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Intel DG33BU |
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Written by Dusan Srbljak
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Tuesday, 07 August 2007 |
In the last couple of weeks, we were able to present you a few high-quality motherboards with an IGP (integrated graphics processor). All of them were based on AMD's controller logic, i.e. AMD 690G chipset, which proved to be a top-of-the-notch solution as far as multimedia is concerned. In the meantime, Intel was working on and designing its new chipset, codenamed "Bearlake". Although Q965/Q963/G965 haven't been on the market for long, on this year's CeBIT, alongside presentations of the "hot" P35 chipset, much was told (and speculated) about the upcoming G33. The "G33 Express Chipset" is nothing else but a counterpart of the AMD 690G.
| Motherboard | Intel DG33BU | | Chipset | Intel G33 Express (ICH9), LGA775 | | Sound | Realtek ALC888 HD Audio 5.1 | | Storage | 4x SATA2, 1x PATA | | LAN | 1x Intel PCI Express 10/100/1000 Mbps | | RAID | Intel Matrix Storage RAID 0, 1, 0+1.5,10 | | Connectors | 1x PCI Express 16x,1x PCI Express1x, 2x PCI,12x USB, 1xFirewire |
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We received a motherboard to test directly from Intel, and we discovered that it was the first motherboard based on the G33 chipset. G33 belongs to Bearlake family, just like the P35 chipset, as well as the as-yet-unreleased X38. All Bearlake chipsets have a very important advantage - support for Yorkfield and Wolfdale processors, manufactured in 45 nm production process. The integrated graphics core of the new chipset is similar to that of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3000 and supports Intel ClearVideo technology. The full name of the new accelerator is Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100. Thanks to Intel SDVO (Serial Digital Video Output) technology, DVI and HDMI connectors are an option as well, which we most certainly salute.
Whether newer versions of this chipset will have support for DDR3 memory is still unclear, as no official statement has been made. Higher bandwidth of DDR3 compared to DDR2 is something that can be very helpful for the graphics solution, which uses a part of system memory to function. The new IGP performance results can be seen in the chart. It is not that difficult to deduce for whom the G33-based motherboards are intended. Still, if you are a gamer (or have the potential to become one), you can always use the PCI-E 16x port and improve 3D performance by turning off the existing and inserting a separate, more powerful graphics solution. G33's Southbridge is marked ICH9 (just like P35's). We've already dissected the ICH9 Southbridge many times, but let's just go for a quick revision - it supports a maximum of 12 USB ports, 6 PCI-E x1 lines, 6 SATA ports, has support for eSATA, contains a PATA controller, a gigabit LAN adapter and an audio chip with HD Audio support.
The thing which is a characteristic of all Intel motherboards is that they look utterly Spartanic, especially if they belong to the "Intel Classic" series, as is the case with this one. One can see from the DG33BU's name that it's based on the G33 chipset. The board is MicroATX-formatted, but this is something we are already used to with IGP motherboards. The layout is decent, however, the IDE connectors are placed a little awkwardly. Northbridge and Southbridge have aluminium coolers. Although the graphics chip is placed within the Northbridge itself, its temperature was not high. What stunned us is the temperature of the Southbridge.
BIOS constantly reported a value of around 90 degrees Celsius! However, this "phenomenon" didn't affect the stability of the motherboard whatsoever, even after several days of working. What we also fancied a lot is that the board has 4 DIMM slots, which is rare for a MicroATX motherboard. Image output is done via a D-Sub connector, and we were quite impressed with the image quality. The board also has a FireWire connector, which is a very positive surprise for a motherboard in this price range.
| 800x600 | Intel DG33BU | | Sandra 2007 | | | CPU | 16.584 / 11.530 | | Multimedia | 98.897 / 53.687 | | Memory | 4.304 / 4.302 | | Latency | 106 ns | | 3DMark05 | 726 | | 3DMark03 | 2197 | | FarCray (LowQ) | 33.4 fps | | Doom3 (LowQ) | 11.3 fps | | Cinebench | 556 | | WInRAR | 886 KB/s | | DivX | 91.6 fps | | Nuclearus | 5324 |
Testbed: Pentium E2160 @ 1.8 GHz,
2x1GB TwinMos DDR800 @ 5-5-5-15,
Windows XP Pro SP2 |
The motherboard possesses 3-level voltage filtering for the processor. The voltage values remained stable even under full processor load. The BIOS itself has no overclocking options whatsoever, and the only performance improvement can be done by setting the memory timings to a tighter value. It is clear that the gamer population will not be happy with this motherboard. However, the target market for this one are low-on-budget multimedia and office users. For them, it's a great value-for-money solution, even though it's the most basic possible model available so far. The true picture of the G33 will only be attained when other manufacturers' models, with a wider list of possibilities, arrive to our testlab. |
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