Dan, <In other words, on the disk i/o test, which is a more significant test of streaming data rates, the VC133 outperformed the other systems.>
The disk drives were different. The 440BX and 820 systems had a Maxtor disk drive, and the Micron VIA system had an IBM Deskstar. Both hard drives are similar sizes and similar speeds, but the very small advantage that Micron's system demonstrated (4.7%) could have been attributed to the disk drives themselves.
There were several other variables that didn't match up in PC Magazine's tests. One was the difference in video cards. The 440BX and 820 systems had a Riva TNT2, while the Micron system had a GeForce 256. Micron's Graphics Winmark was sub-par, but that could be due to the beta drivers.
The thing is that PC Magazine doesn't normally try apples-to-apples comparisons, where they keep everything else similar except for the subsystem components under test. Instead, they review end-user system configurations, the kind which consumers will see when they order the computer. Lots of things will differ from one computer to the next.
All we know right now is that Micron's system isn't doing a very good job at showing off the potential of PC133 VC-SDRAM. We don't know whether that's Micron's fault, VIA's fault, the fault of the memory, or the fault of the tests. But I do know that people who are holding out hope for VC-SDRAM being a great leap of performance over SDRAM (and perhaps RDRAM) better wait a little longer.
Tenchusatsu |
