Intel LGA 775 915 925 Platform :: Conclusion

Let's just say I don't know who was more flustered in the end, me or my Intel contact when it came to this launch. Problems and then more problems surmounted to a bitter taste in my mouth as the launch date passed and still no complete working test kit. Many of the reasons I became upset had to do with hardware problems or lack of working parts needed for a complete and what I feel accurate review, but some of the reasons are the lack of proper protocol I feel surrounded this entire event. Intel, in their headfirst attempts at getting this platform to market quickly, sent out incomplete test kits to reviewers and had many of us the writers tracking down the PCI Express VGA cards needed to even begin testing.

I mean c'mon does Chevy or Ford send out a car to Road and Track on Friday night for a Sunday review and then tell them, hey contact Honda for a transmission on Saturday. I know the analogy is not exact science, but you get the drift of my feeling here. These are strange times in the PC world my friends and I hope not the signal of things to come but just the stormy winds of change. I will say in all fairness that Intel's PR department did bend over backwards in an attempt to make sure everything worked out okay for us, and their rep is not responsible for any problems encountered. The PR guys anyways are just the liaison between the desktop group and the media so being harsh on them personally is irrational. Late arriving VGA cards due to broken promises and extended delivery times were the Achilles heel in this launch and are what really caused the extended delay in this publication.

Okay back to what we are all here for the new i915/925 platforms and their performance. At the moment I can really see no reason for anyone to want to upgrade from their current system. That is unless you are using an old pre-HT CPU and its equivalent board or an even older Athlon CPU and board combo. The reasons are this; the new i915/925X platform is very new and very untested as seen in the problems associated with heat and lack of proper conditioned power for the CPU. Intel has pioneered something that will flesh itself out and come to bloom as they have almost reinvented the wheel on these new platforms and that just takes time for adjustment. MP3 audio is greatly enriched with the combined efforts of the platform group and Sonic Focus. The Intel Audio Studios Sonic Focus technology puts back the elements back that are lost during compression making for a much bigger and refined audio experience that has to be heard to be fully appreciated.

The sound is one aspect of the new platforms that is worthy of your attention and as Intel refines the technology look for even better results. The 16X PCI Express bus at the moment is not a relevant performance enticer and has shown sometimes to actually be slower to its AGP 8X predecessor. The PCI Express was the one aspect I was hoping would be the savoir of this platform, and although the future may hold some hope of improving on this, for now it is just not too appealing. All the CPU problems encountered with the 3.6GHz Prescott and its heat issues are something Intel needs to solve very quickly if they want to be market viable and they definitely need a new cooling solution. In the end I leave you with this; Intel went a bit too fast with this release as it still needs some fine tuning to be something the market will grasp and accept.

I personally found a bug in the Intel Audio Studio that everyone said I was out of my mind to hear, but after they took a closer listen they found out that I was right. This would have been a sad thing for the group of people involved who have put so much of a valiant effort into this project to see it get overshadowed by a bad bit of bad coding. Fret not my friends, the Doc led the DSP guru's to the water of code bugs and they have drunk of the fountain of enlightenment. This loosely translates as they are fixing the code as you read this and by the time the boards hit the retail shelves all will be good. Intel had the right idea with this entire thing but it was just a rough ride this round. We will just have to see what the near future brings in the way of improving these new platforms and hope Intel irons out all the things that might be interpreted as deterrents to users. A few fixes and improvements and Intel will be on the right track. Until next time my friends.