Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Performance Test Configuration
If you are interested in more information comparing the Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Prescott, P4, and P4EE, please see our in-depth comparisons in the recent 775/939/Prescott/3400+/3000+ launch reviews:Intel's 925X & LGA-775: Are Prescott 3.6 and PCI Express Graphics any Faster?
Intel 925X/915: Chipset Performance & DDR2
Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and FX-53: The First 939 CPUs
The Athlon 64 FX-53: AMD's Next Enthusiast Part
Intel's Pentium 4 E: Prescott Arrives with Luggage
Athlon64 3400+: Part 2
AMD's Athlon 64 3400+: Death of the FX-51
Athlon64 3000+: 64-bit at Half the Price
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon64 FX53 (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II OR 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM IDE (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce Platform Driver 4.24 (5-10-2004) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) |
| Video Card(s): | nVidia 6800 Ultra (AGP 8X) |
| Video Drivers: | nVidia nForce 61.80 Beta |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | Abit AV8 PRO (VIA K8T800 PRO) Asus A8V Deluxe Revision 2 (VIA K8T800 PRO) ECS KV2 Extreme (VIA K8T800 PRO) Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 (nVidia nForce3 Ultra) MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (nVidia nForce3 Ultra) MSI K8T Neo2-FIR (VIA K8T800 PRO) |
Tests used either Mushkin PC3500 Level II or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd memory modules. Both memories use Winbond BH5 chips and perform virtually the same in our benchmarks. The BH5 memory modules that we used for testing are no longer available for purchase, but we have not yet established our standard memory for future testing. We will be using a new standard memory in future motherboard tests.
Since the nVidia 6800 Ultra PCI Express card was used for testing in the 925X/915 chipset launch, we used the AGP 8X version of the 6800 Ultra for all testing in this roundup. This allows for better comparison with Intel Socket 775 results, since our standard ATI 9800 PRO is not available in a PCIe configuration. We are still evaluating video cards to determine our new Video standard for future benchmarking. All performance tests were run with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless otherwise noted.
Additions to Performance Tests
AutoGK (Auto Gordian Knot) has been selected as the new standard for Encoding benchmarking. This benchmark is partially based on the DVD2AVI engine and we use DivX 5.1.1 as the encoding codec. Test results are compiled with a 2-pass encoding using "Sum of All Fears", Chapter 9 as the video source.Game Benchmarks
We have added four new Gaming tests to our standard suite of gaming benchmarks. Far Cry is a popular DirectX 9.0b game, which is run with a custom benchmark called Airstrip. We have also added Unreal Tournament 2004 with a custom benchmark called UTBench. Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory is a recent OpenGL game based on the Quake engine, and we run the Radar benchmark. We are finding RCW-ET to be an excellent benchmark for measuring system performance, and it will likely replace Quake3 as our standard OpenGL benchmark down the road. We have also included the Final Fantasy XI benchmark, which is DX9. With the addition of the 4 new games, we have dropped Splinter Cell from our motherboard game benchmarks.Other standard game benchmarks include Halo, Microsoft's Direct X 9.0b game; X2 Benchmark, a DX 8.1 game, which includes Transform and Lighting effects; the DX9 Aquamark 3; and Unreal Tournament 2003, which is included for comparison with the new UT2004 test results. The DX 8.1 Comanche 4 benchmark is also used with the 4X anti-aliasing setting a 1280x1024 resolution to differentiate system performance better using the nVidia 6800 Ultra.
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thebluesgnr - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
"Our FX53 topped out at about 3.59 GHz on the ECS KV2, which is slightly below the 3.6+ achieved on the top 939 boards."Is this ECS a P4 board? :P
This was a great article. I agree with other readers, CnQ should definately have been tested, as well as audio and IDE subsystems.
btw Wesley, will there be reviews of KT880 socket A mobos in the future?
TrogdorJW - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Just a few comments. It's a little (*little* mind you) unfair to compare FX-53 to P4 560, given the price advantage of the P4. Then again, comparing it to the P4EE is a little unfair in the other direction. It might have been nice to include one or two other systems in the benchmarks, though, like a 3400+. Sure, we can cross-reference other articles, but if you have all the data already it would be a lot cleaner. I'm especially interested in seeing AutoGK benchmarks with the "lesser" Athlon 64 processors (3500+ and 3400+ would be good, or maybe even 3200+ - not everyone has $400+ to spend on a CPU!)Of course, while it might be less fair to Intel, I would like to get AutoGK numbers using Xvid as well. That's how I use it, as I feel the quality is a little better than DivX. Oh, and while you state that you used 2-pass encoding, what was the target resolution? 640x360, or 720x408, or something else? And did you specify a target size, or was it on unlimited quality? All those are important questions, I think.
One final request: I truly appreciate the memory stress testing benchmarks. However, I would like it taken a little further. All of the boards claim that they can support up to 4 GB of RAM. I would love to see some tests showing this configuration. After all, 64-bits is really about breaking that memory barrier. Even if the boards need to run 4x1GB at DDR266 or DDR333, it would be good to know. (Too bad there simply aren't many good 1 GB DIMMs available yet.)
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#14 & #20 - Perhaps tests with the X800 XT on nF3 compared to the 6800 Ultra will at least shed a little light on where the efficiencies lie - in the nF3/nV Video combo or in the nF3 itself.#16 - We will make an effort to talk a bit more about Cool'n'Quiet in individual board reviews, but in a roundup like this it is difficult to explore that level of detail, and still hold the article length to anthing you might want to read. We try to do more with features in individual reviews.
#19 - We report the full range of vCore in our board charts for people like you who are interested in umdervolting. If you notice some boards begin vCore at default, while others make a wide undervolt range available as well as overvolt. We try to report this range as accurately as possible for this reason.
Pete - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Wesley, very interesting numbers. Halo is supposedly limited by some inefficient DX9 layers/commands, so I at first thought maybe nV had somehow optimized or bypassed some DX9 calls. The office and Content Creation benchmarks advantage is more puzzling, though. Could nV's performance edge be the result of some intelligent caching or either the HD or the CPU?Testing an X800 for reference is a good idea for Halo. Just be sure to retest the office and Content Creation suites, too, as the performance boost there is equally curious, IMO.
I found one typo, on the system specs page. It's Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, not Wolfenstein: Enemy Within. :)
JKing76 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Sure there's Cool'n'Quiet, but how about adding manual undervolting capabilities to the review? A lot of mobos only allow upping the vcore, but undervolting is a great tool for creating a truely cool and quiet system without losing performance.XRaider - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Love that FX53 and the MSI K8N Neo2 together. Sure is purdy nice!! ;) But must...hold...out...until...price..drops...some..more.. ;o)Great article BTW!
XRaider - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Love that FX53 and the MSI K8N Neo2 together. Sure is purdy nice!! ;) But must...hold...out...until...price..drops...some..more.. ;o)Great article BTW!
jojo4u - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
I miss information about Cool'n'Quiet. It's a shame that anandtech.com only is insterested in overclocking and speed.esSJae - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Nice, another article touting the non-existent MSI K8N Neo2.Sure, you can go to MSI's Taiwan site and download the manual and BIOS, but doesn't seem to be much point in that.
DAPUNISHER - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
"We never expected the nVidia nForce3-250 Ultra to be a better performer in Winstone benchmarks than the VIA K8T800 PRO. However, both the nF3-250 boards are outperforming the VIA boards by a significant percentage. Since the nVidia 6800 Ultra video card was used for all benchmarking in the roundup, we plan to verify these results with an ATI X800 XT as soon as that board is available to the Motherboard Lab for testing"Is this to determine if it's a result of forceware opts that is responsible for the difference observed?