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How We
Configured Our Test Systems:
To
help fully explain the scores we listed in the
following benchmarks, we felt it was necessary to
explain how the systems were set up before running
the benchmarks. On all of the boards, we started off by
manually optimizing the
BIOS settings to the most aggressive system options
available. The memory
frequency was manually set to DDR400 with the CAS timings set to 2-5-2-2.
The hard drive was
formatted, and Windows XP Professional with
Service Pack 1 was installed. After the Windows
installation was complete, we installed the
latest Intel chipset drivers for the 865PE, and
upgraded to DirectX 9.0a. We then installed the drivers for the rest of
the components, using drivers supplied on
each manufacturer's CD, except for the Tyan
Tachyon G9500 Pro. For this card, we downloaded and installed the
latest (at time of testing) ATi Catalyst
drivers, version 3.4. Auto-Updating,
Hibernation, and System Restore were disabled,
and then we set up a 768MB permanent page file.
On these test systems we set the visual effects
to "best performance" in system performance to
limit any effects these settings would have on
the benchmarks. Satisfied that every
thing was set up correctly, we installed all of
the benchmarking software, defragged the hard
drive, and rebooted one last time.
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HotHardware Test Setup |
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Let's
get on with the show |
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Motherboards
Tested:
Abit IS7-G
Albatron 865PE Pro II
Asus P4P800 Deluxe
Chaintech APOGEE 9PJL
MSI 865PE Neo2-FISR
Common
Hardware:
Intel Pentium 4 Processor
2.4GHz / 800MHz System Bus
512MB (256MB x2) GEIL DDR433 Platinum SDRAM (2-5-2-2)
Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro
Western Digital 20GB ATA100 Hard Drive
52x Creative Labs CD-ROM
Common
Software / Drivers:
Windows XP with Service Pack 1
DirectX 9.0a
ATi Catalyst Drivers, v3.4
Intel Chipset Software, v5.00.1012
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SiSoft
Sandra Benchmarks |
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Synthetic testing |
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SANDRA (the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic
and Reporting Assistant) is an information and
diagnostic utility put out by the folks at SiSoftware.
It's a quick and easy way
to compare the CPU, Memory, and Hard drive performance of a
given system against an internal database of similar systems
and drives. These benchmarks are theoretical scores, and
can't necessarily be measured in ?real-world? terms, but
they provide a good way to make comparisons amongst like
components. All of these tests were run with our CPU
set to its default clock speed (~2.40GHz / 12 x 200MHz).
( ALU MEASURED IN MIPS / FPU
MEASURED IN MFLOPS )
( MEASURED IN IT/S )
( MEASURED IN MB/S )
In Sandra's CPU benchmark, all
but one of the boards placed within a 35 point range, with
the Asus P4P800 distancing itself by almost 40 points from
the nearest board, the Albatron 865PE Pro II. Still,
the variance from top to bottom only equated to about 1%,
well within the margin of error. Asus'
margin of victory could also be explained by the aggressive
timings of the board, running at a 202.3MHz FSB when at the
"stock" speed. The Multimedia test Integer point
benchmark finds Asus at the top again, but the floating
point calculations show an about face, with Asus falling to
the back of the pack and MSI taking the lead. The most
important test, by far, was the memory performance module.
It was here that we could see what the "PAT"-like memory
optimizations would bring to the performance level of each
board. Asus' HyperPath technology let the P4P800
cruise to an easy victory, followed closely by the Abit
IS7-G. Albatron and MSI
also have a memory performance enhancement, and they fell
into a virtual tie for third place. The Chaintech
9PJL, devoid of any enhancements, unfortunately placed a distant fifth.
Winstones and PCMark2002 Benchmarks
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