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"Real World" Performance with
the Stones |
Simulated
Application Performance |
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Up next
was ZD
Labs' Business Winstone 2001 benchmark. Here's a quote
from ZD's eTestingLabs website detailing exactly what this test is
all about:
"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)
-
Microsoft Project 98
-
Lotus
Notes R5
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NicoMak
WinZip
-
Norton
Antivirus
-
Netscape
Communicator
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)
Both of these mainboards
performed at virtually the exact same levels in ZD's
Business and Content Creation Winstone benchmarks.
Due to the fact that we used all of the same
supporting hardware, and the same driver revisions for
that hardware, unless there was a problem with one of
these products, we would expect the scores to turn out
the way they did. We would also like to mention
that throughout our entire battery of tests, both the
Abit BD7II-RAID and MSI 845E Max2 BLR maintained
rock-solid stability unless we were overclocking way
beyond spec.
CONCLUSION:
So how do we decide which
board we liked better when both of them performed at
virtually identical levels? Well, we have to
base our decision on the price, the bundled
accessories and overclocking capabilities. As of
this writing, the Abit BD7II-RAID can be found for
$111 US. The MSI 845E Max2 BLR with the
Bluetooth accessories sells for $159 US, $123 US
without the Bluetooth accessories. Should you
opt for the "non-Bluetooth" LR version, the extra $12
gets you an additional USB bracket, diagnostic LEDs
and a more aesthetically
pleasing product. As far is this reviewer is concerned,
the extra $12 is money well spent, and overall
give the nod to the MSI 845E Max2. Based
on it's excellent overclocking ability, very complete
bundle and rock-solid stability, we give the MSI 845E
Max2 BLR a HotHardware Heat Meter Rating of
9...
The Abit BD7II-RAID is an
excellent mainboard however, and we would still
whole-heartedly recommend to anyone looking to put
together a Pentium 4 based system. We can't hold
much against the BD7II-RAID, except for the issue we
had when exiting the BIOS during our overclocking
tests. At default clock speeds, the BD7II-RAID
proved to be the "faster" board, even though the
performance deltas were very small. We also
think the on-board HPT372 controller found on the
BD7II-RAID is superior to the Promise 20276 found on
the MSI board. Ultimately, opting for either one
of these products is a wise choice. Based on
it's excellent price, performance and superior RAID
controller, we give the Abit BD7II-RAID a HotHardware
Heat meter rating of 8.5...
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