|
 |
|
Benchmarks
and Comparisons Continued... |
|
DirectX
and The Winstones... |
|
PCMark2002 "HDD":
When it came to the hard drive
performance, the Shuttle board took the lead with its
High-Point RAID controller. Both the DFI and the MSI
sport Promise solutions, the DFI with the Promise PDC20265R
and the MSI with the 20276.
Next we decided to toss in a few
3DMark2001SE scores to demonstrate some gaming performance
amongst the three systems using an nvidia Ti500 video card.
Direct X with MadOnion's 3DMark2001:
Once again, the DFI system put
up a nice showing against the KT333 systems, lurching ahead
of the Shuttle board by 186 points. The MSI KT3 took
the prize, pushing ahead of the DFI by over 300 points.
Next we'll set the resolution to 1024x768x32 and see how the
board adapt to the increased load.
Here the MSI still beat out the
other two systems, but note how the drop in score was much
greater with the DFI system compared to the KT333 based
boards. The Shuttle board held firm with a drop of
roughly 600 points while the other two systems were closer
to a 900 point drop. Nonetheless, all systems
performed exceptionally well and the DFI proved that it
could roll with the KT333 systems without a fuss.
Now we'll stop playing games and
get back to business, Business Winstone 2001 that is.
Business Winstone 2001:
Below is
the description from the
etestinglabs website of how Business Winstone 2001 tests
a systems performance.
"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
CD-ROM that contains Business Winstone includes all the
files and application portions you need to run the
benchmark."
Here is where the new KT333
chipset shines. Although the DFI AD73 RAID system came
in third with 60 points, this is still an excellent result.
Coming in within 6 points of the MSI board is a fine
achievement when you consider that the MSI board is almost
twice the price of the DFI system. Although the
Shuttle system is priced more competitively, it will be
slightly more expensive than the DFI.
Now let's take a look at Content
Creation Winstone 2002.
Content
Creation Winstone 2002:
Below is the description from the
etestinglabs website of how Content
CreationWinstone 2002 tests a systems performance.
"Content
Creation Winstone is a system-level, application-based
benchmark that measures a PC's overall performance when
running top, Windows-based, 32-bit, content creation
applications on Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, or
Windows XP. Content Creation Winstone 2002 uses the
following applications:
-
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)
Following the
lead of real users, Content Creation Winstone 2002 keeps
multiple applications open at once and switches among those
applications. Content Creation Winstone 2002 is a single
large test that runs the above applications through a series
of scripted activities and returns a single score. Those
activities focus on what we call "hot spots," periods of
activity that make your PC really work--the times where
you're likely to see an hourglass or a progress bar."
In this round of tests the DFI
AD73 RAID system worked very well, coming with in a point of
the Shuttle AK35GT2/R system. Clearly all of these
systems are quite capable in all of these tests, but when
you factor in the differences in scores and price points,
the DFI is an excellent and economical choice.
So, you've been
hearing all the noise about the new KT333 based motherboards
and have been wondering if you should be shelling out the
cash for the latest and greatest board. Well, you
might want to consider this, throughout our testing of the
DFI AD73 RAID motherboard, the board performed exceptionally
well, sometimes even better than the KT333 based systems.
Factor in the cost of a high-end board like the MSI KT3
Ultra-ARU (around $130) compared to the DFI's (closer to
$75) and the decision should be a little easier. Yes
the MSI has a lot more bells and whistles, but if
performance is what you are looking for, the DFI is
an economical alternative to the more expensive board.
I have had the
opportunity to review a number of motherboards from DFI in
the past few years and there a few things that you can
usually expect from them. For one, they don't focus on flashy boards
with tons of bells and whistles, they aim to build
motherboards with good performance and excellent stability.
In fact, anyone who has asked me about DFI boards in the
past all get the same answer, "they may not be the fastest,
but the performance is above average and they are stable."
Well, with the AD73 RAID motherboard, this still holds true.
When it comes to
rating this board, it would not be fair to rate it against
the two reference systems that we used throughout our tests.
Those were simply used to gauge performance and nothing
else, and they are geared more towards the enthusiast
market. But when you look at the board for what it is,
an economical KT266A workstation quality motherboard, the
DFI AD73 RAID truly shines. Although it appears to be
a plain vanilla board at first glance, the AD73 impressed us
where it mattered, in quality, performance and stability.
We did find it odd that the AD73 RAID offers an ATA133 IDE
controller and yet the Promise controller is ATA100.
Nonetheless, anyone who is looking for an excellent KT266A system without
the need for all the trimmings of more expensive systems,
should look no further than the DFI AD73 RAID.
We give the DFI
AD73 RAID Motherboard a Hot Hardware Heat Meter Rating of a
8.
HotHardware's PC Hardware Forum is all the rage! Are
you in?
| 
