The Chipsets

Before we take a look at our platform motherboard for our I845GE review, we will first have a look at the I845PE and GE together - first a bit of detail on the I845PE.

This is the successor to the I845E chipset, supporting the same AGP 4x AGP connection and ICH4, you may be forgiven for believing it is just an I845E. The I845PE has a new memory controller built in that is supposed to increase performance @ 266Mhz over the original I845E chipset as well as offer official DDR-333 support. With the enthusiasts in mind, it is set to be an overclockers dream on paper, with the only missing component being AGP 8x support.

The I845GE is the successor the I845G chipset. While the I845G did support unofficial DDR-333 memory dividers, the I845GE now gives you true DDR-333 memory options, so there is no need for motherboard manufacturers to skimp on this feature. Intel has also upgraded the graphics core on this chip from a 200Mhz core clock to 266Mhz with the option of up to 64MB of Dynamic Shared memory rather than the 48MB like originally supported by the I845G. While this will give the I845GE a boost over the I845G in terms of onboard graphics power, it is still not up to gamers standards, no onboard video at this stage is.

All in all the new chipsets are not all that "new" but rather things we should have seen long ago from Intel. With both SiS and VIA beating Intel to the punch with DDR-333 support, we'd expect more from an industry leader like Intel.








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