Conroe Performance Preview Follow-Up
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 9, 2006 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The BIOS Issue
The one item that a number of you pointed out was that the BIOS used on the DFI LANPARTY UT RDX200 (RD480) motherboard was in fact the first version released for this particular motherboard. Intel told us that the motherboard was purchased a little over two weeks ago and the BIOS used on it was what came with the motherboard, but we still agreed with you all that the system should be tested with the latest BIOS to remove all doubt of wrong doing.
There are only two BIOS files publicly available for this motherboard, one being the first release that was loaded on the system and the other being a file dated 12/23/2005. The 12/23 BIOS offers the following fixes according to DFI:
1. Fix memory Set 2-1-1-1-1 and 4-1-1 mode wrong.
2. Set Cool'n'Quiet default disable.
3. Change the description of DQDRV.
4. Fix Read Preamble Table Error.
5. Shorten the delay time during clock programming loop.
6. Add over clocks step by step.
7. Fix fill 3114 SVID&SSID under Cross fire mode.
8. Fix soft-reset hang on POST code F2h if enable USB mouse support.
9. Change CMOS used to fix some control item can’t save.
10. Add support K8 FX60 CPU.
11. Update SiI3112 Raid ROM.
12. Fix some SATA(DiamondMax 10 (6B160M0) HDD ) HDD detect fail at first time cool boot.
That’s a pretty long list of changes, which could definitely be responsible for a change in performance. We were able to test the impact of the new BIOS, and our results are below:
DFI LANPARTY UT RDX200 |
10/11/2005 BIOS |
12/23/2005 BIOS |
| Quake 4 - 1280 x 960 (Avg Frame Rate) | 207.5 fps |
207.6 fps |
| F.E.A.R. - 1024 x 768 (Avg Frame Rate) | 151.0 fps |
158.0 fps |
| Windows Media Encoder 9 (Encode Time) | 75 seconds |
75 seconds |
| DivX 6.1 (Encode Time) | 44 seconds |
44 seconds |
| iTunes 6.0.1.3 (Encode Time) | 73 seconds |
72 seconds |
UT2004 and Half Life 2 were absent from our testing, simply because we didn’t have the time to get them installed, but the rest of the scores here should be indicative of the full impact of the BIOS update. In the media encoding tests we saw absolutely no performance impact other than a 1 second reduction in iTunes encoding time. F.E.AR. at 1024 x 768 saw a reasonable gain of 4%. Quake 4 remained virtually unchanged.
With the new BIOS installed we confirmed that Cool’n’Quiet was disabled, so that was not impacting the performance results at all. The new BIOS also correctly identified the Athlon 64 FX-60 processor, although as you can see from the results above, the proper detection of the CPU didn’t translate into greater performance.
The new BIOS in action
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
96 Comments
View All Comments
Questar - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
I think you have confused AMD for ATI.amano - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Not really: "Why Ati drivers where modified to recognize the Conroe processor?"Indeed, why ? Perhaps to fix the disadvantage that the FEAR benchmark gives to ATI?
If this disadvantage was fixed for the INTEL-setup, and not for the AMD-setup, then the 2 setups can not be compared and the benchmark-results are flawed.
(sorry, my first post was a bit confusing..)
Accord99 - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
That was fixed several driver revisions ago. All it was was a mistake in one If statement.DSaum - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
So the 41% Conroe advantage over AMD has suddenly become 20%? After this sorry episode I have serious doubts as to Anandtech's objectivity as an unbiased reviewer."Believe it or not, Intel doesn't seem malicious in their intent." LOL
clnee55 - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
After a great review and re-test by Anand, I hope i don't see fanboism comment again. Unfortunately, there are still kids around, who cannot understand a simple review.Bladen - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
^And the AMD fanboy of the year award goes too...BTW for thoes wondering if Conroe and the others are 64 bit, the answer is yes.
I highly doubt Intel will release a processor that is not 64 bit in the future. Well for any processor designed for laptop, desktop or server anyway...
Bladen - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Ohh crap, I failed to realise my post would not be directly below DSaum...matthewfoley - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Um, would they have released a follow up article telling you about it if they were trying to hide something?Sunrise089 - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
It was a 41% advantage in one game during one total hour of testing. In addition, not only did Anand explain how they messed up, but also provided new graphs only 2 days later. What are you really thinking here, that Anand's mistake will increase Conroe's sales even though the corrected numbers are out and its 6 months away from launch? I'm pretty sure even Intel fanboys didn't just read the first story and then plan on not visitng another hardware site before launch.Aileur - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Way to be able to readNow, thats not the same as dropping from 40 to 20%, is it?