components we've discussed by using a DFI PW65-D (i810 board) for illustration: -

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