Computex 2001 Day 1 - Live Coverage

Intel Application Accelerator: Free Performance?

One thing they are launching during Computex is the Intel Application Accelerator. This software will supposedly decrease boot time by 10-20% while simultaneously boosting application performance 5-10%. These are of course Intel's results, as are the ones shown in the graphs below. It works on any motherboard with an 82801 ICH or 82801BA ICH2, which includes all i810, i815, i820, i840, and i850 motherboards yet apparently offers the greatest performance on Pentium 4 systems. Without a doubt, Intel has made certain that this utility will not work on AMD systems. Whether or not AMD has been able to duplicate the software has yet to be determined.

This could be a huge thing for Intel users, especially early adopters of the Pentium 4, as it would speed up normal everyday tasks. Also remember that one of the areas which the Pentium 4 currently lags behind in is business applications which are frequently disk performance limited - an area where the Application Accelerator is supposed to help.

Intel does know quite a bit about improving boot times as we've noticed that all of their motherboards (e.g. OR850, D850GB, etc…) boot into Windows noticeably faster than their 3rd party manufactured counterparts. It could very well be that some of this technology has made it into the Application Accelerator.

Note that there is a typo in this graph - the first bar for 5400RPM drives should read 54 seconds.

We're not sure exactly what Intel has done to accomplish the application performance increases, but our sources tell us they've been working on it for close to a full year now and that it really does work. We remain a bit skeptical and will be testing it out as soon as we get back on our side of the world. The Winstone 2001 results they're claiming are especially surprising given the relatively large increase.

VIA breathes a sigh of relief

Leading up to the show, there was some question about what new toys VIA would be able to show at Computex this year. The big debate was whether or not their Pentium 4 DDR chipset would be officially announced since VIA has yet to complete negotiations with Intel for a Pentium 4 bus license. A little over 12 hours before the show opened, they made the call to go ahead with the P4X266 on the show floor and officially announce the chipset.

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VIA has just received the first functional chips from the fab, so a running board was not yet available when we went by their booth. Expect VIA to try to beat the i845 to market with the P4X266, so we're looking at a Q3 launch.

The P4X266 will be using an updated version of the DDR memory controller that is currently in the KT266 which will offer greater memory performance.

Speaking of which, VIA has definitely lost some sleep over the recent barrage of SiS 735 reviews illustrating chipset performance greater than that of most competing solutions. If anything the SiS 735 reviews have been a call to action for VIA, so don't expect them to take the performance challenge too lightly. Keep in mind that the P4X266 will be using an improved DDR memory controller…

Other than that, VIA really didn't have anything really new at their booth. They did have updated versions of all their Socket-370 chipsets so that they can support Intel's upcoming Tualtin core Pentium III's.

Fortunately, we also got a chance to speak with a couple of the VIA guys regarding some of the issues that many have encountered with their chipsets. It looks like VIA is very committed to resolving all these issues, but some of the hold up is actually with motherboard manufacturers not taking the time to implement the appropriate fixes with BIOS updates. We'll be keeping in touch with VIA in hopes of helping to resolve many of these issues.