DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R: ATI's, err, AMD's RD600 finally arrives
by Gary Key on December 16, 2006 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Disk Controller Performance
The AnandTech iPeak test is designed to measure "pure" hard disk controller performance, and in this case we keep the hard drive as consistent as possible while varying the hard drive controller. The idea is to measure the performance of each hard drive controller with the same hard drive.
We test with our raw files that are recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPeak utility is used to play back the trace file of all I/O operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. To try to isolate performance differences to the controllers that we are testing we are using the Western Digital 74GB Raptor with 16MB cache for both our standard disk controller and RAID performance tests for this article. The drive is formatted before each test run and a composite average of three tests on each controller interface is tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.
iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each I/O operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of I/O operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance. This number is meaningless as far as hard disk performance is concerned, as it is just the number of I/O operations completed in a second. However, the scores are useful for comparing "pure" performance of the storage controllers in this case.
The performance patterns hold steady across both Multimedia Content I/O and Business I/O with the SB600 outperforming the Intel ICH7R and NVIDIA 680i chipsets in our non-RAID tests. The Promise controller on the DFI board is the slowest of all solutions with the Marvell controller on the Intel 975X performing slightly better. In our initial RAID 0 tests with the Promise and Marvell controllers we see the Marvell controller once again finishing ahead of the Promise solution. This probably stems from the fact that we were limited to a 16KB Stripe size on the Promise controller while the Marvell was set at 128KB. Both auxiliary controllers have worked flawlessly to date once set up correctly.
Each controller ships with a web-based application used to set up the drives from Windows if that option is needed. However, DFI still has some BIOS tuning work to complete when utilizing the Promise controller. The manual says to use F4 to enter the controller setup but we had to use Ctrl-F which is the same setting utilized by the SB600 RAID setup. We had to choose which RAID setup to use as both were not available simultaneously, although we preferred the SB600 for daily use. Also, we noticed an issue in setting up either RAID solution on the DFI board with a USB keyboard and had to resort to a PS/2 connection. Finally, if we set the memory burst value to 8, then the board would lock if we had RAID enabled. DFI is working on a solution now, but at this point you need to work around the issues. We will provide full RAID results from the native controllers in our next article along with images of the Promise application.
Power Consumption
Our power consumption numbers are based on our test setup for this article and with power management turned off. This should come as no real surprise but the 680i is a power hog - or better yet it provides very good competition to the Intel Prescott for best utilization of a computer component as a space heater. The RD600 has slightly higher idle consumption numbers than the Intel 975X but consumes about 12% less power under load than the Intel board and 26% less than the ASUS 680i. Although the 680i consumes about 32% more power at idle than the RD600 or Intel 975X, the load numbers level off quickly when compared to the 975X. The results of the RD600 are very good and mimic the RD480 but are not as impressive as the RD580 from a chipset only level. Our system at stock voltages ran very cool but we did see power consumption increases almost equal the 975X when overclocking both platforms. We will present these numbers along with CrossFire results shortly.
The AnandTech iPeak test is designed to measure "pure" hard disk controller performance, and in this case we keep the hard drive as consistent as possible while varying the hard drive controller. The idea is to measure the performance of each hard drive controller with the same hard drive.
We test with our raw files that are recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPeak utility is used to play back the trace file of all I/O operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. To try to isolate performance differences to the controllers that we are testing we are using the Western Digital 74GB Raptor with 16MB cache for both our standard disk controller and RAID performance tests for this article. The drive is formatted before each test run and a composite average of three tests on each controller interface is tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.
iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each I/O operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of I/O operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance. This number is meaningless as far as hard disk performance is concerned, as it is just the number of I/O operations completed in a second. However, the scores are useful for comparing "pure" performance of the storage controllers in this case.
The performance patterns hold steady across both Multimedia Content I/O and Business I/O with the SB600 outperforming the Intel ICH7R and NVIDIA 680i chipsets in our non-RAID tests. The Promise controller on the DFI board is the slowest of all solutions with the Marvell controller on the Intel 975X performing slightly better. In our initial RAID 0 tests with the Promise and Marvell controllers we see the Marvell controller once again finishing ahead of the Promise solution. This probably stems from the fact that we were limited to a 16KB Stripe size on the Promise controller while the Marvell was set at 128KB. Both auxiliary controllers have worked flawlessly to date once set up correctly.
Each controller ships with a web-based application used to set up the drives from Windows if that option is needed. However, DFI still has some BIOS tuning work to complete when utilizing the Promise controller. The manual says to use F4 to enter the controller setup but we had to use Ctrl-F which is the same setting utilized by the SB600 RAID setup. We had to choose which RAID setup to use as both were not available simultaneously, although we preferred the SB600 for daily use. Also, we noticed an issue in setting up either RAID solution on the DFI board with a USB keyboard and had to resort to a PS/2 connection. Finally, if we set the memory burst value to 8, then the board would lock if we had RAID enabled. DFI is working on a solution now, but at this point you need to work around the issues. We will provide full RAID results from the native controllers in our next article along with images of the Promise application.
Power Consumption
Our power consumption numbers are based on our test setup for this article and with power management turned off. This should come as no real surprise but the 680i is a power hog - or better yet it provides very good competition to the Intel Prescott for best utilization of a computer component as a space heater. The RD600 has slightly higher idle consumption numbers than the Intel 975X but consumes about 12% less power under load than the Intel board and 26% less than the ASUS 680i. Although the 680i consumes about 32% more power at idle than the RD600 or Intel 975X, the load numbers level off quickly when compared to the 975X. The results of the RD600 are very good and mimic the RD480 but are not as impressive as the RD580 from a chipset only level. Our system at stock voltages ran very cool but we did see power consumption increases almost equal the 975X when overclocking both platforms. We will present these numbers along with CrossFire results shortly.
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baronzemo78 - Monday, December 18, 2006 - link
I would like to thank Gary for all the hard work getting this preview out so fast. I am still very excited about this board. I'm waiting for the R600 anyway, so hopefully by then the stability and BIOS options of the board will have improved. I'm very curious to see if the R600 in crossfire will need more then the x8 pcie bandwith. I certainly hope it doesn't as an overclocked RD600 with a R600 sounds awesome to me. Anyway thanks again for the preview and keep up the good work.Lord Evermore - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
First page says SB600 offers multiple LAN ports, but SB600 has no LAN support, and the Marvell controllers are off the PCIe links from the northbridge.It seems odd that ATI didn't design the SB600 with at least a couple of extra PCIe lanes. Right off the bat, this mainboard has zero upgradeability for PCIe devices, if you set up the intended dual graphics and physics cards. No hot new PCIe sound cards, TV tuners, SCSI cards.
SB600 automatically becomes a nice competitor to Intel's chipsets, due to the included PATA support, so there's no need for an add in PCI IDE controller. ATI/AMD's overview page though is a bit misleading, as they claim the built-in SATA controllers support "all RAID levels".
You're blaming DFI's board layout for large heatsinks not fitting into smaller cases? They had to put the socket somewhere, if that's the issue, and no matter where board makers put things, reviewers ALWAYS seem to find some complaint because of odd components not fitting or cabling not being perfect. And you didn't even mention those 90 degree angled SATA ports. I haven't seen that before. Might those not be an issue if you don't use a cable with a clip, since the downward pull of the cables is now going longways instead of across the width of the connector? (Same thing could apply to any SATA or IDE ports aligned perpendicular to the expansion slots really, but most boards don't have them that way that I've seen, possibly for that very reason.) Yeah I know, it might get mentioned in a more in-depth review, but that stands out more to me than 0.1% of the available heatsinks not fitting in a tiny case.
Why would the third PCIe slot need to be "jumpered for PCI Express card operation"?
That Promise RAID looks like crap. The single drive SB600 performance almost beats it. Why no benchmarks with the SB600 RAID, or the Intel or Nvidia RAID? It would be nice to know if ATI can beat the roughly 50% performance gain of the others.
Too bad this might be the only board ever made with this chipset, and that there won't be a more value-oriented line. I can do without the CrossFire support or the physics slot (although having the option of a non-graphics x8 or x2 slot with x16 physical support would be nice), and I can do with a reduction in the amount of tweaking options, or the add-in Promise controller, or dual LAN and the better audio solution. And the color scheme could be done without. I'm tempted by Core2Duo chips, but none of the other chipsets or boards really looks that great to me in terms of features.
Gary Key - Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - link
With the latest beta BIOS release -If you disable Promise and SB600 RAID you can use the second X16 slot (x8 electrical) for a RAID card, it will switch your first x16 slot from x16 to x8 operation.
The physics slot (x2 electrical) works fine with our x1 Network or TV Tuner cards once you switch the jumper now. This is required to change the operation of the slot based upon the switching mechanism employed with the future Physics setup.
I am not blaming DFI for large heatsinks not fitting in smaller cases. I was just pointing out the fact that it could be an issue for those that try it. I like the open space myself due to the offset but that creates another issue for some users. It is just information being provided.
The SB600 can support LAN depending upon how they configure it. DFI that it would be best for dual Lan coming off the RD600 instead.
The other RAID benchmarks are coming in our follow-up as stated in the article.
The 90 degree angled SATA ports are being used in most of the new board designs now. Look at most of the 680i boards and you will find they are being used extensively now. We did not have any issues with the cables slipping out.
yyrkoon - Monday, December 18, 2006 - link
Thats why "we" just review the product, and not send them off to some salt mines, somewhere ;) This is after all, a review, everyone has an opinion, and if it doesn't bother you, simply disregard, and use common sense . . .
Sh0ckwave - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
Looks like a decentn my cramped case. board. I just need to know if my Infinity will fit on it icornfedone - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
From this initial review this mobo sure sounds temperamental and a shaky design if you see dramatic changes with BIOS settings and instability sometimes. The fact that it's performance changes radically with memory or CPU changes is not an indication of a stable mobo design.More BIOS adjustments does not necessarily make for a better mobo design if all the options do is make the mobo unstable or crash. This is a typical case of more is not better. The extra options are used as a rationale to jack the price and increase profits from consumers who lack the technical expertise to understand the motivation for such useless BIOS options.
As far as the ATI/AMD labels go, I don't know why many in the online enthusiasts PC hardware segment make such a big deal out of AMD renaming the ATI products with AMD labels. Every company I know of that has bought another company, renames the products, so this ain't no big deal. If you don't like the product don't buy it. The name of the product has no impact on how it performs.
mino - Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - link
Also on the maning "issue".Most sites "big deal out of AMD renaming the ATI products" not because ot the renaming - no problem there.
The thing is, one of the best chipsets/if not THE best for Intel comming form AMD, well, that IS something.
Also remember, AMD chipset ? That has not been in the consumer market for LONG time. At the same note, most average people have no idea that X200=X3200IE=RD600 and is from the RD480line... to those (aned there are many of them!) this is a big deal as they do not have to dig the info themselves.
Also, at least to me, seeing it makes me smile usually...
mino - Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - link
maning==namingmino - Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - link
Well, at first You should understand what "temperamental when messing with BIOS" and temaperamental at "stock" means.When the board is "temperamental" when messing with BIOS, ti means YOU are messing with something you have no idea what it is or what it does!
If you do not understand what overclocking really means, do NOT overclock at all.
Overclocking is about running things "one the edge" ... and to find that "edge" you NEED to be able to push the board over it.
To be able to do so is a dream of an overclocker as it enables him to get most performance from any set of components.
I love those dumbass "overclockers" who assemble a mid-range machine, install some ClockGen-like utility, overclock it until it becomes unstable and consider themselves "overclockers".
To topic:
!!! I LOVE THE IDEA OF THOSE UNDERVOLTING OPTIONS !!!
More boards should offer those, it is far more usefull and safe than overvolt jet most boards do not offer it... ;-(
mino - Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - link
sry for the typpos :)