AMD's 690G/V Series Chipset Preview And Performance Testing

Futuremark PCMark05 Synthetic CPU and Memory Assessment

In our next round of testing, we ran both CPU and Memory performance modules of FutureMark's PCMark05.  Each results graph is prefaced by FutureMark's explanation of what each test does to arrive at its scoring metric.  Once again, all tests were run twice, once with integrated graphics and again with discrete.

"The CPU test suite is a collection of tests that are run to isolate the performance of the CPU. The CPU Test Suite also includes multithreading: two of the test scenarios are run multithreaded; the other including two simultaneous tests and the other running four tests simultaneously. The remaining six tests are run single threaded. Operations include, File Compression/Decompression, Encryption/Decryption, Image Decompression, and Audio Compression" - Courtesy FutureMark Corp.

With integrated or discrete graphics, all three boards were on the same level, with the nForce 430's having a slight lead over the 690G.

"The Memory test suite is a collection of tests that isolate the performance of the memory subsystem. The memory subsystem consists of various devices on the PC. This includes the main memory, the CPU internal cache (known as the L1 cache) and the external cache (known as the L2 cache). As it is difficult to find applications that only stress the memory, we explicitly developed a set of tests geared for this purpose. The tests are written in C++ and assembly. They include: Reading data blocks from memory, Writing data blocks to memory performing copy operations on data blocks, random access to data items and latency testing."  - Courtesy FutureMark Corp.

Like we saw in the SANDRA memory test, the AMD 690G showed the broadest swings when tested with integrated and discrete graphics.  In this test, the AMD 690G was competitive with a discrete graphics card installed, but was the slowest of the three when testing with the integrated X1250. 

Futuremark 3DMark06 v1.1.0 Synthetic CPU Testing

3DMark06's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded "gaming related" DirectX metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems.  This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are generated with a software renderer that is dependent on the host CPU's performance.  This means that the calculations normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the central processor.  The number of frames generated per second in each test are used to determine the final score.  This test was run with both integrated and discrete graphics as well.

When focusing on 3DMark05's CPU test, the AMD 690G managed to show improved performance with integrated graphics enabled versus discrete, although the results are close enough to be considered insignificant.  Overall, all three boards competed on similar levels with no clear dominant player.