Microstar 6337 i815E Pro
review
Posted by
Adam
Klein on September 28, 2000
Company: MSI
Computer Product: Microstar 6337 i815E Pro motherboard
The
Intel 440BX motherboard chipset has been very popular for
about two years now. There are good reasons for this to
happen. Let’s start with the fact that the BX has proven to
be very stable and perform strongly.
Not
too long ago, Intel was set to replace the BX with a
motherboard chipset that was said to perform better than the
BX. The Camino, or 820 as it's better known. What
distinguished this chip from the pack was the support for
RDRAM (Rambus
Dynamic Random Access Memory).
RDRAM,
operating up to an effective 800MHz, was shown to actually
perform even or worse than a system with a BX chipset and
SDRAM. Even though it ran at 800MHz (400MHz double data rate),
it still had higher latency with a 16-bit data width, while
SDRAM had less latencies and a 64-bit data width.
Another
very major factor was the price difference between RDRAM and
SDRAM. At one time, RDRAM was priced near $450 for 128MB, and
the best of the best 128MB of SDRAM could be bought for only
$140.
As
time passed, the 820 didn't catch on due to those reasons.
Users wanted a better price per performance ratio. The BX was
aging, but the performance and the price was right for just
about any user. The only major factor that didn't make it so
appealing was the lack of 133MHz front side bus support. Even
though some users had no problems running their BX systems at
this out of spec speed, some weren't so lucky.
This
is where VIA comes into the picture. VIA offered a motherboard
with SDRAM slots, AGP 4X, and official support for a true
133MHz bus. The VIA 133A has been out for months and in that
time has been very popular despite the BX still being the
performance leader. The board was so popular that Intel wasn't
about to let their competition to rule in sales while the 820
were slow at making sales.
The
815, A.K.A. Solano, was Intel's answer. Much like the VIA 133A
chipset, the 815 offers the same features, plus some other
extras. These extras include integrated sound and integrated
video all from a one-chip solution. To the performance user,
this may not be what they want. Luckily the 815 also
incorporate an AGP 4X slot, so putting in your favorite
graphics board can be done. Also, the on-board sound can also
be disabled, so that the use of any other soundboard can be
done.
One
of Microstar's first 815 boards is the 815E Pro 6337. The 6337
is based on the Solano 2 version of the 815. This version is
denoted with an E. The 815E has everything that the 815 does,
but also has a few extra features, such as UltraATA100
support.
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