915 Motherboard Roundup: Socket 775 for the Rest of Us
by Wesley Fink on December 7, 2004 12:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte 8GPNXP Duo: Overclocking and Stress Testing
FSB Overclocking Results
Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
Processor: | Pentium 4 Prescott LGA 775 560 ES (2.8GHz-3.6GHz) |
CPU Voltage: | 1.425V (1.3875V default) |
Cooling: | Thermaltake Jungle 502 |
Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520 |
Maximum CPU OverClock: | 218x18 (3996MHz) +9%/td> |
Maximum FSB OC: | 218FSBx14 (+9%) |
With the recent introduction of Intel Speedstep, overclocking an Intel 775 CPU can be done by raising the FSB at the stock multiplier or by lowering the CPU to 14X ratio and then raising the FSB more. Therefore, we ran all OC tests at the stock ratio and at the 14X Speedstep ratio. The ratio really didn't matter on the 8GPNXP-Duo as we could only reach 218 at any ratio. It appears that Gigabyte has more work to do on the 8GPnXP-Duo to get around the 10% OC lock. Since Gigabyte managed this task on the sister 915X chipset 8ANXP-D, this may still be possible with BIOS updates.
Memory Stress Test Results:
The Gigabyte can use either DDR or DDR2 memory. Benchmarks were run with DDR2 memory and a memory stress test was run to measure the ability of the Gigabyte 8GPNXP-D to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (533MHz DDR2), at the best performing memory timings that Crucial/Micron PC2-4300U will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running DDR2 at 533MHz (stock 3:4 ratio) with 2 DIMM slots operating in Dual-Channel mode.Stable DDR533 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 DIMMs - 1 Dual-Channel Bank) |
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Clock Speed: | 266MHz |
Timing Mode: | 3:4 (200:266 - Default) |
CAS Latency: | 3.0 |
Bank Interleave: | Auto |
RAS to CAS Delay: | 3 |
RAS Precharge: | 3 |
Cycle Time (tRAS): | 10* |
Command Rate: | N/A |
Like the other motherboards in this 915 roundup, the Gigabyte was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules at the best performing settings of 3-3-3-10 at default speed and 1.8V default voltage.
Since the Gigabye can run either DDR or DDR2, but not both simultaneously, we could not test with 4 DDR2 DIMMs.
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coldpower27 - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Of course the Pentium 4 560 is gonna be outperformed, The Pentium 4 560 is designed to compete at the 417US price point while the Athlon FX 55 is designed for the 827US, were talking double the P4 560 in price. i believethe closest competitor for the Pentium 4 560 in price is probably the Athlon 64 3700+ even though it is on Single Channel DDR.danidentity - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Even the 3800+ could be included, but that is still about $180 more expensive than the 560, according to Newegg.danidentity - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
I know comments like I'm about to make have been made before, and I am not biased, but I wanted to reiterate.Why is the FX-55 even part of the benchmarks in this review? Why not a 3500+? The FX-55 is TWICE the price of the Pentium 560 according to current Newegg prices.
I know the argument will be that the FX-55 and the 560 are two of the highest performing chips from the two camps. But the fact of the matter is that most people shopping for a 560 aren't going to be shopping for a FX-55. It's in an entirely different class.
mongoosesRawesome - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Can you do a comparison between soundstorm and dolby digital live? What is the bitrate of the encoding? Frequency range? Overall quality?It seems like this may be the second time I pass on AC3 encoding though. Last time I chose a northwood platform over AMD and NF2, and this time I'll likely choose the NF4 over intel and dolby digital live.
Would be nice to be able to easily hook it up to my klipsch dolby digital decodor though...
anandtechrocks - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Thanks for the great review!MAME - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
AMD >>>>>>>>>>>>> *