Socket 754 Roundup: Comparing Generation 2
by Wesley Fink on May 28, 2004 5:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte K8NSNXP: Overclocking and Stress Testing
FSB Overclocking Results
| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
| Default Voltage | |
| Processor: | Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.5V (default) |
| Cooling: | AMD Stock Athlon 64 Heatsink/Fan |
| Power Supply: | Antec TruePower 430W |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio) |
242FSB x10 2420MHz (+21%) (246 with EZTune4) |
| Maximum FSB: (Lower Ratio) |
242FSB x 10 at 1:1 Memory (275x8.5 at 1:1 with EZTune4) |
On paper, the Gigabyte K8NSNXP should be an incredible performer, but we found that no matter what we did, the Gigabyte would not boot at any ratio, at a speed higher than a BIOS setting of 242. This seems to be an artificial boot limiter, since we were able to reach a very competitive 275x8.5 using EZTune4 in Windows XP. While we were happy to see this level of performance with EZTune4, it is still a much less convenient method of overclocking than tuning the same settings in BIOS. EZTune4 does allow settings to be saved, so Windows will load at the same overclock on reboot, but we really wish that Gigabyte would give us a choice on how we wish to overclock. Gigabyte has been using what appears to be BIOS boot limits on several recent boards, probably to limit the number of boards destroyed by indiscriminate overclock settings in BIOS. We do understand why, but we still prefer to dial our own, as do most other overclockers.
The other complaint with recent Gigabyte boards is the extremely limited range of memory voltage adjustments that are provided. Memory is now available that is warranted to 3.0V to 3.2V, and an adjustment of just +0.2V for vDIMM is just not enough for some memory. The Chipset and HT voltage adjustments partially offset this limitation, but they are not an adequate substitute for such a limited selection of vDIMM settings. Gigabyte builds very reliable motherboards, and with a little more attention to memory voltage and BIOS overclocking, they would consistently be at or near the top in every roundup.
Memory Stress Test Results:
The memory stress test simply checks the ability of the Gigabyte K8NSNXP to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the best performing memory timings that our Mushkin PC3500 Level 2 or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd Modules will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with 2 DIMM slots filled.| Stable DDR400 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/3 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T (10T for Best Performance)* |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
*Several memory tests have shown that memory performs fastest on the nVidia nForce and VIA K8T800 chipsets at a TRas (RAS Precharge) setting in the 9 to 13 range. We ran our own Memory Bandwidth tests with memtest86 with TRas settings from 5 to 15 at a wide range of different memory speeds. The best bandwidth was consistently at 9 to 11 at every speed, with TRas 10 always in the best range at every speed. The memory bandwidth improvement at TRas 10 was only 2% to 4% over TRas 5 and 6 depending on the speed, but the performance advantage was consistent across all tests. Since best performance was achieved at 2-2-2-10 timings, all Athlon 64 benchmarks were run at a TRas setting of 10.
The Gigabyte K8NSNXP was completely stable with 2 DIMMs at the best performing settings of 2-2-2-10 at default speed, but we did need to boost memory voltage slightly by +0.1V for best stability. Higher overclocks could be achieved with 1 DIMM compared to 2 DIMMs, but at default speed, 1 or 2 DIMMs were reliable at the same aggressive 2-2-2-10 timings.
Filling all three available memory slots is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DIMMs on a motherboard. As we found on most other nF3-250 boards, 3 DS DIMMs (1.5GB) of memory worked fine at timings almost the same as the aggressive timings that we used for 2 DIMMs.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 3 DIMMs (3/3 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 3T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
Three DIMMs required 2-2-3-10 timings for stable operation, but they remained stable at the +0.1V memory voltage that was required with 2 DS DIMMs. 2-2-3 is very close to the best performing 2-2-2-10 timings with 2 dimms.
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intercollector - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
I'm a little surprised to see why the MSI K8N didn't get the gold compared to the Epox. Both seem almost identical in every way, except that the K8N seems to include Firewire. Shouldn't this feature make it surpass the Epox board?The only downside of the MSI board seems to be the limit of a 300 max FSB, which is probably fine for 99.99% of overclockers.
Klaasman - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
#7-Thanks for link, but my KV8 Pro still wont boot when selecting "fixed" in bios setup.
Why wouldn't my board have the pro chip? Manufacturing screw up maybe?
Wesley Fink - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
#6 -Bank Interleaving is not an option in any of the BIOS' tested here. Many current BIOS enable Bank interleaving by default. Where it is an option, we definitely enable the best interleaving option available and list what we set in the memory chart. We are not ignoring this option.
bigtoe33 - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
If you are looking for the latest Abit KV8 pro bios have a look here. http://www.bleedinedge.com/download/bios/abit%20am...multi support and PCI lock inc. if your pro board won't lock the pci bus with this bios then your board may not have the pro chipset.
Myrandex - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
Well after finishing the article, I was wondering why none of the boards are run with bank interleaving on? Doesn't it increase memory performance for the ones that support it?Myrandex - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
On the KV8 spec page, it states:Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250
No FireWire
Should be K8T800 Pro instead of nF3-250.
Myrandex - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
Klaasman - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
What revision of KV8 Pro were you using and what bios version?Nobody else with a recently purchased KV8 can get the locks to work. How come your board does?
Aikouka - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
Anandtech should have looked at the problem that the Chaintech VNF3-250 has with it's RAID and installing an OS, and the problem where the board refuses to boot from SATA if you enable RAID on any IDE HDDs. People've said they've been able to circumvent it, but I haven't got it to work yet, and Chaintech is worthless when it comes to customer service. I received an automated response about 6 or 7 days after my initial submission on their website (they have no US phone number.) And I still have not received an email from a representative yet.RyanVM - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
If there's so little variation in system performance between these, why not look at other aspects like USB throughput/CPU utilization, IDE/SATA throughput, ethernet throughput/CPU utilization, etc.Ace's Hardware just did a great article showing that the rather crummy components being used these days on cheaper motherboards have a pretty large impact in performance in those areas.
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=65000298