915 Motherboard Roundup: Socket 775 for the Rest of Us
by Wesley Fink on December 7, 2004 12:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Biostar P4TGP 775: 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: | 217x18 (3996MHz) +9% |
| Maximum FSB OC: | 217FSBx14 (+9%) |
Like a few other boards in the 915 roundup, Biostar has made no changes whatsoever to open up the stock 10% OC lock that we saw on the first 915/925X boards. It really doesn't matter whether you are trying to overclock at the stock 18X multiplier or a reduced 14X ratio - the limit is 217 FSB or about 9% overclock. If you are an overclocker or would like to try your hand at overclocking in the future, the Biostar is not a good choice. It is competitive at stock speeds and very stable at a small overclock, but this is not a board that will make an overclocker happy.
Memory Stress Test Results:
The Biostar uses DDR memory to ease the transition form a current platform to Socket T. The memory stress test measures the ability of the Biostar P4TGP 775 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (DDR400), at the best performing memory timings that OCZ OC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running DDR400 at 1:1 ratio 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 Biostar was completely stable with 2 DIMMs in Dual-Channel at the DDR timings of 2-2-2-10 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 |
We often see boards from second tier manufacturers that have some issues when filling all memory slots on a motherboard. 4 DIMMs was not an issue for this Biostar as it handled 4 DS DIMMs at the same timings that had worked for 2 DIMMs. It appears that Biostar has paid careful attention to memory performance on the P4TGP 775 and the board performance is satisfying at stock speeds.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
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 >>>>>>>>>>>>> *