Socket 754 Roundup, Part 3: Asus, Soltek & DFI
by Wesley Fink on September 14, 2004 12:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Standard Performance Test Configuration
If you are interested in more information comparing the Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, LGA 775 Prescott, P4, and P4EE, please see our in-depth comparisons in these recent reviews:Intel's 925X & LGA-775: Are Prescott 3.6 and PCI Express Graphics any Faster?
Intel 925X/915: Chipset Performance & DDR2
Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and FX-53: The First 939 CPUs
The Athlon 64 FX-53: AMD's Next Enthusiast Part
Intel's Pentium 4 E: Prescott Arrives with Luggage
Athlon64 3400+: Part 2
AMD's Athlon 64 3400+: Death of the FX-51
Athlon64 3000+: 64-bit at Half the Price
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev.2 2 x 512MB Geil PC3200 Ultra X 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II or 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd |
| Hard Drive(s): | Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM IDE (16MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce Platform Driver 4.24 (5-10-2004) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) |
| Video Card(s): | ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 4.8 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | Asus K8N-E Soltek K8AN2E-GR DFI LANParty UL nF3 250Gb Abit KV8 PRO (VIA K8T800 PRO) Chaintech VNF3-250 (nVidia nForce3-250) Epox 8KDA3+ (nVidia nForce3-250Gb) Gigabyte K8NSNXP nVidia nForce3-250) MSI K8N Neo (nVidia nForce3-250Gb) nVidia nForc3-250Gb Reference Board |
Current testing of Socket 754 Athlon 64 motherboards used OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev. 2 or Geil PC3200 Ultra X, which are based on Samsung TCCD memory chips. Earlier tests of Socket 754 boards used either Mushkin PC3500 Level II or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd memory modules. Both these memories use Winbond BH5 chips, which have been discontinued. All benchmarks used 2-2-2-10 memory timings regardless of memory used.
Performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Writes enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless otherwise noted.
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thebluesgnr - Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - link
#28,have you tested any SiS board from ASRock? They claim their K8S8X locks AGP/PCI. I've seen good OC results with that board - including this one:
http://members.home.nl/ethanol/mem.JPG
Also, OCWorkBench has a review of the ASRock K8-Upgrade-760GX. They overclocked the FSB to 252MHz on this mATX board, so I can only assume it locks the AGP/PCI buses.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - link
#24 - justlyThere is actually another complaint about Sis. None of the Sis A64 cipsets I have tested, including the 939 Reference Board, have a working PCI/AGP lock. We sincerely hope this is fixed on the upcoming 939 chipset.
We liked the Sis chipset very much, but major manufacturers just wouldn't support it. If you recall we awarded the Refernece Board our Editors Choice - as did other web sites - then we all waited for the boards that never came.
I think Sis is an innovative chipset and we have reviewed all the Sis 754 boards we could find, including DFI and Foxconn. The people at Sis are also great to work with and we would personally love to see a significant win by Sis. Unfortunately, Sis is mainly seen in bargain boards. We agree it's a shame, but we also have to deal with reality in our testing.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - link
#24 and #26 - Justly -Thanks for the benefit of the doubt here. I always compare new drivers to earlier scores to see if there are substantive differences. Frankly if there are I normally stick with the old drivers for consistency.
That is the reason you have not seen us using Divx 5.2, for instance, in place of 5.1.1. When we tested 5.2 the performance differences from 5.1.1 were significant. Eventually we will replace 5.1.1 with the latest Divx when it fits the schedule to do retesting.
The performance differences I found cannot be explained with 4.8 vs. 4.5 ATI drivers. I suspect BIOS tweaks DO have something to do with it however, which, as you are suggesting, probably means the earlier boards with later BIOS' are probably also faster.
There is always the trade off between changing driver versions for testing and keeping drivers up-to-date. I can only say AnandTech is very cautious about driver versions - particularly in ongoing test/database areas like motherboards.
You will soon be seeing a new General Performance Benchmark at AnandTech, since Veritest and PC Magazine have discontinued support for Winstones (and they don't work well with SP2). We will be talking more about this in an upcoming review.
justly - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
#25 – I understand the delay involved in retesting. I am not trying to say that retesting is required for comparison, but if the scores where just copied then it would be nice to see it pointed out on the test configuration or in the final words that more than one video driver was used.Actually a while back (around the time of “the real slim shady” article) I noticed identical systems being retested (using identical software/drivers) where the scores fluctuated more than the difference I suspect this article might have. So I am really giving Wesley a lot of credit (although it may not sound like it) for being able to set up systems months apart with such consistency.
Really the only complaint I have (other than leaving out SiS) is that if he did what I suspect, then it should have been mentioned in the article. Then again if what I suspect is true it might have been better to leave out the whole first paragraph on the final word page.
TrogdorJW - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
#24 - I understand the desire to see comparable scores, but retesting on old hardware with new drivers would probably add a week or two of work. I certainly wouldn't want to do it! Then there are BIOS revisions that need to be updated as well. Yuck. :pI think it's relatively safe to say that performance with most of the other Nforce3-250 boards is going to be about the same as these, and the only remaining factor tends to be overclocking and features. I'm perfectly happy with my MSI K8N Neo Platinum. Were I buying a new S754 board today, it would still be a tough call between the DFI and the MSI board. I don't like the Asus look (or lack of certain features), and the same goes for the Soltek.
Really, I think I would still stick with my MSI board. It would probably end up coming down to what else was included with the motherboard - nice rounded IDE cables would be great, as would a rounded floppy cable (because I still use a floppy drive on occasion). Just one man's opinion, of course.
justly - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Wesley, first off I would like to say that I think your articles are some of the best on Anandtech. The thing is I still see a few things in your articles that “ever so slightly” annoy me.One is this quote “If overclocking is not particularly important to you, then one of the first generation boards based on the VIA chipset might also meet your needs at a lower price.” WELL WHAT ABOUT SiS. It seems that Anandtech has amnesia when it comes to SiS chipsets. Other than the very first SiS based socket 754 motherboard (the ECS 755-A) all Anandtech reviews seem to have only one main complaint about the SiS chipset, it overclocking abilities. So why don’t you mention it?
The other thing is that by looking through the Generation 2 Socket 754 Roundup it appears that the Generation 2 motherboard results where copied not retested. I think it would be fine to do (for comparison sake) if everything was the same but in the Generation 2 Socket 754 Roundup it shows a different video driver than what is listed for the Socket 754 Roundup, Part 3. So I have to ask is there absolutely no performance difference between the cat 4.5 and cat 4.8 drivers, or could the reason that the 3rd generation boards seem slightly faster have something to do with the video driver being used?
I realize that my concerns are very trivial and probably have no effect on the outcome of the article, but to be fair to the other chipset and motherboard manufactures I still think they are valid questions, trivial yes but still valid.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
#21 and #22 - The full implementation of nF3-250Gb is 4 SATA ports that can be combined in any way in RAID with the IDE ports. Asus implemented 2 nVidia SATA ports plus 4 Silicon Image SATA ports.The problem is ports 1 and 2 on nVidia are coupled with the PHY Gigabit LAN and generally will not overclock very well. Ports 3 and 4 generally perform as well as regular IDE on the nF3-250Gb chipset.
jediknight - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
OK... I'm confused here. I thought Asus added an *extra* RAID controller in addition to the one provided in the stock 250gb implementation. Am I wrong here?Zebo - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
"The decision by Asus to use Silicon Image SATA instead is really a drawback in overclocking."Instead of what?
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
#18 -Quite a few users are reporting success using the Mobile Athlon 64 chips with the DFI LANParty UT. Many are stating the DFI recognizes the mobiles just fine and sets the correct settings for the mobile chips. In fact you will see this combination as an alternate in an upcoming OC Guide.
The biggest issue with the 754 mobiles on a desktop, once the board compatability is fine, is the HSF. Most won't make good contact with the mobile that does not use a heatshield. I am hearing decent things about the Thermalright XP-90 sink with mobiles on a K8.