AM2 Motherboards-Part 4: ATI Crossfire Xpress 3200
by Wesley Fink on August 21, 2006 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
Test conditions were maintained the same, as much as possible, over the platforms tested. For better comparison standard test results (1280x1024) were run with a single NVIDIA 7900 GTX on all platforms. A single ATI X1900 XTX was also tested at standard resolutions on the ATI chipset boards. Consider this result a sanity check for single card performance and CrossFire. Since SLI and CrossFire are not yet interchangeable, 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF single and SLI game benchmarks were run on the NVIDIA-based boards with a pair of 7900 GTX cards. 1600X1200 4xAA/8xAF Single and CrossFire game benchmarks were run on the ATI using a Master+Single CrossFire. All results are reported in our charts and color-coded for easier identification of results.
AM2 benchmarking used a Corsair PC-8500 (DDR2-1066) 2GB kit at 3-3-3 timings at around 2.2V. In recent months the memory market has moved from a 1GB kit to a 2GB kit as the common memory configuration. Our new DDR2 test standard will therefore be 2GB.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor: | AM2 4800+ (x2, 2.4GHz, 1MB Cache per core) |
| RAM: | 2 x 1GB Corsair Twin2x2048-8500C5 Tested at DDR2-800 3-3-3 2.2v to 2.3V |
| Hard Drive(s): | Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB SATA2 (16MB Buffer) Hitachi 250GB SATA2 enabled (16MB Buffer) |
| System Platform Drivers: | NVIDIA - 9.34 ATI - LAN, Audio, SMBus drivers as required |
| Video Cards: | 1 x EVGA 7900GTX - All Standard Tests 2 x EVGA 7900GTX - SLI 1 x ATI X1900XT - ATI Standard Tests (for Reference) 2 x ATI x1900XT (Master+Standard) - Crossfire |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA 91.31 ATI Catalyst 6.7 |
| CPU Cooling: | AMD FX62 Heatpipe AM2 Cooler Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ PowerStream 520W |
| Motherboards: | MSI K9A Platinum (RD580/SB600) ECS KA3 MVP Extreme (RD580/SB600) ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (NVIDIA 590) Epox MF570SLI (NVIDIA 570) ATI Crossfire Express AM2 Reference (RD580/SB600) Foxconn C51XEM2AA (NVIDIA 590) Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5 (NVIDIA 590) Biostar TForce 590-SLI (NVIDIA 590) MSI K9N SLI Platinum (NVIDIA 570) |
| Operating System: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
Test conditions were maintained the same, as much as possible, over the platforms tested. For better comparison standard test results (1280x1024) were run with a single NVIDIA 7900 GTX on all platforms. A single ATI X1900 XTX was also tested at standard resolutions on the ATI chipset boards. Consider this result a sanity check for single card performance and CrossFire. Since SLI and CrossFire are not yet interchangeable, 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF single and SLI game benchmarks were run on the NVIDIA-based boards with a pair of 7900 GTX cards. 1600X1200 4xAA/8xAF Single and CrossFire game benchmarks were run on the ATI using a Master+Single CrossFire. All results are reported in our charts and color-coded for easier identification of results.
AM2 benchmarking used a Corsair PC-8500 (DDR2-1066) 2GB kit at 3-3-3 timings at around 2.2V. In recent months the memory market has moved from a 1GB kit to a 2GB kit as the common memory configuration. Our new DDR2 test standard will therefore be 2GB.
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Patrese - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
Great! :)classy - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
Whats with the smarttargeting pop-up?Fenixgoon - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
no popups for me - win XP w/ firefoxmendocinosummit - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
I got it twice on every new page for the review. I also have Firefox and XP SP2. I wonder if they are being attacked.psychobriggsy - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
Nice review, shame that I kept on getting pop-ups asking me to log into www.smarttargetting.net when I went to the next page (Safari / Mac OS X, not it's no IE Windows issue).Wesley Fink - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
There are also pop-ups with IE. We have notified our IE support of the issue. They will fix the issue as soon as possible.Wesley Fink - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
IE has fixed the pop-up error. Let us know if there are any further issues.Bonesdad - Monday, August 21, 2006 - link
me too...