Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe & Gigabyte 8S655TX Ultra: SiS 655TX Challenges Intel's Best
by Wesley Fink on December 9, 2003 1:52 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte 8S655TX Ultra: Stress Testing
We performed stress tests on the 8S655TX Ultra in these areas and configurations:1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing, conducted by running the FSB at 242MHz with synchronous (1:1) memory speed (DDR484) with OCZ 4200 EL memory.
2. Memory stress testing, conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with 2 Dual-Channel (1 bank) DIMM slots filled and at 400MHz with all 4 Dual-Channel (2 bank) DIMM slots filled at the lowest memory timings possible with Mushkin PC3500 Level II memory.
Front Side Bus Stress Test Results:
We ran a full range of stress tests and benchmarks to ensure the 8S655TX was absolutely stable at the overclocked FSB speed. This included Prime95 torture tests, and the addition of other tasks — data compression, various DX8 and DX9 games, and apps like Word and Excel — while Prime95 was running in the background. At default voltage, 242MHz was the highest overclock that we were able to achieve with a synchronous memory setting.Memory Stress Test Results:
This memory stress test is very basic, as it simply tests the ability of the 8S655TX Ultra to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the lowest supported memory timings that our Mushkin High Performance ECC Registered Modules will support:| Stable DDR400 Timings — 2 DIMMs 2/4 DIMMs populated — 1 DC bank |
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| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | 128-bit DC |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 6T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | Auto |
We had no problem running 2 DS 512MB DIMMs of our standard Mushkin PC3500 Level2 or 2 DS 512MB OCZ 3500 Platinum Ltd in the 8S655TX Ultra at the most aggressive timings. We did achieve complete stability at 2-2-2-6 timings at the default voltage setting. However, our past experience with Gigabyte SiS designs would suggest that the 8S655TX may actually be running closer to 2.6V at “normal” settings. We are pleased that default voltage was fine for 2-2-2-6 timings, but you should not make too much of this finding.
Filling all available memory banks is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DIMMs, but we had no problem at all running with all 4 DIMMs filled providing 2 Dual-Channel Banks.
| Stable DDR400 Timings — 4 DIMMs 4/4 DIMMs populated — 2 DC bank |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | 128-bit DC |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 6T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | Auto |
The required memory timings with 4 DIMMs were the same as 2 DIMMs, the fastest 2-2-2-6 timings our memory could achieve. The 4-DIMM setup worked fine at “normal” memory voltage, the same as our 2 DIMM setup. The 8S655TX Ultra was completely stable at these timings and voltage.
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WhoBeDaPlaya - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
LOL swt - wish I got paid for the reviews I write :Pswt - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Having bought the P4S800E, I can correct a couple of misimpressions.First, the passive heatsink on the NB isn't so large as to interfere with my Zalman CNPS-7000Cu. Other mondo coolers might be problematic, of course.
And the AMI BIOS now supports multiple CPU Core settings, all the way up to 1.9V. Since I don't get paid to write such reviews, I'm not going to type in the details - but the BIOS that shipped with the MB *has* been updated in that regard, as promised.
buzzby311 - Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - link
buzzby311 - Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - link
All of the current memory reviews talk about memory that is great for the 865 875 chipsets. What memory would be good for overclocking on this motherboard with an Intel 3.0GHz 800FSB HT processor?Wesley Fink - Monday, December 15, 2003 - link
Asus says the P4S800D-E will appear on their web site on Friday, December 19, 2003. They expect the boards to be available for sale in the US by January 1.ColdRolledSteel - Thursday, December 11, 2003 - link
I also would like to know when the P4S800D-E is coming out. It isn't listed anywhere, including on the usa.asus.com website....Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
Spacecomber -We normally check FSB and report those that are out of spec. With these 3 boards all are within 0.5MHz of 200. The Asus P4S800D-E is 200.1, and both Gigabyte 8S655TX Ultra and Asus P4C800-E are at 200.5. If numbers are way off we correct them to 200 (800) before running benchmarks if possible.
Spacecomber - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
Unless I missed it, did you check to make sure no one was cheating a bit with their front side bus speed? Is a 200 MHz frontside bus really a 200 MHz frontside bus for all three boards that you compared?Thx
Space
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
#14 - All our Benchmark tests on the 655TX boards were done with an ATI 9800 PRO with Fast Writes enabled, so there does not not seem to be a general problem with ATI cards.valnar - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - link
#3Why would I want to give up that?