VIA and SiS Battle for Supremacy: 3-way P4 DDR Motherboard Roundup on Anand's

[Aquaman]

3 way P4 DDR Motherboard Roundup

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[Wingznut]

"However, some problems cropped up once we started testing DDR400 memory. First off, one of the 3 DIMM slots was completely unable to operate DDR400; it wouldn't even boot into Windows XP. We don?t know the exact cause for this malfunction, but we are working with VIA to pinpoint the issue.

Despite this anomaly, we were able to operate the DDR400 memory in the other two DIMM slots available on the P4PB 400. With DDR400 in either of the two slots, we were able to boot into Windows XP and run some of the stress tests and benchmarks we needed for DDR400 scores. Unfortunately, the P4PB 400 failed to complete SYSMark 2002 among other benchmarks, even after several tries. But even though the DDR400 memory was mostly operational using the 2 other slots, it definitely wasn't as trouble free as we would have preferred (random crashes and reboots galore)."

So, they have a "DDR400" chipset out, but the thing doesn't even work right with DDR400? I'll take two!

 

[Aquaman]

Make me wonder why they even have a ddr400 chipset if they don't have a standard for ddr400

I guess if one guy jumps off that bridge someone has to follow

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[Wingznut]

"Our P4X400 testing started off very poorly as we found Corsairs XMS3000 memory was unable to run DDR400 on the P4X400 board, where as it could on the 645DX board."

--LegionHardware

 

[First]

Just for the record, none of the retail motherboards were able to reliably run at DDR400 (using a non-overclocked stick of Twinmos DDR400). It's important to note however that all 3 boards were rock solid running DDR333 memory. The only issues I found running DDR333 was when all banks were filled (all 3 retail boards displayed this same issue, as do most boards with 3 DIMMS or more).

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

do you mean ddr 400 cas 2? cuz there are very few memory sticks able to even do that?

 

[MadRat]

<<It's important to note however that all 3 boards were rock solid running DDR333 memory. The only issues I found running DDR333 was when all banks were filled (all 3 retail boards displayed this same issue, as do most boards with 3 DIMMS or more).>>

The only time that three banks of DDR RAM should be used on any unbuffered board is with PC1600 DDR RAM. The trace lengths are too long for the chipset to reliably use three faster DDR sticks. They probably document this in the manual, are have you looked? Seriously, though, its the same reason that RDRAM boards are limited to two sticks unless they use buffering. The memory latencies end up overlapping and causing all sorts of instability.