Athlon64 Motherboards: First Look at Chaintech, FIC, and MSI
by Wesley Fink on September 23, 2003 1:03 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Performance Test Configuration
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz) AMD Opteron Socket 940 at 2.0GHz (9x222) 444FSB AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB) Intel Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz (800FSB) Intel Pentium 4 at 3.0GHz (800FSB) |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II 4 x 512MB Legacy ECC at 2.5-3-4-5 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TwinX LL (v1.1 ) |
| Hard Drive(s): | Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce version 2.45 (7/29/2003) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.49 (August 20, 2003) NVIDIA nForce version 2.03 (1/30/03) |
| Video Card(s): | ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 3.7 ATI Catalyst 3.6 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | ChaintechZNF3-150 (nForce3) Athlon64 3200+ FIC K8-800T (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ nVidia Reference nForce3 Opteron144 @ 222.0 MHz FSB (2.0GHz) DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ Albatron KX18D PROII (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ Asus P4C800-E (Intel 875P) 3.0Ghz P4 Intel D875PB2 (875P) 3.2GHz P4 |
Recent performance tests on nForce2 Ultra 400 and Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. Previous tests of motherboards used 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Mushkin PC3500 L2 was used to preserve the 2-2-2-6 timings that was used in tests with Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Both Mushkin and Corsair use the same Winbond BH5 memory chips in these modules.
All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.
Additions to Performance Tests
We have standardized on ZD Labs Internet Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking. Sysmark2002 Content Creation and General Performance Benchmarks have been included to provide a broader range of real Application benchmarks to AnandTech readers for the launch of the new Athlon64 and Athlon64FX.Game Benchmarks
We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs as a standard game benchmark. We are also evaluating the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects as part of the standard benchmark. Results are reported here for reference.Jedi Knight II has been dropped form our standard Benchmark Suite. We were forced to use different patches for operation on Athlon and Intel Pentium 4, which made cross-platform comparison difficult, if not impossible. In addition, Opteron/Athlon64 requires a third patching variation for benchmarking. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.
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Anonymous User - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
#5I old too, but still keep buing from AMD, Intel is way too expensive for as in Latin America, and give no clear advantage for a programmer/gamer like me.
If you been having problems with AMD, surely your are building AMD chips with PCCHIPs mainboards, and Pentiums with Intel boards, you are a smart guy!
So, if you gonna build a modern PC, you'll experience problems becouse WinXP didn't include drivers for new chipsets, so, for it all going like a charm, you need an Intel Pentium III and a Intel 2001's mainboard, anything newer, you gonna have to look for drivers, whatever the platform you choose.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
#10 -You are absolutely correct in theory. However, when we moved from the Ti4600 to the ATI 9800 PRO, our encoding scores on the P4 went up about 35-45%. Don't ask me why. They did not change on the Athlon, which had led in this area before. That is one of several reasons we will be changing to another encoding benchmark.
If you doubt what I say, check Evan's 20-board 865/875 roundup done with the Ti 4600, then check the retest of some of the top boards we include in our more recent P4 reviews. Evan did the original and the update tests, and I have confirmed his results.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Since when does the video card have ANYTHING to do with DivX encoding? That is a purely CPU and RAM issue, even playback is not influenced too much by the video card anymore (speed not quality...that is an entirely different issue).Zoomer - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Hey, could you please touch on what DAC chip is powering these setups? A picture would be nice too.Envy 24bit audio would be an utter waste if some crap Realtek codec was used. It would be good if this was highlighted so that motherboard manufacturers catering to the higher end of the market will take notice.
Chaintech apparantly took note of the fact that you guys bashed every single board that had the ATX connector near the board i/o ports. Despite it being a non issue. That thick bundle can be routed so that the interference with airflow is minimised.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Please, please, please stop using Flash for graphs.dvinnen - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
#5: Youe funny. Constant screw ups? It's Intell who has had to have 3 or so recalls over the last 4-5 years. And theres that bug with the Itantic which the only way to fix is to lower the clock to 800 mhz. AMD is the one who keeps screwing up?Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
#3 and #4 - Thank you. Now corrected.Just before posting we decided to combine the 3 reviews into one larger launch review. Unfortunately I had used the same name for two different pictures and the first one was picked up. There is a socket closeup of the FIC that never made it to the server.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
yeah, about the only good thing coming out of this is the price drops soon. Otherwise still the same stupid +-5FPS differences = waste of time/effert to get excited about.i used to love amd, but just got tired of their constant screw ups, so anymore i personally don't care what stupid thing they come out with, i won't waste my time with it.
Perhaps that's cuz i'm older now and have a good job/salary and don't need/care about overclocking and or paying a few bucks more for intel quality/stability. yeah, must be just getting to be an old fogey, cuz this whole amd/intel wanna-be-war doesn't give me a hardon like it used to ;)
Thoreau - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
Correction, Page 11 in the index list. First pic.Thoreau - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
The 2nd page of the FIC section shows a pic from the Chaintech board. Think you got that a little mixed up there.