Soltek NV400-L64: Purple, Practical, AND Performance!
by Wesley Fink on August 11, 2003 10:26 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Soltek NV400-L64: Stress Testing
We performed stress tests on the Soltek NV400-L64 in these areas and configurations:1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing, conducted by running the FSB at 215MHz.
2. Memory stress testing, conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with one DIMM slot filled and at 400MHz with both DIMM slots filled, at the lowest memory timings possible.
Front Side Bus Stress Test Results:
As standard practice, we ran a full range of stress tests and benchmarks to ensure that the Soltek NV400-L64 was absolutely stable at each overclocked FSB speed. These stress tests included Prime95 torture tests, which were run in the background for a total of 24 hours.In addition, we ran several other tasks: data compression, various DX8 and DX9 games, and apps, like Word and Excel. Moreover, Prime95 was running in the background. Finally, we ran our benchmark suite, which includes ZD Winstone suite, Unreal Tournament 2003, SPECViewperf 7.0, and Gun Metal Benchmark 2. While we were able to boot and run some tests at speeds as high as 223MHz FSB and at default voltage on the NV400-L64, 215MHz was the highest achievable overclock without encountering any reliability issues.
Memory Stress Test Results:
This memory stress test is very basic, as it simply tests the ability of the NV400-L64 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR) and at the lowest supported memory timings that our Corsair TwinX LL modules support:| Stable Dual DDR400 Timings (1/2 banks populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 4T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
It’s not startling to see the Soltek NV400-L64 run at the lowest timings that we could establish on the board. We often see 2-4-2-2 timings working well with better nForce2 boards in dual-channel mode. So, we certainly predicted single-channel mode to run at these maximum speed timings. The nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, like Corsair LL memory, seems designed to give the lowest possible memory timings, and the nForce2 400 single-channel is behaving in the same manner. As we have seen in previous reviews on memory performance, this does not always translate into the fastest memory performance. Nevertheless, lowest memory timings is one means of comparing motherboards. It is most useful when comparing boards based on the same chipset.
Filling both available memory banks is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing one bank in single-channel mode, as it tests two DIMMs running 400MHz DDR at the most aggressive memory timings available in the BIOS:
| Stable
DDR400 Timings (2/2 banks populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 4T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
We were pleased that the Soltek handled the same aggressive memory timings with two Corsair DIMMs installed as with one DIMM installed. While there are only two DIMM slots available on the Soltek, both slots can be filled with the confidence that you can run at the most aggressive settings handled by the memory. Please keep in mind that the fastest timings do not always equate to the best performance when it comes to memory. It is also true that the real world performance difference between aggressive memory timings and more relaxed memory timings, such as SPD, can be very small. Unless your goal is to squeeze every last bit of performance from your system, SPD timings will work just fine 99% of the time.
We tested all these memory timings using several stress tests and general applications to guarantee stability. Prime95 torture tests were successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. None of the three stress tests created stability problems for the Soltek NV400-L64 at these memory timings.
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Anonymous User - Saturday, October 25, 2003 - link
Hello All!!!I've been buying components last 6 months one at a time, and the Soltek Nv400L was my last purchace.
System Specs:
430 Watt Antec Power Supply
Athlon XP 2500 cpu
512 Corsair Xms c2pt memory-single stick
Ati 9500 pro 128 video card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card
1 80 gig Western Digital 8meg cache hard drive
1 80 gig Maxtor 8meg cache hard drive
Liteon 522446s Cd writer
Liteon 165h Dvd rom
Philips Brilliance 107p monitor
Windows XP professional
I don' need serial ata, my special editions are plenty fast for the dollars spent, serial needs to mature also. I had a Kt3ultra2, with pc2100 Infineon 512 stick, and a XP2000.
I was concerned about this upgrade, I don't trust cheap boards. Had real bad time with a ECS pos last year.
Let me tell you, my system right now, is THE best bang for the buck. I am so impressed. All I needed was the lan, and it too kills my pci network card. This Soltek mobo should not be understated, to say the very, very least. I also like the fact of just having my one stick of corsair, ranther than having 2 dual sticks. If you need all the "features", pass on it. If you want amazing speed, ultra reliability, and great overclocking (Soltek has O/C bios at request, FULL ram tweaking), grab this board.
I can't believe something this cheap is so damn fast, reliable.............
Don't be fooled people. Ya, I have no bragging rights, but I have a great little purple mobo on crack, HIGHLY SUGGESTED.
THIS IS THE MOST UNDERATED MOBO ON THE MARKET RIGHT NOW. ABSOLUTELEY. You don't hear much about it cause Nvidia etc. etc. is not getting rich off it. Its a gem.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Can't see the benchmarks, too. Using Netscape7 on Linux.Anonymous User - Monday, August 25, 2003 - link
Uhh... Did something happened to the benchmark pics? (They are not showing up) Anyone else experiencing this? or Is my browser acting up?Maybe another ongoing article update perhaps?
Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - link
To the author,PCI bus speed runs at a fixed frequency for nForce2. It isn't half of the AGP bus speed. Please use a IOSS RD2 Pro PC Geiger PCI Bus Multifunction Analyzer to verify.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - link
Jeff, stop posting, it's already known fact that Gigabyte's nForce2 U400 and other U400 motherboards perform exactly the same as Epox and ASUS's boards. Your argument request is useless, waste's Anandtech's time, and is getting old frankly.Anonymous User - Sunday, August 17, 2003 - link
I'm really surprised by the figures you guys obtained - I had an ASUS A7N8X-X (non-ultra) and it was crap! I could only get 8,000 in 3Dmark01, upon changing to the ASUS Ultra (deluxe) and keeping everything the same I got 13,500!!!!Also, my A7V8X-X was way faster (12,000 3DMark01) - Don't know why, maybe the A7N8X-X was not working correctly(?).
Jeff7181 - Sunday, August 17, 2003 - link
Again I ask... where the hell is the popular boards like the A7N8X Deluxe and 8RDA+?Anonymous User - Sunday, August 17, 2003 - link
is a7n8x-x anygood?Anonymous User - Saturday, August 16, 2003 - link
I am awaiting further testing on other nForce2 400/Ultra motherboard, e.g. chaintech 7njl3 or 7njl4 or gigabyte counterparts which are also very competitive in the market.wesley, hear my voice?!
Anonymous User - Saturday, August 16, 2003 - link
And one last question - is it not possible that the 'Auto' setting for memory speed actually runs the memory in sync with FSB? I just want to be sure.