Foxconn's WinFast 755FXK8AA-8EKRS
Our Test System & SiSoft SADNRA
How we configured our test systems: When configuring the test systems for this review, we first entered the system BIOS and set each board to its "Optimized" or "High-Performance Defaults." We then manually configured our RAM to run at 200MHz (DDR400), with the timings set by the SPD. The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows XP Professional was installed. When the installation was complete, we hit the Windows Update site and downloaded all of the available updates, with the exception of the ones related to Windows Messenger. Then we installed all of the necessary drivers and removed Windows Messenger from the system altogether. Auto-Updating, drive indexing, and System Restore were also disabled, and we set up a 768MB permanent page file on the same partition as the Windows installation. Lastly, we set Windows XP's Visual Effects to "best performance," installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives, and ran all of the tests...
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| SYSTEM 1: S939 - AMD Athlon FX-53 (2.4GHz) WinFast 755FXK8AA-8EKRS SiS 755FX 2x512MB Corsair PC3200 CL2 Radeon 9800 Pro Onboard 10/100 Ethernet Onboard Audio WD "Raptor" 36GB Hard Drive 10,000 RPM SATA Windows XP Pro SiS Gart 1.17E DirectX 9.0c |
SYSTEM 2: S939 - AMD Athlon FX-53 (2.4GHz) Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 NVIDIA nForce3 250GB 2x512MB Corsair PC3200 CL2 Radeon 9800 Pro Onboard 10/100 Ethernet Onboard Audio WD "Raptor" 36GB Hard Drive 10,000 RPM SATA Windows XP Pro nForce Driver 4.27 DirectX 9.0c |
SYSTEM 3: S939 - AMD Athlon FX-53 (2.4GHz) MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum NVIDIA nForce3 250GB 2x512MB Corsair PC3200 CL2 Radeon 9800 Pro Onboard 10/100 Ethernet Onboard Audio WD "Raptor" 36GB Hard Drive 10,000 RPM SATA Windows XP Pro nForce Driver 4.27 DirectX 9.0c |
SYSTEM 4: S939 - AMD Athlon FX-53 (2.4GHz) MSI K8T Neo2-FIR VIA K8T800 Pro 2x512MB Corsair PC3200 CL2 Radeon 9800 Pro Onboard 10/100 Ethernet Onboard Audio WD "Raptor" 36GB Hard Drive 10,000 RPM SATA Windows XP Pro VIA Hyperion 4.53 DirectX 9.0c |
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We began our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. SANDRA consists of a set of information and diagnostic utilities that can provide a host of useful information about your hardware and operating system. We ran three of the built-in subsystem tests that partially comprise the SANDRA 2004 suite (CPU, Multimedia, and Memory). All of these tests were run with our processor set to its default clock speed of 2.4GHz (12x200MHz). (Note: Some of these boards ran the processor with an FSB higher than 200MHz. Where necessary, we manually set the FSB to 200MHz to keep the playing field level.)
Throughout this review, we'll be comparing the WinFast 755FXK8AA-8EKRS' performance to two nForce 3 Ultra powered motherboards, the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 and the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, and the VIA K8T800 Pro based MSI K8T Neo2-FIR. This should give us an accurate measure of where the SiS755FX chipset stands in terms of performance with competing AGP chipsets for the Athlon 64.
In all three of the SANDRA modules that we ran, the WinFast 755FXK8AA-8EKRS ran neck-and-neck with its competition. In the CPU module, there are no notable performance differences worth pointing out. And the same is true with regard to the Memory bandwidth test, although the nForce 3s did have a slight edge. In SANDRA's Multimedia benchmark though, the WinFast 755FXK8AA-8EKRS took an ever so slight lead in the floating point portion of the test.
