Impact of Intel 845 chipset's + PC 133 SDRAM under expected performance

Under expected performance

Based on report from professional testing website "Tom's Hardware Guide".

7-12% in Internet/office performance

The system performance of Intel 845 with PC133 SDRAM costs about 7-12% performance compared to i850 with PC800 RDRAM on Internet/office performance.

Sysmark 2001 under Windows 98

                    Source: Tom's Hardware Guide

Systmark 2001 under Windows 2000 Professional

             Source: Tom's Hardware Guide

Almost 21% in 3D Gaming performance

The average performance loss of i845/PC133 vs. i850/PC800 is almost 21%. 

 

Influence on willing of consumer purchasing?

Although P4+ PC 133 SDRAM will be cheap, but its performance is dangerously close to what current or near-future Pentium III platforms are able to offer. Are there any motives (except the blue guys' advertising effect) to convince consumer to upgrade? Especially i845 will support DDR at beginning at Jan. 2002 and PC2100 DDR (266MHz DDR) price is shrinking closely to SDARM daily. In that case, the PC industry will not have significant pick-up demand driving by i845 with PC133 combination.

DDR gets the chance for earlier release by this?

Due to under-performance of i845+SDRAM, market does not expect good result for stimulating market. Will the pressure from downstream companies and competition from AMD push P4+DDR to release earlier than its original Jan. 2002 schedule? Marketers are expecting that will happen.

The effect to Motherboard

Clone market – Since most of reports do not show good result of i845 with SDRAM, the most price and function sensitivity clone group will not accept the under-performance product. This will influence shipping volume.  

OEM market – Most of motherboard companies listed i845 as major product for the second half of this year. They already designed more than 6 types of products for i845. They will begin to ship M/B with i845 at beginning of August. If the shipment for i845 does not come out good result, it will take M/B companies with 1.5 to 2 months to adjust their production portion. Currently P4 shipping percentage is around 10%, estimating it will increase to 15~20% at third quarter and probably will be 20~25% at the fourth quarter.