ABIT KV8-MAX3: Athlon64 and µGuru

Performance Test Configuration

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz) AMD Athlon64 FX51 (2.2GHz) AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB) Intel Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz (800FSB)
RAM:	2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II 2 x 512MB Mushkin ECC Registered PC3200 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TwinX LL (v1.1)
Hard Drive(s):	Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers:	VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.49 (August 20, 2003) NVIDIA nForce version 2.45 (7/29/2003) NVIDIA nForce version 2.03 (1/30/03)
Video Card(s):	ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 3.8
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	Abit KV8-MAX3 @ 204.3FSB Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 Athlon64 FX51 Chaintech ZNF3-150 (nForce3) Athlon64 3200+ FIC K8-800T (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+ nVidia Reference nForce3 Opteron144 @ 222.0 MHz FSB (2.0GHz) DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ Albatron KX18D PROII (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+ Asus P4C800-E (Intel 875P) 3.2Ghz P4

Recent performance tests on Athlon64, nForce2 Ultra 400 and Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. The Athlon64 FX requires Registered or Registered ECC memory, so tests with the Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 were performed with Mushkin High Performance Registered ECC DDR400 memory. Previous tests of motherboards used 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Mushkin PC3500 L2 was used to preserve the 2-2-2-6 timings that were used in tests with Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Both Mushkin and Corsair use the same Winbond BH5 memory chips in these modules.

All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.

For the fairest comparisons, benchmarks were recompiled for the Asus P4C800-E using a 3.2GHz Pentium4 processor.

Additions to Performance Tests

We have standardized on ZD Labs Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking. Science Mark 2 Memory Performance, 9/23/03 update, was included to compare Memory Bandwidth and Latency of the Athlon64, Athlon64 FX51, and Pentium 4 3.2GHz.

Game Benchmarks

We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs, the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects, and Aquamark3 to our standard game benchmarks. We will be adding other benchmarks in the near future.

Jedi Knight II has been dropped form our standard Benchmark Suite. We were forced to use different patches for operation on Athlon and Intel Pentium 4, which made cross-platform comparison difficult, if not impossible. In addition, Opteron/Athlon64 requires a third patching variation for benchmarking. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.