Introduction

Today when we look at the Intel Pentium 4 platform we can see that is has migrated its way into a success from its rather fumbled beginnings. Intel's release of the Pentium 4 CPU on the 423 pin socket and 850 RDRAM chipset really was not welcomed by the hardware community. High prices of the CPUs, the higher cost of the eight layer PCB motherboards and the extremely high cost and poor performance of the accompanying RDRAM modules was simply a horrific start for Intel.

Fast forward to today and we see there are thousands of motherboards available to us based on a variety of chipsets using DDR SDRAM memory, the most popular memory technology to hit the market. It was one Intel didn't want to make, now it endorses it and even pushes for new standards of DDR.

Intel's move to an 800MHz FSB has given a new incentive to push more out of the memory, and Dual Channel is the only option for a matched system. While Intel has its own Dual Channel DDR chipsets for its Pentium 4 range, its competitors have also put out a few solutions to compete with Intel's flagship chipsets.

Today we are going to put Intel's two Dual Channel miracles against the recent releases from VIA, SiS and ATI and with thanks to our friends from Gigabyte, we now have them all from one manufacturer to compare our results more evenly.

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