Amd Athlon 64 x2 which motherboard is suitable. System logic sets
Introduction
Getting started with dual-core desktop processors. In this round-up, you'll find everything about AMD's dual-core processor: general info, benchmarking, overclocking, and information on power consumption and heat dissipation.The time for dual-core processors has come. In the very near future, processors equipped with two computing cores will begin to actively penetrate desktop computers... By the end of next year, most new PCs should be based on a dual-core CPU.
Such a strong zeal of manufacturers to implement dual-core architectures is due to the fact that other methods for increasing performance have already exhausted themselves. Increasing clock speeds is very difficult, and increasing bus speed and cache size does not lead to a tangible result.
At the same time, the improvement of the 90 nm technological process has reached the point when the production of giant crystals with an area of \u200b\u200babout 200 sq. mm has become cost effective. It was this fact that made it possible for CPU manufacturers to launch a campaign to introduce dual-core architectures.
So, today, May 9, 2005, following Intel, AMD also presents its dual-core processors for desktop systems. However, as in the case of dual-core Smithfield processors (Intel Pentium D and Intel Extreme Edition), we are not talking about the start of deliveries yet, they will begin a little later. At the moment, AMD only gives us the opportunity to get acquainted with its promising proposals.
AMD's line of dual-core processors is called Athlon 64 X2. This name reflects both the fact that the new dual-core CPUs have the AMD64 architecture and the fact that they have two computing cores. Along with the name, desktop processors with two cores received their own logo:
The Athlon 64 X2 family will include four processors with ratings 4200+, 4400+, 4600+ and 4800+ when it hits stores. These processors can be purchased for between $ 500 and $ 1000, depending on their performance. That is, AMD puts its Athlon 64 X2 line a little higher than the usual Athlon 64.
However, before starting to judge the consumer qualities of the new CPUs, let's take a closer look at the features of these processors.
Athlon 64 X2 architecture
It should be noted that the implementation of dual-core in AMD processors is somewhat different from the implementation of Intel. Although, like the Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition, the Athlon 64 X2 is essentially two Athlon 64 processors combined on a single die, the dual-core processor from AMD offers a slightly different way of interaction between the cores.The fact is that Intel's approach is to simply place two Prescott cores on one die. With such a dual-core organization, the processor does not have any special mechanisms for interaction between the cores. That is, as with conventional dual-processor Xeon-based systems, the cores in Smithfield communicate (for example, to resolve cache coherency issues) via the system bus. Accordingly, the system bus is shared between the processor cores and when working with memory, which leads to increased latency when accessing the memory of both cores simultaneously.
AMD engineers foresaw the possibility of creating multi-core processors even at the stage of developing the AMD64 architecture. Thanks to this, we managed to bypass some bottlenecks in the dual-core Athlon 64 X2. First, not all resources are duplicated in new AMD processors. Although each of the Athlon 64 X2 cores has its own set of execution devices and dedicated L2 cache, the memory controller and Hyper-Transport bus controller are common for both cores. The interaction of each of the cores with shared resources is carried out through a special Crossbar-switch and a system request queue (System Request Queue). At the same level, the interaction of cores with each other is organized, due to which the issues of cache coherence are solved without additional load on the system bus and memory bus.
Thus, the only bottleneck in the Athlon 64 X2 architecture is the 6.4 GB per second memory bandwidth, which is shared between the processor cores. However, next year AMD plans to switch to using faster memory types, in particular, dual-channel DDR2-667 SDRAM. This step should have a positive effect on increasing the performance of precisely dual-core CPUs.
The lack of support for modern types of high-bandwidth memory with new dual-core processors is explained by the fact that AMD first of all tried to keep the Athlon 64 X2 compatible with existing platforms. As a result, these processors can be used in the same motherboards as regular Athlon 64. Therefore, Athlon 64 X2 have Socket 939 package, dual channel memory controller with DDR400 SDRAM support and work with HyperTransport bus up to 1 GHz. Because of this, the only thing required to support AMD's dual-core CPUs with modern Socket 939 motherboards is a BIOS update. In this regard, it should be noted separately that, fortunately, AMD engineers managed to fit the Athlon 64 X2's power consumption into the previously established framework.
Thus, in terms of compatibility with the existing infrastructure, dual-core processors from AMD turned out to be better than competing products from Intel. Smithfield is only compatible with the new i955X and NVIDIA nFroce4 (Intel Edition) chipsets, and also places increased demands on the motherboard power converter.
The Athlon 64 X2 processors are based on cores codenamed Toledo and Manchester with stepping E, that is, in terms of their functionality (except for the ability to process two computational threads simultaneously), the new CPUs are similar to Athlon 64 based on San Diego and Venice cores. Thus, Athlon 64 X2 supports the SSE3 instruction set and also has an improved memory controller. Among the features of the Athlon 64 X2 memory controller, we should mention the possibility of using different-sized DIMMs in different channels (up to installing modules of different sizes in both memory channels) and the ability to work with four double-sided DIMMs in DDR400 mode.
Athlon 64 X2 (Toledo) processors, containing two cores with a L2 cache of 1 MB per core, consist of approximately 233.2 million transistors and have an area of \u200b\u200babout 199 square meters. mm. Thus, as you might expect, the die and complexity of a dual-core processor turns out to be about twice the die of a corresponding single-core CPU.
Athlon 64 X2 line
The Athlon 64 X2 processor line includes four CPU models rated 4800+, 4600+, 4400+ and 4200+. They can be based on kernels codenamed Toledo and Manchester. The differences between them are in the size of the L2 cache. The Toledo processors, which are rated 4800+ and 4400+, have two 1MB L2 caches (for each core). CPUs codenamed Manchester have half the cache size: twice 512 KB each.The frequencies of AMD dual-core processors are quite high and equal to 2.2 or 2.4 GHz. That is, the clock speed of the senior AMD dual-core processor corresponds to that of the senior processor in the Athlon 64 line. This means that even in applications that do not support multi-threading, Athlon 64 X2 will be able to demonstrate a very good performance level.
As for the electrical and thermal characteristics, despite the fairly high frequencies of Athlon 64 X2, they differ little from the corresponding characteristics of single-core CPUs. The maximum heat dissipation of the new processors with two cores is 110 W versus 89 W for ordinary Athlon 64, and the supply current has increased to 80A against 57.4A. However, if we compare electrical characteristics Athlon 64 X2 with Athlon 64 FX-55 specifications, then the increase in maximum heat dissipation will be only 6W, and the maximum current will not change at all. Thus, we can say that Athlon 64 X2 processors make about the same requirements to the motherboard power converter as Athlon 64 FX-55.
The overall characteristics of the Athlon 64 X2 processor line are as follows:
It should be noted that AMD is positioning Athlon 64 X2 as a completely independent line that meets its goals. Processors of this family are intended for the group of advanced users for whom the ability to use several resource-intensive applications at the same time is important, or who use applications for creating digital content in their daily work, most of which effectively support multithreading. That is, Athlon 64 X2 seems to be a kind of analogue of Athlon 64 FX, but not for gamers, but for enthusiasts who use PCs for work.
At the same time, the release of Athlon 64 X2 does not cancel the existence of other lines: Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 and Sempron. All of them will continue to coexist peacefully in the market.
But, it should be separately noted that the Athlon 64 X2 and Athlon 64 lines have a unified rating system. This means that Athlon 64 processors with ratings higher than 4000+ will not appear on the market. At the same time, the Athlon 64 FX family of single-core processors will continue to evolve, since these CPUs are in demand by gamers.
The prices of Athlon 64 X2 are such that, judging by them, this line can be considered a further development of the usual Athlon 64. In fact, it is so. As the older Athlon 64 models move into the mid-range, the top models in this lineup will be replaced by the Athlon 64 X2.
Athlon 64 X2 processors are expected to be available in June. AMD's suggested retail prices are as follows:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ - $ 1001;
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ - $ 803;
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ - $ 581;
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ - $ 537.
Athlon 64 X2 4800+: first acquaintance
We managed to get a sample of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processor for testing, which is the senior model in the line of dual-core processors from AMD. This processor in its own way appearance turned out to be very similar to his ancestors. In fact, it differs from the usual Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 for Socket 939 only by the marking.
Despite the fact that Athlon 64 X2 is a typical Socket 939 processor, which should be compatible with most motherboards with a 939-pin processor socket, at the moment its functioning with many mainboards is difficult due to the lack of necessary BIOS support. The only motherboard on which this CPU was able to work in dual-core mode in our laboratory was ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe, for which there is a special technological BIOS supporting Athlon 64 X2. However, it is obvious that with the advent of AMD dual-core processors in wide sale, this shortcoming will be eliminated.
It should be noted that without the necessary support from the BIOS, Athlon 64 X2 works excellently in single-core mode in any motherboard. That is, without updated firmware, our Athlon 64 X2 4800+ worked like Athlon 64 4000+.
The popular utility CPU-Z still gives incomplete information about Athlon 64 X2, although it recognizes it:
Despite the fact that CPU-Z detects two cores, all displayed information about the cache memory refers to only one of the CPU cores.
Anticipating the performance tests of the resulting processor, we first decided to investigate its thermal and electrical characteristics. First, we compared the temperature of Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with that of other Socket 939 processors. For these experiments we used a single air cooler AVC Z7U7414001; The processors were warmed up by the S&M 1.6.0 utility, which turned out to be compatible with the dual-core Athlon 64 X2.
At rest, the temperature of the Athlon 64 X2 turns out to be slightly higher than the temperature of the Athlon 64 processors on the Venice core. However, despite the presence of two cores in it, this CPU is not hotter than single-core processors produced by 130nm process technology. Moreover, the same picture is observed at maximum CPU load. The Athlon 64 X2 temperature at 100% load is lower than the temperature of Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX, which use 130 nm cores. Thus, thanks to the lower supply voltage and the use of the revision E core, AMD engineers really managed to achieve acceptable heat dissipation in their dual-core processors.
While examining the power consumption of Athlon 64 X2, we decided to compare it not only with the corresponding characteristic of single-core Socket 939 CPUs, but also with the power consumption of older Intel processors.
Surprising as it may seem, the power consumption of the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is lower than that of the Athlon 64 FX-55. This is explained by the fact that Athlon 64 FX-55 is based on the old 130 nm core, so there is nothing strange about it. The main conclusion is different: those motherboards that were compatible with Athlon 64 FX-55 are able (in terms of power converter capacity) to support the new dual-core AMD processors. That is, AMD is absolutely right in saying that all the infrastructure necessary for the implementation of Athlon 64 X2 is almost ready.
Naturally, we did not miss the opportunity to check the overclocking potential of Athlon 64 X2 4800+. Unfortunately, the technological BIOS for ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe supporting Athlon 64 X2 does not allow changing either the voltage on the CPU or its multiplier. Therefore, the experiments on overclocking were carried out at the processor voltage by increasing the clock generator frequency.
In the course of experiments, we were able to increase the clock generator frequency to 225 MHz, while the processor continued to maintain the ability to operate stable. That is, as a result of overclocking, we managed to raise the frequency of the new dual-core CPU from AMD to 2.7 GHz.
So, when overclocking Athlon 64 X2 4800+ allowed to increase its frequency by 12.5%, which, in our opinion, is not so bad for a dual-core CPU. At the very least, we can say that the frequency potential of the Toledo core is close to the potential of other cores of revision E: San Diego, Venice and Palermo. So the result achieved during overclocking gives us hope for the appearance of even faster processors in the Athlon 64 X2 family before the next technological process is introduced.
How we tested
As part of this test, we compared the performance of the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with the performance of the older single-core processors. That is, the competitors of the Athlon 64 X2 were Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Pentium 4 and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition.Unfortunately, today we cannot provide a comparison of the new dual-core processor from AMD with a competing solution from Intel, a CPU codenamed Smithfield. However, in the very near future our test results will be supplemented by the results of Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, several systems took part in testing, which consisted of the following set of components:
Processors:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (Socket 939, 2.4 GHz, 2 x 1024KB L2, core revision E6 - Toledo);
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 (Socket 939, 2.6 GHz, 1024KB L2, CG core revision - Clawhammer);
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (Socket 939, 2.4 GHz, 1024KB L2, CG core revision - Clawhammer);
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (Socket 939, 2.4 GHz, 512KB L2, core revision E3 - Venice);
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73 GHz (LGA775, 3.73 GHz, 2MB L2);
Intel Pentium 4 660 (LGA775, 3.6 GHz, 2MB L2);
Intel Pentium 4 570 (LGA775, 3.8 GHz, 1MB L2);
Motherboards:
ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe (Socket 939, NVIDIA nForce4 SLI);
NVIDIA C19 CRB Demo Board (LGA775, nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition)).
Memory:
1024MB DDR400 SDRAM (Corsair CMX512-3200XLPRO, 2 x 512MB, 2-2-2-10);
1024MB DDR2-667 SDRAM (Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL, 2 x 512MB, 4-4-4-12).
Graphic card: - PowerColor RADEON X800 XT (PCI-E x16).
Disk subsystem: - Maxtor MaXLine III 250GB (SATA150).
Operating system: - Microsoft Windows XP SP2.
Performance
Office workWe used the SYSmark 2004 and Business Winstone 2004 benchmarks to examine productivity in office applications.
The Business Winstone 2004 test simulates user experience in common applications: Microsoft Access 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft FrontPage 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Project 2002, Microsoft Word 2002, Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003, and WinZip 8.1. The result obtained is quite logical: all these applications do not use multithreading, and therefore Athlon 64 X2 is only slightly faster than its single-core counterpart Athlon 64 4000+. The slight advantage is due to the improved memory controller of the Toledo core rather than the presence of a second core.
However, in everyday office work, several applications often run simultaneously. How effective AMD dual-core processors are in this case is shown below.
In this case, the speed of work in Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorerwhile copying files in the background. However, as the diagram below shows, copying files is not such a difficult task and the dual-core architecture does not give a win here.
This test is somewhat more difficult. Here, files are archived in the background using Winzip, while in the foreground the user is working in Excel and Word. And in this case, we get a quite tangible dividend from dual-core. Athlon 64 X2 4800+ operating at 2.4 GHz outperforms not only Athlon 64 4000+, but also the single-core Athlon 64 FX-55 at 2.6 GHz.
As the complexity of tasks running in the background, the delights of the dual-core architecture begin to manifest themselves more and more. In this case, the user's work in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Access, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage and WinZip applications is simulated, while an anti-virus scan is performed in the background. In this test, the running applications are able to properly load both Athlon 64 X2 cores, the result of which is not long in coming. A dual-core processor solves the assigned tasks one and a half times faster than a similar single-core processor.
This simulates the work of a user receiving an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip archive. While the received files are scanned for viruses using VirusScan 7.0, the user scans the e-mail and makes notes in the Outlook calendar. The user then browses the corporate website and some documents using Internet Explorer 6.0.
This model of user work provides for the use of multithreading, so Athlon 64 X2 4800+ demonstrates higher performance than single-core processors from AMD and Intel. Note that Pentium 4 processors with "virtual" multi-threading Hyper-Threading cannot boast of the same high performance as Athlon 64 X2, which houses two real independent processor cores.
In this benchmark, a hypothetical user edits text in Word 2002 and also uses Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6 to convert an audio file to a text document. The finished document is converted to pdf format using Acrobat 5.0.5. Then, using the generated document, a presentation is created in PowerPoint 2002. And in this case Athlon 64 X2 is again at its best.
Here, the model is as follows: a user opens a database in Access 2002 and runs a series of queries. Documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The query results are exported to Excel 2002 and a chart is built from them. Although in this case the positive effect of dual-core is also present, processors of the Pentium 4 family cope with such work a little faster.
In general, the following can be said regarding the justification of using dual-core processors in office applications. By themselves, these types of applications are rarely optimized for multi-threaded workloads. Therefore, it is difficult to get a benefit when working in one particular application on a dual-core processor. However, if the model of work is such that some of the resource-intensive tasks are performed in the background, then processors with two cores can give a very noticeable increase in performance.
Digital content creation
In this section, we will again use the SYSmark 2004 and Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 complex tests.
The benchmark simulates work in the following applications: Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1, Adobe Premiere 6.50, Macromedia Director MX 9.0, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 6.1, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980, NewTek LightWave 3D 7.5b, Steinberg WaveLab 4.0f. Since most applications for creating and processing digital content support multithreading, the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is not surprising at all in this test. Moreover, we note that the advantage of this dual-core CPU is manifested even when parallel work in several applications is not used.
When multiple applications are running at the same time, dual-core processors can deliver even more impressive results. For example, in this test in the 3ds max 5.1 package, an image is rendered to a bmp file, and, at the same time, the user prepares web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders 3D animation in vector graphic format.
In this case, the work in Premiere 6.5 is simulated by a user who creates a video clip from several other clips in raw format and separate audio tracks. While waiting for the end of the operation, the user also prepares the image in Photoshop 7.01, modifying the existing image and saving it to disk. After completing the video clip, the user edits it and adds special effects in After Effects 5.5.
And again we see a huge advantage of the dual-core architecture from AMD both over the usual Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX, and over the Pentium 4 with the "virtual" multi-core Hyper-Threading technology.
And here is another manifestation of the triumph of AMD's dual-core architecture. Its reasons are the same as in the previous case. They are hidden in the used model of work. Here, a hypothetical user unzips website content from a zip file while simultaneously using Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics clip. The user then modifies it to include other images and optimizes for faster animation. The final video with special effects is compressed with using Windows Media Encoder 9 for streaming over the Internet. The website is then compiled in Dreamweaver MX, while the system is scanned for viruses using VirusScan 7.0.
Thus, it must be recognized that dual-core architecture is very beneficial for digital content applications. Almost any task of this type can efficiently load both CPU cores at the same time, which leads to a significant increase in system speed.
PCMark04, 3DMark 2001 SE, 3DMark05
Separately, we decided to look at the speed of Athlon 64 X2 in popular synthetic benchmarks from FutureMark.
As we have noted many times before, PCMark04 is optimized for multi-threaded systems. That is why Pentium 4 processors with Hyper-Threading technology showed better results in it than CPUs of the Athlon 64 family. However, now the situation has changed. Two real cores in Athlon 64 X2 4800+ put this processor at the top of the chart.
Graphics tests of the 3DMark family do not support multithreading in any way. Therefore, the results of Athlon 64 X2 here differ little from those of the usual Athlon 64 with 2.4 GHz frequency. A slight advantage over Athlon 64 4000+ is explained by the improved memory controller in the Toledo core, and a large amount of cache memory over Athlon 64 3800+.
However, 3DMark05 contains a couple of tests that can use multithreading. These are CPU tests. In these benchmarks, the CPU is charged with software emulation of vertex shaders, and, in addition, the second thread calculates the physics of the game environment.
The results are quite natural. If an application is able to use two cores, then dual-core processors are much faster than single-core ones.
Game applications
Unfortunately, modern gaming applications do not support multithreading. Despite the fact that the technology of "virtual" multicore Hyper-Threading appeared a long time ago, game developers are in no hurry to divide the calculations performed by the game engine into several threads. And the point, most likely, is not that it is difficult for games to do this. Apparently, the growth of the computing power of the processor for games is not so important, since the main load in tasks of this type falls on the video card.
However, the advent of dual-core CPUs on the market gives some hope that game manufacturers will become more load on the central processor with calculations. This could result in a new generation of games with advanced artificial intelligence and realistic physics.
So far, there is no point in using dual-core CPUs in gaming systems. That is why, by the way, AMD is not going to stop developing its line of processors aimed specifically at gamers, Athlon 64 FX. These processors are characterized by higher frequencies and the presence of a single computing core.
Compression of information
Unfortunately, WinRAR does not support multithreading, so the result of Athlon 64 X2 4800+ practically does not differ from the result of a regular Athlon 64 4000+.
However, there are archivers that can leverage dual core effectively. For example, 7zip. When tested in it, the results of Athlon 64 X2 4800+ fully justify the cost of this processor.
Audio and video encoding
The popular mp3 codec Lame did not support multithreading until recently. However, the newly released version 3.97 alpha 2 corrected this shortcoming. As a result, Pentium 4 processors began to encode audio faster than Athlon 64, and Athlon 64 X2 4800+, although it outperforms its single-core counterparts, still lags behind the older models of the Pentium 4 and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition families.
Although the Mainconcept codec can use two computing cores, the speed of Athlon 64 X2 is not much higher than the speed demonstrated by its single-core counterparts. Moreover, this advantage is partly due not only to the dual-core architecture, but also to support for SSE3 commands, as well as an improved memory controller. As a result, Pentium 4 with one core in Mainconcept works noticeably faster than Athlon 64 X2 4800+.
When encoding MPEG-4 with the popular DiVX codec, the picture is completely different. Athlon 64 X2, due to the presence of the second core, gets a good increase in speed, which allows it to outperform even older Pentium 4 models.
The XviD codec also supports multithreading, but the addition of a second core in this case gives much less speed gain than in the DiVX episode.
Obviously, of the codecs, Windows Media Encoder is best optimized for multi-core architectures. For example, Athlon 64 X2 4800+ performs encoding using this codec 1.7 times faster than a single-core Athlon 64 4000+ running at the same clock speed. As a result, it is simply pointless to talk about any kind of rivalry between single-core and dual-core processors in WME.
Like digital content processing applications, the vast majority of codecs have long been optimized for Hyper-Threading. As a result, dual-core processors, which allow executing two computational threads simultaneously, perform encoding faster than single-core ones. That is, the use of systems with a CPU with two cores for encoding audio and video content is quite justified.
Image and video editing
Popular Adobe video and image editing products are highly optimized for multiprocessor systems and Hyper-Threading. Therefore, in Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere, the dual-core processor from AMD demonstrates extremely high performance, significantly exceeding the speed of not only Athlon 64 FX-55, but also faster ones in tasks of this class. pentium processors 4.
Text recognising
The quite popular program for OCR ABBYY Finereader, although it is optimized for processors with Hyper-Threading technology, works on Athlon 64 X2 with only one thread. This is an obvious mistake of programmers who detect the possibility of parallelizing computations by processor name.
Unfortunately, similar examples of incorrect programming are found today. Let's hope that today the number of applications like ABBYY Finereader is minimal, and in the near future their number will be reduced to zero.
Math calculations
Strange as it may seem, but the popular mathematical packages MATLAB and Mathematica in the version for the operating room windows systems XP does not support multithreading. Therefore, in these tasks Athlon 64 X2 4800+ performs approximately on a par with Athlon 64 4000+, outperforming it only due to a better optimized memory controller.
But many problems of mathematical modeling allow organizing parallelization of computations, which gives a good increase in performance in the case of using dual-core CPUs. This is confirmed by the ScienceMark test.
3D rendering
Final rendering refers to tasks that can be easily and efficiently parallelized. Therefore, it is not surprising that the use of the Athlon 64 X2 processor, equipped with two computational cores, in 3ds max, allows you to get a very good performance gain.
A similar picture is observed in Lightwave. Thus, the use of dual-core processors in the final rendering is no less advantageous than in applications for image and video processing.
General impressions
Before formulating general conclusions based on the results of our testing, a few words should be said about what remains behind the scenes. Namely, the comfort of using systems equipped with dual-core processors. The point is that in a system with one single-core processor, for example, Athlon 64, only one computational thread can be executed at a time. This means that if several applications are running in the system at the same time, then the OC scheduler is forced to switch processor resources between tasks at a high frequency.Due to the fact that modern processors very fast, switching between tasks usually remains invisible to the user's eyes. However, there are applications that are difficult to interrupt to transfer CPU time to other tasks in the queue. In this case, the operating system starts to slow down, which often irritates the person sitting at the computer. Also, it is often possible to observe a situation when an application, taking processor resources, "hangs", and such an application can be very difficult to remove from execution, since it does not give processor resources even to the operating system scheduler.
Similar problems occur in systems equipped with dual-core processors, much less often. The fact is that processors with two cores are capable of simultaneously executing two computational threads, respectively, for the functioning of the scheduler, there are twice as many free resources that can be shared between running applications. In fact, in order for work in a system with a dual-core processor to become uncomfortable, it is necessary to simultaneously intersect two processes trying to seize all the CPU resources for undivided use.
In conclusion, we decided to conduct a small experiment showing how the parallel execution of a large number of resource-intensive applications affects the performance of a system with a single-core and dual-core processor. To do this, we measured the fps number in Half-Life 2 by running several copies of the WinRAR archiver in the background.
As you can see, when using the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processor in the system, the performance in Half-Life 2 remains at an acceptable level much longer than in the system with a single-core, but higher-frequency Athlon 64 FX-55 processor. In fact, on a system with a single-core processor, launching one background application already results in a twofold speed drop. With a further increase in the number of tasks running in the background, performance drops to an indecent level.
In a system with a dual-core processor, it is possible to maintain high performance of the application running in the foreground for much longer. Running one copy of WinRAR goes almost unnoticed, adding more background applications, although affecting the foreground task, results in much less performance degradation. It should be noted that the drop in speed in this case is caused not so much by the lack of processor resources as by the division of the memory bus limited in bandwidth between the running applications. That is, if background tasks are not actively working with memory, the foreground application is unlikely to react strongly to an increase in background load.
conclusions
Today we have our first acquaintance with dual-core processors from AMD. As the tests showed, the idea of \u200b\u200bcombining two cores in one processor has demonstrated its viability in practice.The use of dual-core processors in desktop systems can significantly increase the speed of a number of applications that effectively use multithreading. Due to the fact that virtual multithreading technology, Hyper-Threading has been present in Pentium 4 processors for a very long time, software developers now offer a fairly large number of programs that can benefit from the dual-core CPU architecture. So, among the applications, the speed of which will be increased on dual-core processors, it should be noted utilities for encoding video and audio, 3D modeling and rendering systems, programs for photo and video editing, as well as professional graphics applications of the CAD class.
At the same time, there is a large amount of software that does not use multithreading or uses it extremely limited. Among the prominent representatives of such programs are office applications, web browsers, email clients, media players, and games. However, even in such applications, the dual-core CPU architecture can have a positive impact. For example, in cases where several applications are running simultaneously.
Summarizing the above, in the graph below we simply give a numerical expression of the advantage of the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4800+ over the single-core Athlon 64 4000+ operating at the same 2.4 GHz frequency.
As you can see from the graph, Athlon 64 X2 4800+ turns out to be much faster in many applications than the older CPU in the Athlon 64 family. And if it were not for the fabulously high cost of Athlon 64 X2 4800+, exceeding $ 1000, this CPU could be called very profitable acquisition. Moreover, it does not lag behind its single-core counterparts in any application.
Considering the price of Athlon 64 X2, it should be admitted that today these processors, along with Athlon 64 FX, can be just one more offer for well-off enthusiasts. Those of them, for whom the main thing is not gaming performance, but the speed of work in other applications, will pay attention to the Athlon 64 X2 line. Extreme gamers will obviously remain Athlon 64 FX adherents.
The review of dual-core processors on our site does not end there. In the coming days, look forward to the second part of the epic, in which we will talk about dual-core CPUs from Intel.
The ComputerPress test laboratory has tested seven motherboards for the AMD Athlon 64 processor to find out their performance. The testing evaluated the capabilities of the following motherboards: ABIT KV8-MAX3 v.1.0, Albatron K8X800 ProII, ASUS K8V Deluxe rev. 1.12, ECS PHOTON KV1 Deluxe v1.0, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers D1607 G11, Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP rev. 1.0 , Shuttle AN50R v.1.2.
Introduction
we decided to devote alternate testing of motherboards to models designed to work with AMD Athlon 64 processors, which have rightfully been attracting increased attention lately. But no matter how good a processor is, it cannot work on its own. He, like a precious stone, requires no less beautiful "setting", which would allow to fully reveal its capabilities and advantages. And this difficult, but honorable role is assigned to the motherboard, the very name of which speaks of its dominant place in the general architecture. computer system... In many ways, it is the motherboard that determines the capabilities of the computer system being created. And, as you know, the basis of any motherboard, its, if I may say so, the most important classification feature is the system logic chipset on which it is built. At present, almost all chipset manufacturers have offered their solutions for working with the new Athlon 64 processors from AMD: among them NVIDIA, and VIA, and SiS, and even the ALi, which many have forgotten. But, despite all this diversity, the most widely represented motherboards on the market today are motherboards based on chipsets of system logic from only two manufacturers: NVIDIA (NVIDIA nForce3 150) and VIA (VIA K8T800), and Socket754 motherboards based on VIA chipsets are the most common. But before starting to consider the capabilities of the motherboards received for testing in our laboratory, it will be useful for the reader to briefly familiarize themselves with the capabilities of the two above-mentioned chipsets of system logic.
NVIDIA nForce3 150
Figure: 1. Chipset NVIDIA nForce3 150
considering how successful the system logic chipsets released by NVIDIA were for working with AMD Athlon / Duron / Athlon XP processors (naturally, we are talking about nForce and nForce2 chipsets), it does not seem at all surprising that NVIDIA has become a partner of AMD in promoting new processors of the AMD Athlon 64 family to the market. What innovations implemented in the new nForce3 150 chipset did NVIDIA decide this time to surprise everyone? Here, first of all, attention is drawn to the fact that nForce3 150 is a single-chip solution. Thus, this chipset is a single microcircuit made using 150nm technology and having a 1309-pin BallBGA package. The north and south bridges of this chipset are made here on one microcircuit. True, in this case (for AMD 64 architecture processors) the north bridge performs much more modest functions, and by and large it is just an AGP tunnel that provides a graphics port (AGP) that meets the requirements of the AGP 3.0 and AGP 2.0 specifications, that is capable of supporting 0.8- and 1.5-volt graphics cards with 8x, 4x and 2x interfaces. In addition, it should be noted that the HyperTransport bus connecting the chipset with the processor is somewhat "narrowed" and only 8 bits are used for transmission in one direction (versus 16 bits in the other); the data packet transmission rate is 600 MHz. In order to more effectively use the potential of the HyperTransport channel, the StreamThru technology was applied, which allows organizing several virtual isochronous streams for transferring data from various devices, which increases the speed of information exchange for them due to the absence of interruptions. As for the functions of the south bridge, here their set is quite standard, and moreover, even somewhat poorer than in the case of using the MCP-T chip in nForce and nForce2 chipsets:
Dual-channel ATA133 IDE controller;
USB host controller (one USB 2.0 host controller (Enhanced Host Controller Interface (EHCI)) and two USB 1.1 host controllers (Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI)) supporting six USB 2.0 ports;
Support for six 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.3 slots;
Support for one ACR slot;
Integrated sound controller;
10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller (MAC layer).
The new version of the NVIDIA nForce3 250 chipset, in addition to the mentioned features, will also support the SATA interface with the possibility of organizing a RAID array of levels 0, 1, or 0 + 1, and all connected IDE devices, such as SerialATA, can be included in the RAID array. and ParallelATA, and in addition, a Gigabit Ethernet controller (MAC) will be integrated.
VIA K8T800
Figure: 2. Chipset VIA K8T800
the VIA K8T800 system logic chip set includes two chips: an AGP tunnel, or, in the old fashioned way, a K8T800 northbridge chip, made in a 578-pin BallBGA package, and a VT8237 southbridge chip, made in a 539-pin BallBGA package.
It should be noted right away that this two-chip solution, as always, not only provides a number of advantages, but also has its drawbacks. The disadvantages include the need to create an external data transmission channel between the chips of the north and south bridges, which, of course, provides lower bandwidth and much higher latency than the internal interface. In this case, the VIA K8T800 and VIA VT8237 chips are connected by a V-Link channel with a maximum bandwidth of 533 MB / s. At the same time, such a solution allows a more flexible approach to the development and production of chipset microcircuits. Thus, the system logic microcircuits of the south and north bridges can be produced using different technical process standards, and in addition, when unifying the communication interface, various combinations of these chips can be used. It is this approach that found its embodiment in the V-MAP technology implemented by VIA for this system logic chipset. This means that, in principle, the place of the VT8237 chip can be successfully taken by another version of the south bridge, made in accordance with the V-MAP technology, for example, the cheaper but, naturally, less functional VT8335. But this is a theoretical possibility, and at present the traditional is a bundle of VIA K8T800 and VIA VT8237 chips. Let's take a look at the capabilities of this chipset. The VIA K8T800 northbridge chip has a graphics port controller that meets the AGP 3.0 specification and supports AGP 8x / 4x graphics cards. In addition, this chip supports two interfaces that ensure its interaction with the central processor and the south bridge - of course, we are talking about the HyperTransport and V-Link buses, respectively. And if the capabilities of the V-Link bus have already been mentioned above, then the HyperTransport channel should be discussed separately. Here, first of all, it should be noted that the VIA K8T800 chip supports the operation of a 16-bit bidirectional HyperTransport channel with a data transmission frequency of 800 MHz. At the same time, to improve performance, a proprietary technology - VIA Hyper8 was used, thanks to which VIA specialists managed to reduce noise and signal interference for the HyperTransport channel, which made it possible to fully implement the capabilities of this exchange bus for the VIA K8T800 chipset, laid down in the specification of AMD Athlon 64 processors.
The south bridge of the chipset - VIA VT8237 - meets the highest requirements for a modern south bridge, providing motherboard developers with all the necessary set of integrated devices to implement an impressive list of basic functionalities. So, this microcircuit has:
Integrated 100Mbps Ethernet Controller (MAC);
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting IDE devices with ATA33 / 66/100/133 or ATAPI interface;
A SATA controller that supports two SATA 1.0 ports and a SATALite interface, which allows, when using an additional controller with a SATALite interface, to support two more SATA ports and use V-RAID technology to organize them (only when four disks are connected) into a RAID array 0 + 1;
V-RAID controller, which allows organizing SATA disks into a RAID array of levels 0, 1 or 0 + 1 (the latter mode is possible only when four SATA devices are connected);
Support for eight USB 2.0 ports;
AC'97 digital controller with VinyI Audio technology support;
Supports ACPI power management;
LPC (Low Pin Count) interface support;
Supports six 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.3 slots.
Testing technique
for testing, we used the following test bench configuration:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2 GHz);
Memory: 2x256 MB PC 3500 Kingstone KHX3500 in DDR400 mode;
Video card: ASUS Radeon 9800XT with ATI СATALYST 3.9 video driver;
Hard drive: IBM IC35L080AVVA07-0 (80 GB, 7200 rpm).
Testing was carried out under the operating system Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1. In addition, latest versions driver update packages for the chipsets on which the motherboards were built: for VIA K8T800 - VIA Service Pack 4.51v (VIAHyperion4in1 4.51v), and for NVIDIA nForce3 150 - a set of drivers version 3.13. For each motherboard tested, the latest BIOS version at the time of testing was used. At the same time, all the settings of the basic I / O system, allowing any kind of overclocking of the system, were disabled. During the tests, we used both synthetic tests that assess the performance of individual subsystems of a personal computer, and test packages that assess the overall performance of the system when working with office, multimedia, gaming and professional graphics applications.
For a detailed analysis of the operation of the processor subsystem and memory subsystem, we used such synthetic tests as: СPU BenchMark, MultiMedia CPU BenchMark and Memory BenchMark from the SiSoft Sandra 2004 package, CPU RightMark 2.0, Molecular Dynamics Benchmark and MemBench included in the ScienceMark 2.0 test utility, and See also the Cache Burst 32 test utility. This selection of tests allows you to comprehensively evaluate the performance of the subsystems under study:
SiSoft Sandra 2004 CPU Arithmetic Benchmark allows you to evaluate the performance of arithmetic calculations and floating point operations in comparison with other reference computer systems;
SiSoft Sandra 2004 CPU Multi-Media Benchmark evaluates the multimedia performance of a system using the processor-supported SIMD instruction sets versus other reference computer systems;
The SiSoft Sandra 2004 Memory Bandwidth Benchmark measures the bandwidth of the memory subsystem (processor-chipset-memory link) when performing integer and floating point operations compared to other reference computer systems;
ScienceMark 2.0 Molecular Dynamics Benchmark provides the ability to assess the performance of a system when performing complex computing tasks. So, during this test, the time required to calculate the thermodynamic model of the argon atom is determined;
ScienceMark 2.0 MemBench and Cache Burst 32 allow you to determine the maximum memory bus bandwidth (both main and processor cache), as well as latency (latency) of the memory subsystem.
The MadOnion PCMark2004 utility was used as a complex synthetic test, which provides verification of the capabilities of almost all computer subsystems and outputs a generalized result that allows judging the performance of the system as a whole.
Office productivity and Internet content creation applications measured using Office Productivity and Internet Content Creation benchmarks from SySMark 2002 benchmark, Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 and Business Winstone 2002 v.1.0.1, Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0 and Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0. The need to use such a large set of such tests is associated with the desire to most objectively assess the performance of computer systems built on the basis of the motherboards we are studying. Therefore, we tried to balance the set of tests by including in the testing program both the SySMark 2002 package, which is not very popular with AMD, and the popular VeriTest package, which includes the Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 and Business Winstone 2002 v.1.0.1 tests, and the updated new version of this package, which includes Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0 and Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0 (about the new version of the VeriTest package can be found in the article "New standard for assessing PC performance" in # 1'2004). Work with professional graphics applications was evaluated using the SPECviewPerf v7.1.1 test utility, which includes a number of subtests that emulate computer system loading when working with professional MCAD (Mechanical Computer Aided Design) and DCC (Digital Content Creation) OpenGL applications. The capabilities of personal computers built on the basis of the tested motherboard models for 3D gaming applications were evaluated using MadOnion 3DMark 2001SE (build 330) and FutureMark 3DMark 2003 (build 340) test packages; the test was performed using both hardware rendering and software rendering. In addition, to assess the performance of motherboards in modern games, tests of popular games were used, such as: Comanche 4, Unreal Tournament 2003, Quake III Arena, Serious Sam: Second Encounter, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Also during testing, the time of archiving the reference file (the installation directory of the MadOnion SYSmark 2002 test distribution kit) by the WinRar 3.2 archiver (using the default settings), the time of converting the reference wav file to an mp3 file (MPEG1 Layer III), for which the AudioGrabber utility was used v1.82 with Lame 3.93.1 codec, as well as a reference MPEG2 file to an MPEG4 file using the VirtualDub1.5.10 utility and DivX Pro 5.1.1 codec.
Criteria for evaluation
to assess the capabilities of motherboards, we have derived a number of integral indicators:
Integral performance indicator - to assess the performance of the tested motherboards;
Integral quality index - to assess both the performance and functionality of motherboards;
Quality / price indicator.
The need to introduce these indicators is caused by the desire to compare boards not only by individual characteristics and test results, but also in general, that is, integrally.
To determine the integral performance indicator, all tests were divided into a number of categories in accordance with the type of tasks performed in the course of a particular test utility. Each category of tests was assigned its own weighting factor in accordance with the significance of the tasks performed; at the same time, within the category, each test also received its own weighting factor. Note that these weights reflect our subjective assessment of the significance of the tests used. When determining the integral performance indicator, the results obtained during the execution of synthetic tests were not taken into account. Thus, the integral performance indicator was obtained by adding the normalized values \u200b\u200bof the test results summarized by categories, taking into account the weight coefficients given in table. 1 .
In addition, we introduced a correction factor that was supposed to neutralize the influence of deviations of the FSB frequency from the nominal value determined by the corresponding specifications.
where
- integral performance indicator;
Is the normalized value of the i-th test j-th categories;
- weight coefficient of the i-th test of the j-th category;
- weight coefficient of the j-th category;
- correction factor.
The integral quality indicator, in addition to the results obtained by us during testing, also takes into account the functionality of motherboards, the evaluation system of which is given in Table. 2.
Thus, the value of the integral quality indicator is determined as the product of the normalized value of the integral performance indicator (taking into account the correction factor) by the normalized value of the functionality coefficient:
, where is the normalized assessment of functionality.
The "quality / price" indicator was defined as the ratio of the normalized values \u200b\u200bof the integral quality indicator and the price:
Where C is the standardized price.
Editor's Choice
on the test results, the winners were determined in three nominations:
1. "Performance" - the motherboard with the best integral performance index.
2. "Quality" - the motherboard with the best integral quality index.
3. "Best Buy" - a motherboard that has the best quality / price ratio.
The best integrated performance indicator according to the results of our tests is the motherboard Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP rev. 1.0.
The best integral quality indicator, in our opinion, is possessed by the motherboard ABIT KV8-MAX3 v.1.0.
The Editor's Choice in the Best Buy nomination was awarded to the motherboard ASUS K8V Deluxe.
Test participants
ABIT KV8-MAX3 v.1.0
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Maximum capacity: 2 GB.
Chipset
Expansion slots
Disk subsystem
Dual channel SATA controller that allows you to connect two SATA 1.0 drives and organize them into RAID 0 or 1.
Silicon Image SiI3114A four-channel SerialATA controller (supports four devices with SerialATA 1.0 (ATA150) interface, allowing them to be organized into a 0.1 or 0 + 1 RAID array).
8 USB 2.0 ports
Network
Gigabit PCI Ethernet controller 3Com 3С940
Sound
I / O controller
Winbond W83697HF
IEEE 1394 controller TI TSB43AB23 supporting three IEEE 1394a ports;
Output panel
Sound - 5 (line-in, microphone, connector for connecting the front (left and right) speakers, connector for connecting the rear (left and right) speakers, as well as a connector for connecting the center speaker and subwoofer);
IEEE 1394 - 1;
S / PDIF-input - 1 (optical);
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.4 cm.
The number of connectors for cooling fans is 4 (one is occupied by the cooling fan of the VIA K8T800 chip).
Indicators:
LED1 (5VSB) - indicates that the board is energized from the power supply;
LED2 (VCC) - Indicates system power is on.
Additional connectors:
Connector for connecting two IEEE 1394a ports.
FSB (CPU FSB Clock) - from 200 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
CPU Core Voltage - nominal + from 0 to +350 mV.
DIMM-slots supply voltage (DDR Voltage) - from 2.5 to 3.2 V in 0.05 V steps.
AGP slot supply voltage (AGP VDDR Voltage) - 1.5; 1.55; 1.6; 1.65 V.
The supply voltage of the HyperTransport bus (HyperTransport Voltage) is from 1.2 to 1.4 V.
Comment:bIOS settings provide the ability to set the default operating parameters of the system; in this case, a slightly overestimated value of the FSB frequency is set (for the Default setting, the FSB frequency is set to 204 MHz, which corresponds to the actual processor clock frequency of 2043.1 MHz).
General remarks
The KV8-MAX3 v.1.0 motherboard features a number of ABIT Engineered proprietary technologies from ABIT, such as:
ABIT mGuru is a hardware and software complex based on the capabilities of the proprietary mGuru processor, which allows combining control functions of a number of ABIT Engineered technologies through a convenient, intuitive graphical interface. The technologies united under the mGuru umbrella include the following:
ABIT EQ - allows you to diagnose PC performance by monitoring the main operating parameters of the system, such as supply voltage and temperatures at test points and the rotation speed of the cooling fans.
ABIT FanEQ - Provides a tool to intelligently control the speed of cooling fans based on a preset mode (Normal, Quiet or Cool).
ABIT OC Guru is a handy utility that allows you to perform overclocking directly in the Windows environment, eliminating the need to make changes directly in the BIOS Setup menu.
ABIT FlashMenu is a utility that allows you to update BIOS firmware in a Windows environment.
ABIT AudioEQ is an intelligent audio configuration and tuning utility.
ABIT BlackBox - Helps with ABIT technical support to resolve operational issues.
ABIT SoftMenu - a technology that provides the broadest opportunities for system overclocking;
ABIT OTES is a proprietary cooling system (Outside Thermal Exhaust System) that allows you to create an optimal temperature regime for the most "hot" elements of the VRM unit, which, according to the manufacturer, ensures greater stability of the supply voltage.
In addition, a SecureIDE security module is supplied with the board. This module is a hardware encoder / decoder connected to a hard disk and capable of processing (encrypting) the recorded / read information on the fly. It is also worth noting the presence on the board of a two-digit 14-segment indicator that allows you to monitor the progress of the POST procedures. The implementation of such a diagnostic tool also became possible thanks to the use of the mGuru processor.
With the nominal support for AMD Cool'n'Quiet technology in this mode, the board works extremely unstable (BIOS rel. 1.07).
Albatron K8X800 ProII
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Number of DIMM slots: 3 DIMM slots (for PC3200, only 2 slots are provided).
Maximum size: 3 GB (for PC3200 - 2 GB).
Chipset
VIA K8T800 (VIA K8T800 + VIA VT8237).
Expansion slots
Graphics slot: AGP 8x slot (AGP 3.0);
PCI Slots: Six 32-bit 33MHz PCI slots.
Disk subsystem
Features of the VIA VT8237 south bridge:
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting up to 4 devices with ATA 33/66/100 or ATAPI interface;
Dual channel SATA controller that allows you to connect two SATA 1.0 drives and organize them into RAID 0 or 1.
8 USB 2.0 ports
Network
Sound
Eight-channel PCI audio controller VIA Envy24PT (VT1720) + audio AC'97 codec VIA VT1616
I / O controller
Winbond W83697HF
Optional integrated devices
IEEE 1394 controller VIA VT6307 supporting two IEEE 1394a ports.
Output panel
COM port - 1;
LPT port - 1;
PS / 2 - 2 (mouse and keyboard);
Sound - 6 (line-in, microphone, front (left and right) speaker jack, left and right surround speakers (for 7.1 sound), rear (left and right) surround speakers (for sound) 7.1), as well as a connector for a center speaker and a subwoofer);
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.4 cm.
Power indicator - LED1.
Additional connectors:
Three connectors for connecting 6 USB 2.0 ports;
BIOS overclocking capabilities
FSB (CPU Host Frequency) - from 200 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
CPU Voltage - 0.8 to 1.9 V in 0.025 V steps.
DIMM slots supply voltage (DDR Voltage) - 2.6; 2.7; 2.8 and 2.9 V.
AGP-slot supply voltage (AGP Voltage) - 1.5; 1.6; 1.7 and 1.8 V.
Supply voltage of the north bridge microcircuit (NB Voltage) - 2.5; 2.6; 2.7 and 2.8 V.
Supply voltage of the south bridge microcircuit (SB Voltage) - 2.5; 2.6; 2.7 and 2.8 V.
General remarks
A number of Albatron's proprietary technologies, such as mirror BIOS, Watch Dog Timer and Voice Genie, have been embodied on the K8X800 ProII motherboard. The first of them, the mirror BIOS technology, allows the system to be restored in case of BIOS damage, for which a backup ROM BIOS chip is soldered on the board, from which the damaged code is restored with the corresponding switch position. Watch Dog Timer technology allows you to automatically restore the default BIOS settings if the system cannot complete POST procedures due to unsuccessful system overclocking (overclocking) actions. The last of the aforementioned technologies - Voice Genie - allows not only to inform the user about the problems that arise during the passage of POST procedures, but also to choose the language of these voice messages (English, Chinese, Japanese or German) by setting different combinations of the two switches.
With nominal support for AMD Cool'n'Quiet technology, when switching to this mode, the system works unstable (BIOS rev.1.06).
ASUS K8V Deluxe rev.1.12
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Supported memory: unbuffered ECC and non-ECC DDR SDRAM PC 3200 (DDR400), PC 2700 (DDR333) or PC 2100 (DDR266).
Maximum capacity: 3 GB.
Chipset
VIA K8T800 (VIA K8T800 + VIA VT8237)
Expansion slots
Graphics slot: AGP 8x slot (AGP 3.0);
ASUS Wi-Fi slot for installing a proprietary wireless module that meets the requirements of the IEEE 802.11 b / g standard (optional);
PCI Slots: Five 32-bit 33MHz PCI slots.
Disk subsystem
Features of the VIA VT8237 south bridge:
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting up to 4 devices with ATA 33/66/100 or ATAPI interface;
Additional IDE controllers:
IDE RAID controller Promise PDC20376 (supports two SATA1.0 ports and one ParallelATA link (up to two ATA33 / 66/100/133 devices), allowing you to organize RAID arrays of levels 0, 1, or 0 + 1).
Number of USB Ports Supported
8 USB 2.0 ports
Network
3Com 3C940 Gigabit PCI Ethernet Controller
Sound
I / O controller
Winbond W83697HF
Optional integrated devices
IEEE 1394 controller VIA VT6307 supporting two IEEE 1394a ports;
Output panel
COM port - 1;
LPT port - 1;
PS / 2 - 2 (mouse and keyboard);
IEEE 1394 - 1;
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.5 cm.
The number of connectors for connecting cooling fans - 3.
Power indicator - SB_PWR.
Additional connectors:
Connector for the second COM port (COM2);
Game port connector;
Two connectors for connecting 4 USB 2.0 ports;
BIOS overclocking capabilities
FSB frequency (CPU FSB Frequency) - from 200 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
The ratio of the memory bus frequency to the FSB frequency (Memclock to CPU Ratio) - 1: 1; 4: 3; 3: 2; 5: 3; 2: 1.
CPU Voltage Adjust - nominal, +0.2 V.
DIMM slots supply voltage (DDR Voltage) - 2.5; 2.7 and 2.8 V.
AGP-slot supply voltage (AGP Voltage) - 1.5 and 1.7 V.
V-Link bus supply voltage (V-Link Voltage) - 2.5 or 2.6 V.
Comment:bIOS settings provide a choice of several operating modes of the system, thereby increasing the performance of the PC. To do this, the BIOS Setup menu provides the Performance item, which allows you to select the following system operating modes:
When choosing Turbo mode, keep in mind that more aggressive memory timings are automatically set, as a result of which the system may work unstable, up to the impossibility of loading the operating system (as it was in our case).
General remarks
The K8V Deluxe motherboard features a number of ASUS Ai (Artificial Intelligence) technologies:
AINet technology is based on the capabilities of the on-board 3Com 3C940 network controller and allows diagnostics using the VCT (Virtual Cable Tester) utility network connection and identify possible damage to the network cable.
AIBIOS technology includes three well-known proprietary ASUS technologies - CrashFreeBIOS 2, Q-Fan and POST Reporter.
In addition, this motherboard implements such proprietary ASUS technologies as:
EZ Flash, which allows you to change the BIOS firmware without loading the OS;
Instant Music, which allows you to play Audio CDs without booting the OS;
MyLogo2, which provides the ability to set your own graphical splash screen displayed at system boot;
C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall) to restore bIOS setup to default values \u200b\u200bafter unsuccessful settings (for example, as a result of an overclocking attempt) by simply shutting down and rebooting the system.
Despite the presence of nominal support for AMD Cool'n'Quiet technology, in reality this technology does not work (BIOS version 1004).
ECS PHOTON KV1 Deluxe v1.0
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Supported memory: unbuffered ECC and non-ECC DDR SDRAM PC 3200 (DDR400), PC 2700 (DDR333) or PC 2100 (DDR266).
DIMM slots: 3 DIMM slots.
Maximum capacity: 2 GB.
Chipset
VIA K8T800 (VIA K8T800 + VIA VT8237)
Expansion slots
Graphics slot: AGP 8x slot (AGP 3.0).
PCI Slots: Five 32-bit 33MHz PCI slots.
Disk subsystem
Features of the VIA VT8237 south bridge:
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting up to 4 devices with ATA 33/66/100 or ATAPI interface;
Dual channel SATA controller that allows you to connect two SATA 1.0 drives and organize them into RAID 0 and 1.
Additional IDE controllers:
IDE RAID controller with SATALite interface - VIA VT6420 (supports two SATA1.0 ports and one ParallelATA link (up to two ATA33 / 66/100/133 devices), allowing you to organize RAID arrays of levels 0 or 1).
Number of USB Ports Supported
8 USB 2.0 ports
Network
Gigabit PCI Ethernet controller Marvell 88E8001 and 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller (MAC) integrated in the VIA VT8237 + Realtek RTL8201BL south bridge chip (PHY).
Sound
I / O controller
Optional integrated devices
IEEE 1394 controller VIA VT6307 supporting two IEEE 1394a ports
Output panel
COM port - 1;
LPT port - 1;
PS / 2 - 2 (mouse and keyboard);
Sound - 3 (line in and out, microphone);
S / PDIF-out - 2 (coaxial and optical).
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.5 cm.
The number of connectors for connecting cooling fans - 3.
Indicators:
Power indicator;
Anti-Burn LED - warns of the presence of power on DIMM slots, preventing the installation and removal of memory modules when the power is on (Anti-Burn Guardian technology);
Two indicators of the operating mode of the AGP slot - AGP 4x and AGP 8x (AGP A.I. (Artificial intelligence) technology);
Five indicators for monitoring the health of PCI slots (one for each slot) - Dr. LED.
Front panel connector color coding (F_PANEL).
Color illumination of the north bridge cooling fan.
Additional connectors:
Connector for the second COM port (COM2);
Two connectors for connecting 4 USB 2.0 ports;
Two connectors for connecting two IEEE 1394a ports.
BIOS overclocking capabilities
FSB (CPU Clock) frequency - from 200 to 302 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
DIMM Voltage Adjust - 2.55 to 2.7 V in 0.05 V steps.
General remarks
ECS KV1 Deluxe motherboard implements a number of proprietary technologies that can be divided into four categories:
PHOTON GUARDIAN
In our opinion, the following technologies are of the greatest interest to users:
Easy Match - color-coded front panel pins for easy assembly.
My Picture - Allows you to change the picture that appears on the screen at system startup.
999 DIMM - provides for the use of gold contacts DIMM slots, which guarantees more high quality coordination and synchronization when working with memory modules.
PCI Extreme - provides for the installation of sound cards and video cards, a special PCI slot (yellow), which provides an improved signal quality (which became possible due to the use of a high-quality capacitor).
Q-Boot - allows the user to select the boot device at system startup by pressing the F11 key.
Top-Hat Flash is an original technology for recovering damaged BIOS code using the included backup ROM BIOS chip, which, using a special plate, can be installed on top of a chip that is soldered on the board and stores the BIOS firmware.
Anti-Burn LED, AGP A.I. and Dr. LED (described above).
ECS KV1 Deluxe motherboard fully supports AMD Cool'n'Quiet technology.
Fujitsu-Siemens Computers D1607 G11
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Supported memory: unbuffered ECC and non-ECC DDR SDRAM PC 3200 (DDR400), PC 2700 (DDR333) or PC 2100 (DDR266).
Number of DIMM slots: 2 DIMM slots.
Maximum capacity: 2 GB.
Chipset
VIA K8T800 (VIA K8T800 + VIA VT8237)
Expansion slots
Graphics slot: AGP 8x slot (AGP 3.0);
PCI Slots: Six 32-bit 33MHz PCI slots;
CNR Slot: One Type A slot.
Disk subsystem
Features of the VIA VT8237 south bridge:
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting up to 4 devices with ATA 33/66/100 or ATAPI interface;
Dual channel SATA controller that allows you to connect two SATA 1.0 drives and organize them into RAID 0 or 1.
Number of USB Ports Supported
8 USB 2.0 ports
Network
10 / 100Mbps PCI Ethernet Controller ADMtek AN938B
Sound
I / O controller
SMSC LPC478357
Optional integrated devices
IEEE 1394 controller Agere FW 322 supporting two IEEE 1394a ports
Output panel
COM port - 1;
LPT port - 1;
PS / 2 - 2 (mouse and keyboard);
Sound - 3 (line in and out, microphone);
IEEE 1394 - 1;
S / PDIF-out - 1 (coaxial).
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.4 cm.
The number of connectors for connecting cooling fans - 2.
Additional connectors:
Two connectors for connecting 4 USB 2.0 ports;
IEEE 1394a port connector.
BIOS overclocking capabilities
Absent
General remarks
This motherboard supports a number of proprietary technologies of the Fujitsu-Siemens Computers campaign, the most significant of which, in our opinion, are:
Silent Fan - intelligent control of the rotation speed of cooling fans depending on temperature, carried out by means of a special Silent Fan Controller;
System Guard - provides the ability to control the Silent Fan Controller using a utility running in a Windows environment;
Recovery BIOS is a technology that allows you to safely update the BIOS code in a Windows environment;
Memorybird SystemLock is a technology to protect against unauthorized access to the system using a USB key.
A more detailed description of these technologies can be found in the article "Fujitsu-Siemens Computers motherboards", see KP # 8'2003.
I would like to emphasize that the Fujitsu-Siemens Computers D1607 G11 motherboard fully supports AMD's Cool'n'Quiet technology, which, together with the proprietary Silent Fan technology, provides a fairly efficient PC quiet operation.
Gigabyte K8NNXP rev. 1.0
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Supported memory: unbuffered ECC and non-ECC DDR SDRAM PC 3200 (DDR400), PC 2700 (DDR333) or PC 2100 (DDR266).
DIMM slots: 3 DIMM slots.
Maximum capacity: 3 GB.
Chipset
NVIDIA nForce3 150
Expansion slots
Graphics slot: AGP Pro slot (AGP 3.0);
Disk subsystem
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting up to 4 devices with ATA 33/66/100 or ATAPI interface;
Dual-channel IDE RAID controller GigaRAID IT8212F (supports up to four IDE devices with ParallelATA interface (ATA33 / 66/100/133), allowing you to organize RAID arrays of levels 0, 1, 0+ 1 or JBOD);
Dual-channel SerialATA controller Silicon Image SiI3512A (supports operation of two devices with SerialATA 1.0 (ATA150) interface, allowing them to be organized into a RAID 0 or 1 level).
Number of USB Ports Supported
6 USB 2.0 ports
Network
Realtek RTL8110S Gigabit Ethernet Controller and Integrated 10 / 100Mbps Chipset Controller (MAC) + Realtek RTL8201BL (PHY)
Sound
I / O controller
Optional integrated devices
TI TSB43AA2 + TI TSB81BA3 bundle supporting three IEEE 1394b ports (bandwidth up to 800 MB / s)
Output panel
COM port - 2;
LPT port - 1;
PS / 2 - 2 (mouse and keyboard);
Sound - 3 (line in and out, microphone);
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.4 cm.
The number of connectors for connecting cooling fans is 4 (one of them is uncontrolled - it is used to connect a cooling fan for a chipset chip).
Indicators:
Power indicator PWR_LED;
Indicator of voltage presence on DIMM slots RAM_LED.
Front panel connector color coding (F_PANEL).
Additional connectors:
Game port connector;
Two connectors for connecting 4 USB 2.0 ports;
Two connectors for connecting three IEEE 1394a ports.
BIOS overclocking capabilities
FSB frequency (CPU OverClock in MHz) - from 200 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz steps;
AGP frequency (AGP OverClock in MHz) - from 66 to 100 MHz in 1 MHz steps;
CPU Voltage Control - 0.8 to 1.7 V in 0.025 V steps;
DIMM slots supply voltage (DDR Voltage Control) - Normal, +0.1, +0.2 and +0.3 V;
AGP slot supply voltage (VDDQ Voltage Control) - Normal, +0.1, +0.2 and +0.3 V;
HyperTransport bus supply voltage (VCC12_HT Voltage Control) - Normal, +0.1, +0.2 and +0.3 V.
Comment: when the Top Performance item is activated, the system settings are automatically changed to ensure higher performance; the FSB frequency increases (in our case from 199.5 to 208 MHz).
General remarks
The Gigabyte K8NNXP motherboard supports a number of proprietary technologies from the Gigabyte Tecnology campaign:
Xpress Installation - a utility that makes it extremely easy to install the drivers necessary for the board to work;
Xpress Recovery is a backup and recovery technology that provides convenient and effective methods for creating a system image and its subsequent recovery;
Q-Flash - a technology that allows you to update the "firmware" without loading the OS;
K8DSP - Dual Power System.
This motherboard does not support Cool'n'Quiet technology.
Shuttle AN50R v.1.2
CPU socket
Memory subsystem
Supported memory: unbuffered ECC and non-ECC DDR SDRAM PC 3200 (DDR400), PC 2700 (DDR333), PC 2100 (DDR266) or PC1600 (DDR200).
DIMM slots: 3 DIMM slots.
Maximum capacity: 3 GB.
Chipset
NVIDIA nForce3 150
Expansion slots
Graphics slot: AGP Pro slot (AGP 3.0);
PCI Slots: 5 x 32-bit PCI 2.3.
Disk subsystem
NVIDIA nForce3 150 features:
Dual-channel IDE controller supporting up to 4 devices with ATA 33/66/100 or ATAPI interface;
Dual-channel SerialATA controller Silicon Image SiI3112A (supports two devices with SerialATA 1.0 (ATA150) interface, allowing them to be organized into a RAID 0 or 1 level).
Number of USB Ports Supported
6 USB 2.0 ports
Network
Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Sound
I / O controller
Optional integrated devices
IEEE 1394 controller VIA VT6306 supporting three IEEE 1394a ports
Output panel
COM port - 1;
LPT port - 1;
PS / 2 - 2 (mouse and keyboard);
Sound - 3 (line in and out, microphone);
IEEE 1394 - 1;
S / PDIF-out - 1 (optical).
Design features
The form factor is ATX.
Dimensions - 30.5Ѕ24.4 cm.
The number of connectors for connecting cooling fans - 3.
Indicators:
Power indicator 5VSB_LED;
DIMM slot voltage indicator DIMM_LED;
HDD activity indicator - HDD_LED.
Front panel connector color coding (F_PANEL)
Additional connectors:
Connector for an infrared module;
Connector for 2 USB 2.0 ports;
Two connectors for connecting IEEE 1394a ports.
BIOS Overclocking Capabilities (AwardBIOS)
FSB (CPU OverClock in MHz) frequency - from 200 to 280 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
AGP frequency (AGP OverClock in MHz) - from 66 to 100 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
CPU Voltage Select - 0.8 to 1.7 V in 0.025 V steps.
DIMM-slot supply voltage (RAM Voltage Select) - Normal, 2.7; 2.8 and 2.9 V.
AGP Voltage Select - Normal, 1.6; 1.7 and 1.8 V.
Chipset Voltage Select - Normal, 1.7; 1.8 and 1.9 V.
HyperTransport bus supply voltage (LDT Voltage Select) - Normal, 1.3; 1.4 and 1.5 V.
General remarks
Activation of AMD Cool'n'Quiet technology leads to instability (BIOS version an50s00y).
Test results
before proceeding directly to examining the results shown by the motherboards during the tests carried out, it is necessary to make a number of comments regarding the BIOS settings used during our testing. The first thing we would like to draw your attention to once again: we did not use BIOS settings allowing to increase motherboard performance due to one or another type of overclocking of computer subsystems; all operating frequencies and voltages were set by default. In addition, the default values \u200b\u200bfor the settings of the memory controller timing parameters (memory timings) were also adopted, which are determined automatically based on the data of the SPD (Serial Presence Detect) chip of the memory modules. This was done in order to evaluate the performance of motherboards in the most typical operating mode. After all, very few users are involved in testing the reserves of their system by experimenting with BIOS settings. Most people prefer guaranteed system stability over ghostly performance gains. The work of the PC in this mode was simulated by us when testing motherboards. But as a result, not all mainboards were able to perform the same timing settings for the memory controller according to the SPD data. Thus, the ASUS K8V Deluxe and Albatron K8X800 ProII models set memory timings equal to 2.5-3-3-6, while all other motherboards worked with 2-3-3-8 timings. This could not but make adjustments to the results we obtained, requiring that this fact be taken into account when analyzing the performance of the tested motherboards.
Now is the time to move on to reviewing the results of our testing (Table 3).
Based on the results of tests that simulate user interaction with multimedia and graphical applications when creating content (VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0 (Fig. 3), VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 (Fig. 4) and Internet Content Creation SysMark 2002 ( Fig. 5)), the leader was the ASUS K8V Deluxe motherboard, which showed the best results in the VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 and VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0 tests, while in the Internet Content Creation SysMark 2002 test this motherboard shared first place with Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP.
Figure: 3. Test results VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0
Figure: 4. Test results VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0
Figure: 5. The results of tests Internet Content Creation SysMark 2002 and SySMark 2002 Office Productivity
Considering this group of tests, it should also be noted that we could not get the results in the VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 test for the ABIT KV8-MAX3 motherboard, since this model does not have an LPT port (recall that this port is required for the driver used when the NewTek LightWave 3D application is running). This problem was solved only in the new Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0. This was the main reason why we had to refuse to take into account the results of the VeriTest Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 test when determining the final integral indicators.
In tests that allow you to evaluate the system performance when a user is working with office applications (VeriTest Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0 (Fig. 6), VeriTest Business Winstone 2002 v.1.0.1 (Fig. 7) and SySMark 2002 Office Productivity (see Fig. . 5)), motherboards ASUS K8V Deluxe and Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP also shone, showing the best results in VeriTest Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0 and VeriTest Business Winstone 2002 v.1.0.1, respectively, but this time they were joined by the model Albatron K8X800 ProII outperforms everyone in the SysMark 2002 Office Productivity test.
Figure: 6. Test results VeriTest Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0
Figure: 7. Test results VeriTest Business Winstone 2002 v.1.0.1
Assessment of the overall system performance using the MadOnion PCMark2004 utility revealed the leadership of the ABIT KV8-MAX3 motherboard (Fig. 8).
Figure: 8. Results of the MadOnion PCMark2004 test
The ABIT KV8-MAX3 motherboard turned out to be the winner both in the dispute over the speed of archiving the reference directory using the WinRar 3.2 utility (Fig. 9), and in solving the problems of converting the reference wav file to an mp3 file (MPEG1 Layer III), for which the AudioGrabber v1 utility was used .82 with Lame 3.93.1 codec (Fig. 10).
Figure: 9. Archiving with WinRar 3.2 utility
Figure: 10. Performing conversion tasks for reference video and audio files
However, when evaluating the time it took to convert a reference MPEG2 file to an MPEG4 file using the VirtualDub1.5.10 utility and the DivX Pro 5.1.1 codec, the Albatron K8X800 ProII motherboard took the lead (Fig. 10), while the ABIT KV8-MAX3 and ASUS K8V Deluxe showed just disastrous results.
Testing the capabilities of a computer system built on the basis of the motherboards under study when working with professional graphics applications, assessed according to the results of SPECviewPerf v7.1.1 package tests, once again confirmed the unconditional leadership of the ABIT KV8-MAX3 model (Fig. 11).
Figure: 11. Test results SPECviewPerf v7.1.1
The situation repeated itself according to the results of tests carried out using popular games (Comanche 4, Unreal Tournament 2003, Quake III Arena, Serious Sam: Second Encounter, Return to Castle Wolfenstein), where the ABIT KV8-MAX3 motherboard also had no equal (Fig. . 12).
Figure: 12. Results of game tests
The results obtained using the MadOnion 3DMark 2001SE (build 330) and FutureMark 3DMark 2003 (build 340) test utilities have somewhat shaken the emerging hegemony of the ABIT KV8-MAX3 board. So, according to the results of the FutureMark 3DMark 2003 (build 340) test, it turned out that the Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP mainboard can demonstrate the same high CPU Score, and show even higher values \u200b\u200bin software rendering than the ABIT model, although the latter is once again turned out to be unattainable in terms of the value of the final result of this test with full use of the capabilities of the graphics card (Fig. 13).
But the MadOnion 3DMark 2001SE (build 330) test, on the contrary, showed that ABIT KV8-MAX3 surpassed everyone in software rendering, but lost the palm to the Fujitsu-Siemens Computers D1607 G11 model in the case of using all the capabilities of the installed graphics card to build an image (Fig. . fourteen).
The results obtained through the synthetic tests we used, once again indicate the absolute advantage of the ABIT KV8-MAX3 motherboard over the other test participants both in terms of the maximum memory bus bandwidth (Fig. 15) and in the performance of the processor subsystem when performing operations as with integer values, and with floating point numbers (Fig. 16, 17, 18).
Figure: 15. Test results for evaluating memory bus bandwidth
Figure: 16. SiSoftSandra 2004 CPU Arifmetic Benchmark
Figure: 17.SiSoftSandra 2004 CPU Multimedia Benchmark
Figure: 18. Test results ScienceMark 2.0 Molecular Dynamics Benchmark
Summing up the study of the results of our testing, let's try to conduct a small analysis of the obtained values. First, consider the situation with the leaders of the Office Productivity and Internet Content Creation benchmarks from the SySMark 2002, Content Creation Winstone 2003 v.1.0 and Business Winstone 2002 v.1.0.1, Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0 and Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0 test suite. Here I would like to return once again to the above-described situation with the settings of the memory controller temporary parameters (memory timings). If we remember that the ASUS K8V Deluxe and Albatron K8X800 ProII motherboards for some unknown reason interpreted the timings hardwired into the SPD chip as 2.5-3-3-6, the results obtained are quite understandable. The fact is that the more the test result will depend on the speed of random data reading from random access memory (more precisely, from delays when accessing arbitrary memory pages), the more advantage these models will have over other participants due to the fact that the tRAS (RAS # Active time) value is 6 for them against 8 for other models. But, running a little ahead, it is easy to assume that in tests, where the most important factor is speed when sequentially reading data from memory, the slower CAS Latency time, equal to 2.5 for the mentioned motherboard models from ASUSTeK and Albatron (while other motherboards, it is taken equal to 2), will play a negative role, reducing their results. In this situation, the success of these two motherboards according to the results of the aforementioned tests becomes quite natural.
Now let's turn to the leader in the overwhelming majority of tests - the ABIT KV8-MAX3 mainboard. What caused the phenomenon of this specimen? It's all about a little trick of the manufacturer, which is that when you select the default settings for AMD Athlon 64 processor with a clock frequency of 2000 MHz in BIOS Setup, the FSB frequency is assumed to be 204 MHz instead of the prescribed 200 MHz. Thus, there is a banal overclocking of the system. This is the whole formula for success (here it is necessary to make a reservation that changing the BIOS firmware version may change the situation). Note that we took into account the possibility of such a situation by introducing a correction factor, and as a result, the increase in system performance achieved by increasing the processor clock frequency by increasing the FSB frequency is compensated by this factor and does not affect the final integral performance indicator.
Concluding the discussion of the performance evaluation results, I would like to draw your attention to the results shown by Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP and Shuttle AN50R motherboards based on the NVIDIA nForce3 150 chipset. There are a number of indicative points here. The first is that the high results shown by these motherboards in tests that require a high bandwidth of the system bus, which is the HyperTransport bus (8x16 bit 600 MHz), for example, such as FutureMark 3DMark 2003 in the case of using software rendering (Score (Force software vertex shaders)) and when executing a processor test (CPU Score), indicate that the capabilities of this channel are quite sufficient even for tasks of this kind. Moreover, the use of special mechanisms implemented in the NVIDIA nForce3 150 chipset (which is most likely due to the influence of StreamThru technology) even allows motherboards with a wider and faster HyperTransport bus built on the VIA K8T800 chipset to outperform when performing such tasks.
Summing up all of the above, we note that according to the results of our tests, the most high-performance motherboard that showed the highest integral performance coefficient was the Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP model, which demonstrated consistently high results during all tests.
Having paid tribute to the leaders, we nevertheless note that the difference in the performance of the motherboards that came to our disposal was not so high; in such a situation, the functionality of motherboards is of great importance when choosing one model or another. In this regard, the ABIT KV8-MAX3 motherboard deserves special attention, which not only has an impressive set of integrated devices, but also implements a number of rather interesting proprietary technologies from ABIT. It was this motherboard that received the highest assessment of functionality and, as a result, became the owner of the highest value of the integral quality index. Although this motherboard is not devoid of a number of disadvantages and specific features. These include the lack of COM- and LPT-ports, which, perhaps, is a completely justified and progressive solution, but users who still plan to use old devices with these interfaces in the future should take this fact into account. Besides, this model has problems with correct support for AMD Cool'n'Quiet technology implemented in AMD Athlon 64 processors (recall that this technology allows you to dynamically change the clock frequency and voltage of the processor depending on its load). Although, to be fair, we note that most of the motherboards provided to us for testing suffer from this. The only exceptions were two models: ECS PHOTON KV1 Deluxe and Fujitsu-Siemens Computers D1607 G11, which fully support this technology from AMD. But it is likely that with the release of new BIOS versions, other motherboards will be able to correctly implement this rather useful function AMD Athlon 64 processors.
The editors are grateful to the companies that provided motherboards for testing: Representative office of ABIT (www.abit.com.tw, \u200b\u200bwww.abit.ru) for providing the motherboard ABIT KV8-MAX3 v.1.0; |
Now AMD's developments are appreciated, as a result, more and more consumers, including corporate ones, pay attention to the products of this company.
The 64-bit Athlon 64 processors, introduced in 2003, are a well-deserved success, and they helped AMD to get rid of the image of a manufacturer of cheap clones of x86 processors. Now the developments of AMD engineers are appreciated, as a result, more and more consumers, including corporate ones, pay attention to the products of this company.
At times, the Athlon 64 family can be called "golden" at the end of 2003 - beginning of 2005: then the main rival of AMD, the Intel corporation, did not have analogues of these processors. With the introduction of the latest generation of support for 64-bit extensions in the Pentium 4, Intel loyal consumers considering the theoretical possibility of purchasing an Athlon 64 processor will, of course, choose a chip from Intel. The main rivalry now flares up between the dual-core processors Intel Pentium D and AMD Athlon 64 X2, and, as many experts believe, the AMD chip has a more advantageous design than the Intel die.
Processors
It was the Athlon 64 processors that were the first chips in the world that were able to work with both 64-bit and 32-bit applications, which are widespread today, without sacrificing performance. In addition, Athlon 64 implements the proprietary Cool "n" Quiet technology, which dynamically reduces the processor clock speed depending on the actual load, as well as the Enhanced Virus Protection anti-virus technology.
Athlon 64 processors are currently available with five different cores: SledgeHammer, NewCastle, Winchester, Venice and San diego... There are also models on the market based on the ClawHammer core, but they are considered obsolete. Models based on the NewCastle core are produced in two varieties: for the old Socket 754 and for the modern Socket 939. The main difference is in the memory controller built into the chip: modifications for Socket 754 are equipped with a single-channel DDR memory controller, while modifications for Socket 939 have a dual-channel controller. Other models, with the exception of SledgeHammer, are produced only for Socket 939.
The FX series chips and Athlon 64 4000+ (model ADA4000DEP5AS) use the core SledgeHammer,architecture close to the outdated ClawHammer. Consisting of 105.9 million transistors, these processors are equipped with a dual-channel memory controller, 1 GHz Hyper-Transport bus and operate at clock speeds from 2.2 to 2.6 GHz. The L2 cache is 1 MB. Processors are manufactured using 0.13 micron technology. The FX-51 model and one of the FX-53 modifications (ADAFX53CEP5AT) are designed for Socket 940, while the rest of the chips are designed for Socket 939.
Athlon 64 core-based processors NewCastleconsist of 68.5 million transistors and are also manufactured using 0.13-micron technology. The chips operate at clock speeds from 2.2 to 2.4 GHz (3500+ and 3800+ models) and are equipped with 512KB L2 cache and a dual-channel RAM controller. The Hyper-Transport bus operates at 1 GHz. NewCastle Slot Mods support 800MHz FSB.
Core models Winchester, like NewCastle chips, consist of 68.5 million transistors, but are already produced using 0.09-micron technology. These processors have 512KB L2 cache, dual channel DDR memory controller and support the Hyper-Transport bus operating at 1 GHz. Athlon 64 3000+, 3200+ and 3000+ models based on Winchester core operate at clock speeds from 1.8 to 2.2 GHz.
Athlon 64 chips on the core Venice also consist of 68.5 million, but they use the new Dual Stress Liner (DSL) workflow, developed in collaboration with IBM. The main point of this "stretched" silicon technology is to increase the transistor response speed by almost a quarter, while, in contrast to Intel's "stretched" silicon technology, conventional and inexpensive silicon nitride can be used in production.
Core models Veniceare equipped with 512 Kbytes of L2 cache, a dual-channel memory controller and operate with a 1 GHz system bus. The clock speeds of the 3000+, 3200+, 3500+ and 3800+ processors with this core range from 1.8 to 2.4 GHz. Venice was the first Athlon 64 to support the SSE3 instruction set. In addition, the problems with the compatibility of the built-in controller with various RAM modules have been eliminated.
Finally, the most modern single-core Athlon 64 core to date is San diego... Officially, only 4000+ processors with a clock speed of 2.4 GHz and a second level cache of 1 MB have been released so far. However, according to some reports, in Japanese stores there are also 3500+ models with a halved L2 cache. The processors support 1 GHz Hyper-Transport bus and SSE3 instruction set.
System logic sets
Motherboards for Athlon 64 processors are released on the basis of several sets of system logic. First of all, these are single-chip nVidia chipsets of the nForce 3 and nForce 4 families, which are considered almost the de facto standard for these processors. About the series nForce 3 we will not speak, since these obsolete chipsets are used today only in inexpensive motherboards and do not support the PCI Express x16 interface for installing the latest generation video cards.
Family nForce 4consists of three modifications, which are united by support for the promising PCI Express interface - up to three PCI Express x1 devices and one video card with a PCI Express x16 interface or two - with a PCI Express x8 interface.
The basic modification is designed for the 800 MHz system bus Hyper-Transport and is equipped with a Serial ATA (150) controller with RAID support, 10 uSB ports 2.0, gigabit network adapter and 8.1-channel sound controller. The Ultra version features a Serial ATA II (300) controller and 1 GHz system bus support, while the SLI version can additionally work with one PCI Express x16 video card or two PCI Express x8 cards united by a proprietary SLi "bridge". Only cards based on nVidia GeForce 6600 and 6800 series graphics accelerators can operate in SLI mode. Unfortunately, nForce 4 series chipsets are not equipped with an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) controller, which has become common in modern computers, but most motherboard manufacturers solve this problem on their own. problem when installing third-party chips. The younger version of nForce 4 is designed only for Athlon 64 processors, and the two older ones are designed for both Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX chips.
The second step in popularity is occupied by the chipsets of the Taiwanese company VIA Technologies. The well-deserved chipset is still in demand K8T800,designed for 800 MHz bus and supporting AGP 8x video cards. The kit includes a VT8237 south bridge equipped with ATA133 and Serial ATA controllers, a 100 Mbit network adapter and a 5.1-channel sound controller. Supports up to six PCI slots and up to eight USB 2.0 ports. Modification K8M800differs only in the integrated graphics controller, and the model K8T800 Pro -hyper-Transport 1 GHz support. A slightly more modern set K8T890 differs from the K8T800 Pro only in the integrated PCI Express x16 controller instead of AGP 8x.
VIA chipsets are traditionally somewhat cheaper than nVidia solutions, while they are not too much inferior to them in performance. As a rule, inexpensive gaming computers for the home are assembled on the K8T800, while powerful gaming PCs and even workstations are built on nForce 4 chipsets.
The system logic for Athlon 64 processors is produced by three more companies - ATI Technologies, SiS and ULi, but these chipsets are much less popular and, with the exception of ATI solutions, are seriously lagging behind the leaders in performance.
Canadian firm ATI is releasing two models of chipsets for the Athlon 64 - Xpress 200and 200P... Both chipsets support both Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX chips. Modification 200 features an integrated entry-level graphics controller Radeon X300, which, however, operates at a slightly lower frequency than its discrete ("card") version. The other characteristics of the chipsets are the same: support for the 1 GHz Hyper-Transport system bus, PCI Express x16 interface for installing a video card, support for four PCI Express x1 slots. The south bridge is a ULi M1573 microcircuit with built-in ATA133 and Serial ATA (150) controllers, support for up to 8 USB 2.0 ports, up to 7 PCI slots, a 5.1-channel sound controller, and a 100-Mbps network controller.
Taiwanese firm makes chipsets 755 and 760GXdesigned for Athlon 64 processors, and models 755FX and 756 - for Athlon 64 FX chips. Models for "regular" Athlon 64 support 800 MHz bus, and for FX - 1 GHz bus. Communication with the south bridge is carried out via a proprietary MuTIOL bus with a bandwidth of 1066 MB / s. All chipsets, except for the 756, are equipped with an AGP 8x video interface, and the 756 is equipped with the latest PCI Express x16. The 760GX has a built-in Mirage 2 graphics accelerator. The 756 is supplied with a SiS 965 south bridge with a gigabit network controller, a PCI Express x1 controller with two slots, a 7.1-channel sound controller and uSB adapter 2.0 with support for 8 ports. The rest of the modifications are equipped with a SiS 964 south bridge with a 100 Mbps network controller, a 5.1-channel sound processor, as well as a USB 2.0 controller with 6 ports support and an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) controller. Both south bridges Serial ATA (150) and ATA133 controllers are integrated.
ULi also produces low-end M 1687/1689 + M 1563 chipsets designed for Athlon 64 processors with 800 MHz bus and graphics cards with AGP 8x interface. Motherboards based on ULi chipsets are rarely found on sale, since they are practically not in demand.
When choosing a motherboard, you should pay attention, in addition to the design, equipment of the board and its configuration, to the manufacturer. Getting production companies of the first echelon, which currently include Asus, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), Gigabyte, and the MSI, you get almost one hundred percent guarantee payment performance and the lack of annoying flaws. Products from companies such as ABIT, Albatron, AOpen, EPoX and Soltek have also proven themselves well. Unfortunately, no one is immune from manufacturing defects, so it is best to purchase a motherboard from a reliable company that guarantees the exchange of low-quality products.
See the next page for a selection of Athlon 64 motherboards.
Introduction
Recently, the computer industry market has pleased us with a huge variety of new products in the world of components. It seemed quite recently that new standards of DDR2 RAM, dual-core processors entered our life, new platforms for these systems appeared, but progress does not stand still, and now quad-core processors have already been announced, for which new platforms will be developed. This naturally affected the video card market as well. Every day leading manufacturers modify video card models, increase capacities, and improve cooling systems. However, not all users of personal computers can afford all these new items. What should you do if you want to play modern games, but there is not enough money to buy a modern gaming computer configuration? After the emergence and distribution of the Socket 939 platform, the old Socket 754 completely faded into the background. Many considered it a "dead-end" branch. However, after the announcement of the AM2 platform, Socket 939 found itself in a similar situation. Besides, about a year ago, AMD pleased the owners of Socket 754 motherboards with the release of AMD Athlon 64 processors based on the most recent revision of the Venice core with E6 stepping. Therefore, we nevertheless decided to look at what the Socket 754 platform is capable of today and try to understand: is it really necessary to make hardware sellers happy with a certain amount of banknotes to buy a new computer that meets the requirements of modern games, or is it worth investing less money and breathing life into , which has already become native, the contents of the system unit.
Test Systems
3 systems took part in testing:
System No. 1
- Motherboard ASUS K8N, socket 754, NVIDIA nForce3 250
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor (o / c 236x10), Socket 754 (o / c 236x10)
- Memory 2 x 512 MB Kingston PC3200
- Video card GF 6800 GS Palit 256mb, AGP, Retail (o / c 500core / 1300mem)
- Powerman Pro (Chieftec) 460W PSU
System No. 2
- MSI K8N NEO3-FSR motherboard, socket 754, NVIDIA nForce 4-4X
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor (o / c 236x10), Socket 754
- Memory 2 x 512 MB SAMSUNG PC3200
- Video card XFX GF 7600 GS eXtreme Edition (XXX) 256mb, PCI -E (o / c 500core / 1300mem)
- DELTA 350-100A 340W power supply
System No. 3
- Motherboard ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe, socket AM2, nForce570
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ processor, 2.4 GHz, Socket AM2
- Memory 1024 MB Samsung DDR2 PC4200
- Video card Gigabyte GF 7600GT 256MB, PCI -E
- Powerman 430W power supply
Further, in the performance comparison tables and comments, we will call them that: System No. 1, System No. 2 and System No. 3, respectively. The last system was not overclocked, because in our review it represents the option of buying a new PC (instead of an upgrade) that has sufficient performance in modern games, and as a result, does not need overclocking.
Before starting the testing, I would like to say a few words about the motherboards, processors and video cards that took part in the testing.
Description of motherboards
1. ASUS K8N motherboard
Inexpensive, with fairly rich features, the Asus K8N is based on the NVIDIA nForce3 250 chipset and supports AMD Athlon64 and AMD Sempron processors. Of course, this board can hardly be called an "overclocker's dream", but it fully justifies the funds invested in it. BIOS settings (AMI flash BIOS) can please the most demanding users - you can change the processor bus frequency from 200 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz increments (it should be noted that ASUS K8N has fixed PCI \\ AGP bus frequencies, which is very important when overclocking ), the HyperTransport bus multiplier, the board allows you to change the voltage supplied to the processor, memory, AGP bus. In addition, ASUS K8N allows fine tuning of memory timings, which is also very important when overclocking the system. In the process of acceleration in the card it has been revealed interesting feature - stable overclocking is possible only with an increase in AGP bus frequency 1-2 MHz from 66 MHz CDS (thank Maxim for valuable information). Separately, I would like to note some of the features of the board's operation with video cards of the GF6xxx family. This problem is quite topical for the nForce3 + GF6xxx chipset, and it manifests itself as image fading for a short time in various 3D applications (so-called "freezes"). During the operation of this board in conjunction with the PALIT GF6800GS AGP video card, we also sometimes observed the aforementioned picture fading. However, overall, the board left the most pleasant impressions. The software that comes with the motherboard has pleased me with a wide variety of useful programs and utilities. I would especially like to note the ASUS EZ Flash function, which allows you to update the BIOS directly through its settings menu. Updates no longer require DOS firmware utilities and boot floppies, you only need to connect your computer to the Internet.
2. MSI K8N Neo-3F motherboard
The purchase of this motherboard was prompted by the desire to be able to use a video card with a PCI-E 16x interface (the board is based on the nForce 4-4x chipset) in your system for little money, i.e. without changing the rest of the system unit configuration. In addition, to purchase a new video card with the interface PCI -E was necessary as it is to operate the computer three or four months, and here, MSI K8N Neo-3F was the only option to upgrade, thanks to the AGP -Port. Of course, we should have forgotten about full support for AGP 8x right away (which is carefully warned by the official MSI website), which was confirmed by tests that were carried out on our own and found on the Internet. Nevertheless, the presence of this port allowed me, with some restrictions, to sit quietly until the appearance of mid-range PCI-E video cards in our wilderness for a reasonable price.
And here one more problem emerges: when the memory is overclocked, the mother goes down, from which it returns only by resetting the jumper on the motherboard. To this can be added the impossibility of disabling the floppy disk check and the not very convenient scheme for controlling the rotation of the processor fan. But there are round cables included. In general, there has never been a more ambiguous perception in my life. But this does not mean at all that I, in the end, was not happy with the purchase, the motherboard fulfills every ruble invested in it.
3. Motherboard ASUS M2N- SLI Deluxe
The Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard is based on the NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset. The technical specifications of the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe are a combination of the capabilities of the chipset and several additional controllers. We will not mention the obvious things, such as support for Socket AM2 processors, SLI in x8 mode and DDR2 memory. Six Serial ATA ports and one Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33 are implemented by the chipset, and in addition there is a JMicron JMB363 controller, one of the pair of ports of which is located next to the first PCI-E x16 slot, and the other is brought out to the rear panel. Slightly above it on the rear panel is the IEEE 1394 connector, which is implemented by an additional Texas Instruments controller. The chipset provides 10 USB 2.0 ports, four of them are brought out to the rear panel, and two Gigabit LAN controllers working through Marvell PHY. ADI 1988B is responsible for 8-channel High Definition Audio, neither coaxial nor optical S / PDIF is forgotten. The I / O functions are managed by ITE IT8716F-S. I would like to separately note that the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe board has six (sic!) Connectors for fans. Moreover, they are located quite conveniently for connection: two closer to the rear panel of connectors, two on top and two in the lower right corner of the board.
If we talk about the completeness, then it is quite decent and includes:
- SLI bridge;
- UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable;
- floppy loop;
- 6 SATA cables;
- 3 cables for connecting power to 6 SATA devices;
- bracket with two USB 2.0 ports;
- bracket with IEEE1394 connector;
- user manual and Quick Start Guide;
- CD with drivers and utilities;
- interVideo Media Launcher software suite;
- back panel cover;
- array2-SNA microphone manufactured by Andrea Electronics Corporation.
The BIOS of the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard is based on the Award code and has good overclocking capabilities. Among them:
- changing the clock generator frequency: 200-400 MHz in 1 MHz steps;
- changing the PCI-E bus frequency: 100-200 MHz in 1 MHz steps;
- dDR2 memory voltage change: 1.8-2.5 V in 0.05 V steps;
- changing the voltage on the processor: 0.8-1.5625 V with a step of 0.0125 V;
- change the multiplier in steps of 1.
Noteworthy is the very high upper limit of the memory voltage increase. In early bIOS versions the multiplier was changed with a step of 0.5.
In addition, the Advanced Voltage Control section provides the following options for changing voltages:
- CPU / Chipset HT Voltage: 1.2-1.5V, 0.05V steps;
- Chipset Core Voltage: 1.4-1.6V, 0.1V steps;
- Chipset Standby Core Voltage: 1.4 or 1.6 V;
- Chipset PCI -E Voltage: 1.5-1.7V, 0.05V step;
- CPU VCore Offset Voltage: Disabled, Offset 100mV.
As for the memory timings, the list of parameters available for changing is very large and can fit only on a few sheets.
Description of processors
1. AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 754, Venice, ADA3000AKK4BX
As the name implies, the processor is based on the Venice core revision, has 512 KB L2 cache, an operating frequency of 2 GHz, an operating voltage of 1.35V, a multiplier of 10x. Considering the good overclocking potential of this processor family, we immediately increased the FSB frequency in the BIOS to 240 MHz, the HyperTransport bus frequency was reduced to 3, the AMD QnQ function was disabled. The system booted on the first try, the CPU -z program determined that the processor is running at 2.4 GHz (240x10), however, during some tests, the system freezes, therefore, for stable operation, the FSB frequency was reduced to 236 MHz, and further testing was carried out with a clock frequency of 2.36 GHz (236x10).
2. AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 754, Venice, ADA3000AKK4BX (OEM)
The brother of the aforementioned processor, only in the OEM package, demonstrated similar overclocking capabilities with similar overclocking actions. A boxed cooler from a Sempron 2600+ Soket 754 processor was used for cooling.
3. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
AMD announced low-power processors for Socket AM2 systems back in mid-May. Then the company released two classes of economical processors - with a typical heat dissipation of 65 and 35 W. This classification is valid to this day. The first group of CPUs currently includes quite powerful dual-core processors operating at frequencies up to 2.4 GHz inclusive and rated 3800+, 4200+ and 4600+. Athlon 64 X2 4600+, clocked at 2.4 GHz and 512 KB of cache, took part in our testing. The processor was not overclocked, the processor frequency during testing remained the default - 2.4 GHz.
Description of video cards
Brief characteristics:
- bus interface: AGP;
- memory interface: 256 bit;
- memory type: 256 MB GDDR3;
- RAMDACs: 400 MHz;
- chip frequency: 450 MHz;
- memory frequency: 1200 MHz.
Package Included:
- user manual (including in Russian);
- adapter DVI - VGA;
- driver disk;
- cyberLink Power DVD
- disc with the game Toca Race Driver.
It should be noted that the card worked by default at higher frequencies than the reference ones. So, the core frequency in Low power 3D mode was 350 MHz, and in the Performance 3D mode - 450 MHz, and the memory frequency was 1200 MHz. The card has a standard cooling system, the memory chips are covered with aluminum radiators. With the help of the well-known RivaTuner 2.0 RC 16 program, the video card was overclocked to frequencies of 500/1300 MHz, at which further testing was carried out.
Brief characteristics:
- bus interface: PCI -E 16x;
- memory interface: 128 bit;
- memory type: 256 MB GDDR2;
- RAMDACs: 400 MHz;
- chip frequency: 500 MHz;
- memory frequency: 900 MHz.
The video card of the famous American brand XFX is assembled, as usual, in China. It looks like an ordinary 7600GS DDR2 reference design with standard passive cooling used by other brands. The highlight lies in the frequency of the chip and memory, and it is 500 MHz for the chip and 900 MHz for the memory, while using chips from Infenion with a 2.3 ns access time. Let me remind you that the frequencies of the "ordinary" 7600GS DDR2 are 400/800. Well, not a bad increase for a small difference in price. It's nice that the manufacturer used the ability to take readings of the thermistor built into the core, which allows especially cautious users to set their own threshold for turning off the card when overheating right on the driver tab without additional manipulations with the BIOS of the video card. Naturally, all diagnostic utilities also do an excellent job of reading temperature readings. The card is delivered in a small box, kept in corporate colors. The bundle is also common for cards in this price range:
- manual (in our case and in Russian, which is nice);
- adapter DVI - VGA;
- cD with driver and utilities.
The card has demonstrated some ability to overclock up to 530/1000 frequencies without additional events, on which the tests were carried out.
Brief characteristics:
- bus interface: PCI -E 16x;
- memory interface: 128 bit;
- memory type: 256 MB DDR3;
- RAMDACs: 400 MHz;
- chip frequency: 560 MHz;
- memory frequency: 1400 MHz.
In our review, it plays the role of "stove from where they dance". This is a well-made solid mid-range product that exactly repeats the NVIDIA reference design. The card was not overclocked.
Test results: performance comparison
As a toolkit, we used:
- 3DMark03 (build 3.6.0) Basic Edition (Free, Limited)
- 3DMark05 (build 1.2.0) Basic Edition (Free, Limited)
- 3DMark06 (build 1.0.2) Basic Edition (Free, Limited)
- DOOM3
| 3D Mark 2003 | ||
| System characteristics | Points in the test | |
| 12057 | ||
| 10924 | ||
| 13003 | ||
Quite expectedly, the most modern system (No. 3) is in the lead, in second place due to a more powerful video card, system No. 1 is located and system No. 2 closes the procession.
| 3D Mark 2005 | ||
| System characteristics | Points in the test | |
| System No. 1 (A64 236x10 / GF6800GS AGP 500/1300) | 5989 | |
| System # 2 (A64 236x10 / GF7600GS PCI -E 530/1000) | 5048 | |
| System # 3 (A64 X2 4600 + / GF7600GT PCI -E) | 5989 | |
Surprisingly, but true - System # 1 takes the lead, probably due to a wider memory bus in the 6800 GS. 7600GT is not saved by the presence of a dual-core processor in System # 3.
| 3D Mark 2006 | ||
| System characteristics | Points in the test | |
| System No. 1 (A64 236x10 / GF6800GS AGP 500/1300) | 2700 | |
| System # 2 (A64 236x10 / GF7600GS PCI -E 530/1000) | 2645 | |
| System # 3 (A64 X2 4600 + / GF7600GT PCI -E) | 3129 | |
A more modern system is restoring the status quo. Note the minimum gap between System # 1 and System # 2.
We tested two settings of the video card, the results are summarized in the table. Testing has shown that the "low power" of video cards became a limiting factor here.
| DOOM3 (1280 * 1024, settings - high quality) | ||
| System characteristics | Points in the test | |
| System No. 1 (A64 236x10 / GF6800GS AGP 500/1300) | 85,0 | |
| System # 2 (A64 236x10 / GF7600GS PCI -E 530/1000) | 84,0 | |
| System # 3 (A64 X2 4600 + / GF7600GT PCI -E) | 89,7 | |
The situation repeats itself: System No. 3 is again in the lead, but pay attention to the insignificant gap with competitors. System No. 2 and No. 1 again demonstrate almost identical results, thereby confirming the thesis about the "processor dependence" of the game. The result shown by a dual-core processor is typical for applications not optimized for it.
conclusions
Let's summarize. During testing, we came to the conclusion that upgrading to a more modern platform without changing the video card will not bring much dividends. As our little research has shown, it is the capabilities of the video card that seriously affect the test results. Having come to this conclusion, we conscientiously combed the entire Internet and additionally found out that this situation is typical for other systems, including the latest and most powerful Intel Core2 Duo processor, and changes only when using video cards of a higher class and therefore a higher cost, such as the 7900GS. Moreover, if, when switching to a new platform, you plan to stay on CPU and GPU similar in speed, then there will be no cardinal changes for the better just by changing the type of connector and purchasing a motherboard with a dual-channel memory mode. So the "old ladies", having practically the same functionality as the latest motherboards at a much lower price, look decent enough, even against the background of modern mid-range systems. Well, except that the absence of SATA 2 may poison someone's life.
Thank you for the provided "stove from which they danced" to Alexander Kotrusov a.k.a. SAN.
