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"Real World" Performance with the Stones |
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Simulated
Application Performance |
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Next we
ran ZD Labs' Business Winstone 2001 benchmark.
We'll directly quote ZD's eTestingLabs website for an
explanation as to what this test is comprised of:
"Business Winstone is a system-level,
application-based benchmark that measures a PC's
overall performance when running today's top-selling
Windows-based 32-bit applications on Windows 98 SE,
Windows NT 4.0 (SP6 or later), Windows 2000, Windows
Me, or Windows XP. Business Winstone doesn't mimic
what these packages do; it runs real applications
through a series of scripted activities and uses the
time a PC takes to complete those activities to
produce its performance scores."
The Business Winstone tests include:
-
Five
Microsoft Office 2000 applications (Access, Excel,
FrontPage, PowerPoint, and Word)
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Microsoft Project 98
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Lotus
Notes R5
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NicoMak
WinZip
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Norton
Antivirus
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Netscape
Communicator
Finally,
we see something different! I was beginning to
sound like a broken record! Using ZD's Business
Winstone benchmark, the AT7 outran the IT7 by a full 2
points, or 3.4%. You don't need this kind of
horsepower to run Microsoft Word though, so let's
crank things up a notch.
Next we
ran ZD's Content Creation Winstone 2002. This
benchmark runs a similar series of scripted
activities, but the tests are comprised of more
"bandwidth hungry" applications. The
applications used in the Content Creation Winstone
2002 tests include:
-
Adobe
Photoshop 6.0.1
-
Adobe
Premiere 6.0
-
Macromedia Director 8.5
-
Macromedia Dreamweaver UltraDev 4
-
Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 7.01.00.3055
-
Netscape
Navigator 6/6.01
-
Sonic
Foundry Sound Forge 5.0c (build 184)
The
Content Creation 2002 benchmark yielded the greatest
performance delta of all our tests. The AT7
bested the IT7 by 3.3 points, which is a difference of
about 10%. Both the AT7 and IT7 performed very
well throughout our entire suite of benchmarking
applications. We don't think any of you would be
disappointed if you based your next system on either
one of these boards.
CONCLUSION:
Abit has
done a fantastic job with the AT7 and IT7 MAX
motherboards. Both of these boards performed
very well and maintained rock solid stability
throughout our battery of tests. Abit's
excellent SoftMenu III is also available on both
boards, which makes overclocking with either of them a
breeze. The only thing we didn't like was the
inability to reset the CMOS, without having to open
the case and physically move a jumper. This was
rather annoying when trying to find our "sweet spot"
when overclocking. The build quality and bundles
are top-notch, as is the list of on-board features.
They are a bit more expensive than similar products,
coming in at around $150 on Pricewatch.Com, but in our
opinion your money would be well spent on either of
these motherboards.
Based on
it's excellent stability, performance and list of
features, but because it has only 3 PCI slots, we give
the Abit AT7 MAX a HotHardware Heat meter rating of
8.5!
The IT7
MAX fares a bit better. The IT7 brings all of
the performance and stability of the AT7 MAX to the
P4, with the addition of diagnostic LEDs, a fourth PCI
slot and on-board power and reset switches. If
we were able to reset the CMOS without opening the
case, this board would have received a perfect 10.
As is stands now, we give the Abit IT7 MAX a 9.5 on
the Heat Meter, and a coveted Editor's Choice Award!
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