DFI nForce4: SLI and Ultra for Mad Overclockers
by Wesley Fink on February 5, 2005 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Memory Stress Testing
Optimum tRAS
In past reviews, memory bandwidth tests established that a tRAS of 10 was optimal for the nForce3 chipset and a tRAS setting of 11 or 12 was generally best for nForce2. Since this was the first memory stress test of a production nForce4 board, tRAS timings were first tested with memtest86, a free diagnostic program with its own boot OS that will boot from either a floppy disk or optical disk. Bandwidth was measured from tRAS 5 to tRAS 11 to determine the best setting.
| Memtest86 Bandwidth DFI nForce4 with Athlon64 4000+ |
|
| 5 tRAS | 2191 |
| 6 tRAS | 2242 |
| 7 tRAS | 2242 |
| 8 tRAS | 2242 |
| 9 tRAS | 2141 |
| 10 tRAS | 2141 |
| 11 tRAS | 2092 |
The best bandwidth was achieved in the 6 to 8 range with this combination of nForce4 and the 4000+, so a mid-value tRAS of 7 was chosen for all tests.
Memory Stress Tests
Our memory stress test measures the ability of the DFI to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the lowest memory timings that OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 modules will support. All DIMMs used for stress testing were 512MB double-sided (or double-bank) memory. To make sure that memory performed properly in Dual-Channel mode, memory was only tested using either one dual-channel (2 DIMMs) or 2 dual-channels (4 DIMMs).
| Stable DDR400 Timings - One Dual-Channel (2/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 7T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 1T |
Using two DIMMs in Dual-Channel 128-bit mode, the memory performed in all benchmarks at the fastest 2-2-2-7 timings, at default 2.6V voltage.
Tests with 4 DS DIMMs on an AMD Athlon 64 system are more demanding, since AMD specifies DDR333 for this combination. However, most AMD Athlon 64 motherboards combined with recent AMD processors (the memory controller is on the AMD CPU) have been able to handle 4 DIMMs at DDR400.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 7T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 2T |
Tests with all four DIMM slots populated on the DFI nForce4 boards required a 2T Command Rate with 4 DS DIMMs in two dual channels. This is the pattern seen on other top-performing Socket 939 boards, but we hoped that higher voltage might allow us to eek out 4 DS DIMM 1T performance. However, additional voltage did not help and DDR400 with 4DS DIMMs still required a 2T Command Rate on the DFI nForce4 boards.
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LordConrad - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
It's been a year or two since the last time I researched motherboard features, so maybe I'm out of the loop. Isn't it unusual for a consumer level motherboard to offer RAID-5? This is certainly the first such board I've heard of. I wonder if the RAID-5 support is hardware or software based.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
#17"Few questions can you fit say a x1 pci-e card into a x4 pci-e slot??? "
Yes you can.
eetnoyer - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
#18 Would you consider a 100m sprinter who broke the old world record by 8% to have demolished the record? What you have to realized, is that these boards are performing at the very edge of what's possible today. While a compact car exceeding the Chevy Cobalt's top speed by 8% would make everybody yawn, a car that exceeds the Bugatti Veyron's top speed (252mph) by 8% would be pretty remarkable.Irregardless, this looks to be a very respectable board whether you want to OC or not. For the features that are on the board, $140 for an nforce4 board isn't all that bad. And just like the S754 board, I'm sure the price will come down significantly after a little while.
Trente - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Man, I remember we used to laugh at DFI back in year 2000; How was it possible for a low-end maker to became the best brand for all die hard overclockers? someone should write a book about it...Manzelle - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
*yawn*Where are the AGP/PCIe boards...better yet, where is DFI's nForce3 939 board...
arfan - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
1. why another board maker don't try to make motherboard likes DFI Ultra have ? Because it's a big oppurtunity to buy Ultra than SLI2. What do u think Nvidia do to make this board DFI Ultra not functionally likes SLI ? Just tweak driver or likes AMD in the past, change chipset in their factory ? so people can't do likes anand do.
Burbot - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I do not like this phrase from Final Words:We reached 318x9 at 1T Command Rate - performance that demolished our previous best of 295 1T with this same memory.
This is a gain of 8% over old result. Would you consider a car with maximum speed 8% higher than competitor model to be "demolishing" it? I don't think so. I consider this to be a "fair improvement" over previous result, and not a "demolishing" one.
1q3er5 - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Few questions can you fit say a x1 pci-e card into a x4 pci-e slot???4 volts for RAM but your going to need active cooling, and how do you manage that.
Bozo Galora - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I dont see what all the shouting is aboutSure its a nice board, but, unless you are an EXTREME overclocker the NF3 is plenty close enough, and the big surprise here is the Epox
johnson - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I was hoping for a look at results of other memory as well, besides only the ocz ddr400. Perhaps the upcoming round up will use various memory sticks.