915 Motherboard Roundup: Socket 775 for the Rest of Us
by Wesley Fink on December 7, 2004 12:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Abit AG8: Overclocking and Stress Testing
FSB Overclocking Results
Intel has recently talked about Speedstep, which is the ability of Prescott processors to run at both stock speed and a lower 14X multiplier. Speedstep works on most 925X motherboards and it has recently been added to some 915 motherboards with BIOS updates. This capability will likely be added to other 915/925X motherboards in the future. For that reason, all overclocking tests were performed at a stock 3.6GHz (18X) on motherboards in this roundup and at 14X, the Speedstep multiplier.| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
| Processor: | Pentium 4 Prescott LGA 775 560 ES (2.8GHz-3.6GHz) |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.425V (1.3675V default) |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Jungle 502 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520 |
| Maximum CPU OverClock: | 222x18 (3996MHz) +11% |
| Maximum FSB OC: | 261FSBx14 (+31%) |
The results of the Abit overclocks look impressive until you compare them to boards like the DFI, Asus, or MSI. It is fair to say that overclocking with the Abit AG8 is above average, but not the top of the roundup. The 261 wall is similar to the issues that we found with SATA drives on the Asus AA8 - you run into a wall with SATA around 260 on the Abit and you just can't break around it. The Abit AG8 will go higher in overclocking if you plan to use it with an IDE drive, but this can prove to be a challenge with just one IDE connector available for all your optical drives and a hard drive.
The AG8 was able to achieve a FSB of 261, a 31% overclock, with an ATI X800 XT and SATA hard drive. Abit manipulates the PCIe frequency with uGuru during boot to achieve higher overclocks. For more information on how Abit manages to overclock the AA8/AG8, please check Breaking Intel's Overclock Lock: The REAL Story.
Memory Stress Test Results:
The memory stress test measures the ability of the Abit AG8 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR) at the best performing memory timings that OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running the DDR400 with 2 DIMM slots operating in Dual-Channel mode.| Stable DDR400 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 DIMMs - 1 Dual-Channel Bank) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | 1:1 (200:200 - Default) |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | Auto |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2 |
| RAS Precharge: | 2 |
| Cycle Time (tRAS): | 5 |
The Abit AA8 DuraMAX was completely stable with 2 DIMMs in Dual-Channel at the DDR settings of 2-2-2-5, at 2.6V default voltage.
Filling all four available memory slots is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DDR modules on a motherboard.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs - 2 Dual-Channel Banks) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | 1:1 (200:200 - Default) |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | Auto |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2 |
| RAS Precharge: | 2 |
| Cycle Time (tRAS): | 5 |
The Abit uses familiar DDR memory and performed much as we have come to expect with 4 DDR400 DIMMs. With 4 DIMMs, the Abit was stable at the same aggressive 2-2-2-5 timings that we found with 2 DIMMs.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
krelian - Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - link
I been a Intel user since the first Pentium 3 came out now I have a Intel P4 3.0C I refused to spend more money on things I had already bought so I stayed with the 478 socket, seeing as Intel wants me to move to an expensive platform, I say I'll ditch Intel head with the AMD crowd, I'm sure I won't be the only one, maybe legions of intel campers will leave.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
About the config I put together in the previous post; does anyone know if the overclock lock on the 915P chipsets apply to lower FSB's too? Could I overclock the 133MHz Celeron D to 200MHz on any 915P motherboard?ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
The 915P chipset provides good value for the money. For example:ECS 915P-A $79
Intel Celeron D 325J 2.53GHz $88
Albatron GeForce 6600 128MB $120.50
or
Albatron GeForce 6600GT 128MB $190.50
(newegg prices)
The processor can be overclocked to 3.6+GHz very easily, much like the Athlon Mobiles.
That makes a good budget gaming rig, better than anything you could put together with an AMD processor for the same money. So, at least in my opinion, AMD has a better mainstream/high-end processor, and Intel wins the value segment. Who would say?
--
I have now read the entire article, and oh boy! Though I prefer to read about socket 754/939 motherboards, this has to be the best motherboard roundup I ever read. Ever. Well done.
--
#22,
thank your fixing it. The typo I wrote about on page 10:
"The fact that Asus manages a higher OC than more recognized OC boards like DFI and Asus "
Don't you mean ABIT in the last word there?
ocyl - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Wesley > Thank you for paying attention to the audio features/components of these motherboards, particularly Dolby Digital Live :)Wesley Fink - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
#21 - The Foxconn results have been corrected on p.20. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
A few typos:"The fact that Asus manages a higher OC than more recognized OC boards like DFI and Asus "
page 10.
On page 20, the "Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed" table is probably wrong.
---
Good article.
LeadFrog - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Why does only the socket 915 get a 16mb cache Hard Drive?danidentity - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Wes, I said thanks before but I'll say it again, great roundup. We appreciate your hard work, always.danidentity - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Live -The P5GD2 is expensive compared to most boards, but it includes a ton of stuff, like 8 SATA ports, dual gigabit LAN, on-board 802.11g/b, and on-board hi-def audio with Dolby Digital Live (realtime encoding, like SoundStorm).
Most 915P boards aren't as close to as expensive as the Asus. The Abit AG8 is ~ $130, equal or cheaper in price than the K8N Neo2.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
#16 - After I did the price analysis today I changed "outstanding value" to "good value". Thanks for the comment about the review being good reading. It is appreciated as a huge amount of work went into this roundup.