FIRST LOOK: ULi M1697 for Athlon 64/x2
by Wesley Fink on December 13, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Our Take
When we tested the ULi M1695/M1567 chipset a few months ago, NVIDIA nForce4 was the only real competition. Today, both the NVIDIA nForce4 family and the developing ATI Rx480/580 family are competitors in the AMD Athlon 64/x2 market. The natural question today is: How does the ULi M1697 compare to the excellent performance of the NVIDIA nForce4 and the ATI RD480? Since the real competition is the now mainstream NVIDIA nF4 SLI/Ultra and the ATI Rx480 Grouper/Crossfire, we would have to conclude that the ULi 1697 competes very well indeed. The M1697 gives up nothing in performance to the NVIDIA or ATI chipsets.
There should be concerns, however, if your AMD plans include SLI or Crossfire. ULi has all of the right features in their M1697 for SLI and Crossfire to work - that is not the concern. It is just that ULi is not a GPU maker, and they, therefore, are not in a strong position to ever expect support from NVIDIA or ATI for SLI or Crossfire on the ULi chipset. We're sure that both NVIDIA and ATI would be happy to license ULi, but it is doubtful that a value chipset like this ULi could afford the licensing fees and still be attractive to manufacturers trying to build a better mousetrap. The best hope in this arena is if the market were to move to an Open standard where all dual-video solutions work on all dual PCIe slot motherboards. We don't know when or if this will happen, but it is certainly the kind of development that would make SLI/Crossfire a mainstream solution.
This is closer to a reality in the Intel chipset market where Intel and ATI both support Crossfire and NVIDIA goes it alone. But the ULi is an AMD solution, and in that arena, the dual x8 will be useful for running two video cards, but not for running SLI or Crossfire. ULi does have a relationship with ATI so perhaps a technology exchange is a possibility for Crossfire. The best hope, however, is that SLI/Crossfire will become an open cross-platform standard. We can certainly dream.
From a features standpoint, the ULI M1697 compares very well against the current best in the Socket 939 market. It provides both HD Audio and SATA2 - something no other discrete AMD chipset currently provides. The SATA2 and IDE both provide excellent performance, and the USB performance is certainly competitive. Based on the low pricing that we have heard about with this M1697 single-chip solution, the feature set is all the more outstanding. The only failing is that 10/100 Ethernet is the only version supported directly by the chipset. The world has moved to Gigabit Ethernet and ULi will quickly find that this will become an issue unless they address Gigabit LAN support in future chipsets. The limitation of 10/100 direct support for Ethernet also has the unfortunate distinction of labeling the M1697 as a budget chipset. That's really regrettable, since other performance areas are anything but budget.
Until the SLI/Crossfire question is resolved, the real market for M1697 will be the nF4 Ultra and ATI Rx480 Grouper. At the expected very low price, the M1697 should compete very well in this market - providing the HD Azalia audio that is missing from nForce4, and the SATA2/competitive USB missing from ATI with the ATI SB450 south bridge.
Undoubtedly, there will also be ULi M1697 boards with dual x16 PCIe slots. They may be useful for running two video cards feeding different monitors or running specialized x8/x4 cards. However, the lack of real SLI/Crossfire support will limit how competitive ULi can be in this market. If ULi licenses SLI or Crossfire, we could be really positive about their prospects in the mainstream SLI/Crossfire market. Or, if by some miracle, the dual video card market opens up with broad driver support, the ULi M1697 will be much more attractive.
ULi continues to build some of the most interesting chipsets that we have tested in the AMD market. Unfortunately for ULI, not many manufacturers have been willing to produce new boards with the new ULi chipsets. We understand that the M1697 will see the light of day from some Tier One manufacturers. Abit also tells us that they will be producing a ULi M1697 that fully exploits the chipset capabilities. We are anxious to see where manufacturers will position the ULi chipset. If the production boards also perform well as Enthusiast-oriented boards, the ULi M1697 could certainly become a strong player in the bang-for the-buck market. If SLI/Crossfire support appears, the ULi M1697 chipset could be even more.
When we tested the ULi M1695/M1567 chipset a few months ago, NVIDIA nForce4 was the only real competition. Today, both the NVIDIA nForce4 family and the developing ATI Rx480/580 family are competitors in the AMD Athlon 64/x2 market. The natural question today is: How does the ULi M1697 compare to the excellent performance of the NVIDIA nForce4 and the ATI RD480? Since the real competition is the now mainstream NVIDIA nF4 SLI/Ultra and the ATI Rx480 Grouper/Crossfire, we would have to conclude that the ULi 1697 competes very well indeed. The M1697 gives up nothing in performance to the NVIDIA or ATI chipsets.
There should be concerns, however, if your AMD plans include SLI or Crossfire. ULi has all of the right features in their M1697 for SLI and Crossfire to work - that is not the concern. It is just that ULi is not a GPU maker, and they, therefore, are not in a strong position to ever expect support from NVIDIA or ATI for SLI or Crossfire on the ULi chipset. We're sure that both NVIDIA and ATI would be happy to license ULi, but it is doubtful that a value chipset like this ULi could afford the licensing fees and still be attractive to manufacturers trying to build a better mousetrap. The best hope in this arena is if the market were to move to an Open standard where all dual-video solutions work on all dual PCIe slot motherboards. We don't know when or if this will happen, but it is certainly the kind of development that would make SLI/Crossfire a mainstream solution.
This is closer to a reality in the Intel chipset market where Intel and ATI both support Crossfire and NVIDIA goes it alone. But the ULi is an AMD solution, and in that arena, the dual x8 will be useful for running two video cards, but not for running SLI or Crossfire. ULi does have a relationship with ATI so perhaps a technology exchange is a possibility for Crossfire. The best hope, however, is that SLI/Crossfire will become an open cross-platform standard. We can certainly dream.
From a features standpoint, the ULI M1697 compares very well against the current best in the Socket 939 market. It provides both HD Audio and SATA2 - something no other discrete AMD chipset currently provides. The SATA2 and IDE both provide excellent performance, and the USB performance is certainly competitive. Based on the low pricing that we have heard about with this M1697 single-chip solution, the feature set is all the more outstanding. The only failing is that 10/100 Ethernet is the only version supported directly by the chipset. The world has moved to Gigabit Ethernet and ULi will quickly find that this will become an issue unless they address Gigabit LAN support in future chipsets. The limitation of 10/100 direct support for Ethernet also has the unfortunate distinction of labeling the M1697 as a budget chipset. That's really regrettable, since other performance areas are anything but budget.
Until the SLI/Crossfire question is resolved, the real market for M1697 will be the nF4 Ultra and ATI Rx480 Grouper. At the expected very low price, the M1697 should compete very well in this market - providing the HD Azalia audio that is missing from nForce4, and the SATA2/competitive USB missing from ATI with the ATI SB450 south bridge.
Undoubtedly, there will also be ULi M1697 boards with dual x16 PCIe slots. They may be useful for running two video cards feeding different monitors or running specialized x8/x4 cards. However, the lack of real SLI/Crossfire support will limit how competitive ULi can be in this market. If ULi licenses SLI or Crossfire, we could be really positive about their prospects in the mainstream SLI/Crossfire market. Or, if by some miracle, the dual video card market opens up with broad driver support, the ULi M1697 will be much more attractive.
ULi continues to build some of the most interesting chipsets that we have tested in the AMD market. Unfortunately for ULI, not many manufacturers have been willing to produce new boards with the new ULi chipsets. We understand that the M1697 will see the light of day from some Tier One manufacturers. Abit also tells us that they will be producing a ULi M1697 that fully exploits the chipset capabilities. We are anxious to see where manufacturers will position the ULi chipset. If the production boards also perform well as Enthusiast-oriented boards, the ULi M1697 could certainly become a strong player in the bang-for the-buck market. If SLI/Crossfire support appears, the ULi M1697 chipset could be even more.
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Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - link
The AMD on-chip memory controller does NOT support Cammand Rate 2 timings with 4 dimms, and yet the DFI RDX200 motherboard is able to run four double-sided dimms at 2-2-2 at 1T Command Rate due to clever BIOS engineering. The early AMD controllers stated that 4 dimms must run at DDR400 at slower timings or drop to DDR333 for fastest timings, and yet almost every top motherboard we tested found ways to run 4 dimms at the fastest memory timings. Some of the boards could not do this with the exact same processor - Epox is an example that comes to mind.The point is, we well understand the architecture of the AMD processor and memory controller, but you are seriously mistaken if you think the chipset and BIOS do not affect memory timings and performance on an AMD motherboard. The impact is much less than on Intel motherboards with the memory controller in the chipset, but the chipset and BIOS DO impact memory compatibility and performance on AMD boards. We have proven that over time with many tests with the same CPU (and therefore the same memory controller).
Peter - Thursday, December 15, 2005 - link
The chipset does not have an influence on RAM. I am not mistaken. The only connection between RAM and chipset is the SMbus channel that lets the BIOS read out the SPD EEPROM from the DIMM - but the entire operational bus for the RAM traffic is connected to the CPU and nowhere else.The board layout of course does have an influence, and so does the amount of fine tuning done in this particular board's BIOS. Being a BIOS engineer sitting right in the middle of mainboard engineering, I sure know that. Besides, "clever BIOS engineering" cannot magically make things possible that physically aren't - so if you want tight timings, you better come up with a damn good mainboard routing job.
Still, I see this as an attempt at deceiving from what your article said. There, you are attributing RAM operation to the chipset in several places. This is all wrong, and has been all wrong in every single AMD64 chipset review Anandtech ever made. Get over it, skip this cut&paste section unless you're doing a P4 chipset review.
So you meant to be testing board layout limits? On a pure reference board, we might find this to be rather pointless - and if it's an available product, you still need to get the description corrected. You are NOT testing chipset capabilities when you are poking around the RAM on an AMD64.
btw, the AMD on-chip memory controller does support 2T command rate. It is the official JEDEC PC3200 standard that does not officially support two DIMMs per channel at 200 MHz. All that AMD did in later revisions is increase the headroom above what's SUPPOSED to work. The very first Athlon64 was spot on JEDEC specifications, nothing to complain about there either. One DIMM at 200 MHz, two at 333, three at 266. Everything (!) above that is YMMV territory.
Wesley Fink - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
There are numerous DFI BIOS for the DFI nF4 boards that are customized for best performance with various RAM. Board layout does matter a great deal, but if only the memory controller or board layout mattered in AMD RAM performance these BIOS revisions for the same board would have no impact at all. It appears you are certain you are a much more capable "BIOS Engineer" than Oskar Wu or many others I have talked with who definitely disagree with your conclusions. We all understand your point, which is basically correct, but that is not the end of the story or even close to the complete story.You are correct in your truths, and it is not likely you will be dissuaded with facts that contradict your conclusions. NO ONE at AT is trying to deceive anyone.
Peter - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
I'm referring to the following statements on page 4, and I'm certain the honorable Mr. Wu would know better than writing things like:>Memory Stress Testing: Since this is a new chipset, the best setting for tRAS was first determined.
>This means that any setting from 6 to 11 tRAS will work well with this chipset.
>*7T was determined by MemTest86 benchmarks to deliver the widest bandwidth with the ULi M1697 chipset.
(my highlighting)
These statements all directly attribute RAM performance to the ULi chipset, which we all know is plain wrong.
The fact that the board's layout has an influence is not what I'm disputing. Of course it does. BIOS fine tuning can only get the most out of that given hardware layout, no magic there, just patience and persistance - and then there's the great moving target of DIMM behavior that provides for a nice murky cloud of guesstimation between stability and performance - that's why BIOS updates are frequently seen. This I'm not disputing either, after all that's exactly what I'm doing (only that I'm working on DIMM-less platforms where you don't have to deal with that aspect, only the board's own layout and the differences in the actual RAM _chips_).
But these are all distractions that you muddied the waters with. The original point of my posting, and the only complaint I have, is:
You're failing to acknowledge - and subsequently failing to represent correctly in your articles about AMD64 mainboards and chipsets - is that the chipset isn't involved in this AT ALL.
Get it right. Please.
ocyl - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
I wished that this article had talked about the disliked DRM component of this chipset...Alphafox78 - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Did anyone else notice that the CPU in the diagram is a K5?! hahLonyo - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
It would be nice if you had overclocked, just to give a orugh idea of what the chipset was capable of.In case you weren't aware, there is a nice OCZ booster which increases memory voltage where such options may be unavailable, so maybe in future you could think of using this, just to give a rough idea of overclocking potential. (Assuming it works).
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Reviews of Reference Boards have been criticized by some readers in the past for testing overclocking capabilities "on a board no one can actually buy". Our position has been to test OC on Reference Boards where it is possible - to give a rough idea, as you put it, of OC capabilities.However, a board that does not even implement any memory voltage controls is not likely to be representative of a chipset's OC capabilities. We have been promised production boards very soon and we will defintely test OC on those. Yes, we have an OCZ RAM Booster in the lab.
Creig - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
There's no doubt that the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 has been an extremely popular board, but it could be improved upon. Apparently ASRock is considering doing just that. The ULi M1697 can be paired with the M1695 on one motherboard to create a board with two 16x PCI-E, AGP, SATA-II, HD audio and a better range of CPU/DIMM voltages.http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?...">http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ulti...bb.cgi?u...
Looks like ULi/ASRock are on a roll.
psychobriggsy - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Hmm, not having Gigabit might affect, err, a few people. The vast majority will have 100mbit home networks however, and thus not having gigabit isn't an issue. In the corporate area it may be an issue, but they'd probably prefer a standard gigabit controller than a built-in one anyway, so having one run off PCIe isn't an issue.The chipset looks pretty good though, nice feature set. Hope it does well.