ATI Radeon Xpress 200: Performance, PCI Express & DX9 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on November 8, 2004 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
ATI X800 XT: MSI K8N Neo2 vs. ATI Bullhead
The MSI K8N Neo2 was our Gold Editors Choice in our Socket 939 Roundup. We first compared the ATI RX480 Bullhead to the MSI running the same Athlon 64 3800+ CPU and the same 2-2-2-10 DDR memory. An ATI XT X800 AGP video card was used for the nForce3 Ultra testing while an X800XT PCIe was used for the ATI Bullhead.| MSI K8N Neo2 vs. ATI Bullhead ATI X800 XT (AGP and PCIe), 3800+, 2X512 2-2-2-10 DDR |
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| Benchmark | MSI K8N Neo2 nVidia nForce 3 |
ATI Bullhead ATI RX480 |
% Change MSI to ATI |
| PCMark 2004 | 4880 | 4812 | -1.4% |
| Aquamark 3 | 65620 | 65070 | -0.8% |
| Doom3 - High Quality | 85.9 | 87.3 | +1.6% |
| Far Cry 1.1 | 151.4 | 159.0 | +5.0% |
In many graphics roundups we have seen no real performance difference in AGP and PCI Express versions of the same card. Therfore, we are comparing the ATI RX480 performance to nForce3 Ultra. The % variation is negligible except for Far Cry, where the ATI Bullhead is about 5% faster. As reported at AnandTech in past video reviews, nVidia PCIe is not as well-optimized for Far Cry as ATI. However, it looks like the problem is not just the nVidia PCIe, since the ATI card also is slower on the nVidia chipset than on ATI RX480.
Since the Far Cry issue is known, and will be clearer in other benchmarks reported here, we conclude that the ATI Bullhead and MSI K8N Neo2 are equivalent in performance.
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flatblastard - Saturday, April 9, 2005 - link
Hmmmm, still no real availability even now...Looks like MSI may be our only chance at this chipset....what as bummer :(philpoe - Sunday, February 20, 2005 - link
Hmmm, after no real availability (in the US at least) as of Friday 2/18/05, there's suddenly a slew of shops selling the MSI board on pricewatch, including Newegg. Anyone know of a reason why the boards are so slow to trickle out?philpoe - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Is it possible to purchase these reference boards? I seem to see them in retail-looking packages in reviews from Canada.If you can get your hands on one, are the BIOSes available to the public, or only to the select HW review sites?
Wesley Fink - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
PERFORMANCE WITH 4 DIMMS CORRECTED>We have added the following update to p.6:
"UPDATE 11/11/2004: ATI has provided an updated BIOS which corrects the issues of 333 timings with 4 double-sided dimms. With the new BIOS we were able to run 4X512MB DS OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev.2 at 2-2-2-10 timings at DDR400 with a 2T Command Rate. This performance matches the best we have seen with 4 DS dimms on an Athlon 64 motherboard."
Momental - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
#35: I'm right there with ya, bud. Just when I "think" I've made up my mind to do the complete overhaul, the next exit appears on the highway taking me that much closer to the "Best Soft Serve in Town"!!The ol' gut tells me to hold out until some time just after the ball drops in Times Square and we'll all be in Fat City, so to speak. ;)
callius - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Somewhat OT maybe:anyone seeing a reason that the next rev of A64 supporting SSE3 (in market Q1/05) coul not be plugged in a 939-mobo (nvid, ati or via) without problems (except any necessary BIOS update) ?
callius - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Only minus vs nforce4 is that the SB does not support SATA-II's NCQ (for Seagate's upcoming 7200.8 series). Maybe with next SB in Q1/05 though ???mlittl3 - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Completely off topic, but does anyone know why there are four chipsets (two actively cooled, one passively cooled and the other with no cooling) in the SLI Tyan motherboard that #33 gave a link for?xeper - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
i can't seem to find ANY mention whatsoever of shared memory allocation. can someone help me out here?nserra - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Isn’t this very funny, I mean Ati was a very close partner to Intel, and they now bring to intel its one competition product but for the intel competitor.I see now no reason for Dell or other companies go for intel, because really intel had (has) the edge with integrated solutions.
A "part" I thought that there weren’t AMD IGP chipsets because it wasn’t possible to use the integrated memory controller for graphics, at least until AMD64 rev E0 came out?
If ati is going amd on pcie first, these shows that amd have the best processor and will continue for the time been. Even dothan can do much to turn it around again to intel side. And i bet that new p4 2mb is still with problems (performance, heat, …) and every one is running away from intel because already know this even intel, bringing dothan to the desktop market.