Socket 754 Roundup, Part 3: Asus, Soltek & DFI
by Wesley Fink on September 14, 2004 12:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
General Performance and Encoding
Values remain tightly clustered for 2nd generation 754 boards in Multimedia Content Creation and Business Winstone. It is interesting, however, that these most recent 754 boards are the boards at the top of the charts. It appears that Socket 754 has matured and manufacturers have learned to squeeze a bit more from the chipsets and processors.
The Soltek is a particularly fast performer at stock speeds. At a price of less than $100, it is a great value if you plan to run at stock and do not have a pressing need for on-board firewire.
The Soltek was a particular surprise in the 2-pass Media Encoding benchmark. In the past, we have seen values tightly clustered in boards using the same chipset and CPU. The Soltek even managed to top encoding by a skim margin. As we have stated in past reviews, the on-board memory controller of the Athlon 64 tends to make any differences between boards much smaller than what we have seen in the past with the memory controller on the chipset. So, variations in performance are more significant than they may first appear.
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MemberSince97 - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Boy, ya sure dont here much noise from FIC these days.MemberSince97 - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Edit ^^^Mr Fink.........MemberSince97 - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Good job Mr Finks, Keep on truckin...Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Things can change. Ask anyone who has gone from madly in love to a divorce :-)I was very clear that 939 is still faster at the same speed by 2% to 5%. We really expected 939 to make a bigger performance difference than it does when we wrote the pre-939 review. We also had no idea at that point that AMD would keep 939 so much more expensive than 754 and introduce value A64s only in 754 clothes.
I really don't think there is anything inconsistent in our statements. 939 still performs better at the same speed, but many can't or won't pay the current price of 939 admission. 754 can also pass 939 in performance if you can reach higher overclocks with 754.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
#3 - Good luck connecting your IDE cable to a SATA port. I understand your point, but most everyone understands IDE refers to the 40-pin connector.draazeejs - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Nice article, but I think AT should stay a bit consistent in their statements. Approx. a week before the s939 for A64 was released, they said - wait, do not buy any s754 mobos and CPUs, s939 is the future bla bla bla. Now, 2 months later, they even suggest to buy s754, because the s939 is just by far too expensive at the moment. Money rules the world...Zepper - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
FYI: SATA=IDE, to differentiate, it's SATA and PATA....bh.
Avalon - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
I wonder why the DFI board suffers those two noticeable drops in Specviewperf. Not that Specviewperf is something that matters to me, but it's a bit weird.thebluesgnr - Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - link
Will AnandTech review the ASRock K8 Combo-Z board?