Athlon64 Motherboards: First Look at Chaintech, FIC, and MSI

Performance Test Configuration

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz) AMD Opteron Socket 940 at 2.0GHz (9x222) 444FSB AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB) Intel Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz (800FSB) Intel Pentium 4 at 3.0GHz (800FSB)
RAM:	2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II 4 x 512MB Legacy ECC at 2.5-3-4-5 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TwinX LL (v1.1 )
Hard Drive(s):	Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers:	NVIDIA nForce version 2.45 (7/29/2003) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.49 (August 20, 2003) NVIDIA nForce version 2.03 (1/30/03)
Video Card(s):	ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 3.7 ATI Catalyst 3.6
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	ChaintechZNF3-150 (nForce3) Athlon64 3200+ FIC K8-800T (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ nVidia Reference nForce3 Opteron144 @ 222.0 MHz FSB (2.0GHz) DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ Albatron KX18D PROII (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ Asus P4C800-E (Intel 875P) 3.0Ghz P4 Intel D875PB2 (875P) 3.2GHz P4

Recent performance tests on nForce2 Ultra 400 and Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. Previous tests of motherboards used 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Mushkin PC3500 L2 was used to preserve the 2-2-2-6 timings that was used in tests with Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Both Mushkin and Corsair use the same Winbond BH5 memory chips in these modules.

All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.

Additions to Performance Tests

We have standardized on ZD Labs Internet Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking. Sysmark2002 Content Creation and General Performance Benchmarks have been included to provide a broader range of real Application benchmarks to AnandTech readers for the launch of the new Athlon64 and Athlon64FX.

Game Benchmarks

We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs as a standard game benchmark. We are also evaluating the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects as part of the standard benchmark. Results are reported here for reference.

Jedi Knight II has been dropped form our standard Benchmark Suite. We were forced to use different patches for operation on Athlon and Intel Pentium 4, which made cross-platform comparison difficult, if not impossible. In addition, Opteron/Athlon64 requires a third patching variation for benchmarking. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.

New Hardware

With the release of DirectX 9 late in 2002, the availability of Benchmarks to test DX9, and the availability of DX9-supporting video cards from both nVidia and ATI, we are now using the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO for all hardware reviews.