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OVERCLOCKING PROWESS:
The Soyo K7-DRAGON is
the far easier board to overclock with.
Within the BIOS, under the "Soyo Combo Feature"
menu, you will find items to manipulate the CPU
multiplier (5.5 - 14), Front Side Bus (FSB) from
95-166 MHz in 1 MHz increments and VCore voltage
adjustments from 1.35v - 1.85v in +0.025v
increments.
The only thing notably absent is a VIO adjustment,
should users want to bump up the voltage to their
memory.
Overclocking with the
Gigabyte 7DXR is done by using a combination of DIP
switches mounted on the board and through FSB
adjustments in the BIOS. Multipliers between 5.5
and 12.5
are selectable via DIP switches, FSBs from
100MHz-250MHz are available within the BIOS (there
are also FSBs selectable via DIP switches) and a
VCore voltage between
1.5 - 1.85v
in .025v
increments
is selectable, again using some on-board DIP
switches.
Overclocking with the
Gigabyte 7DXR can also be accomplished using their
"EasyTune III" software. EasyTune III is a
small application that allows users to make FSB
adjustments from within Windows. We have
used this software in the past, but prefer to
overclock via the system BIOS. For a quick
look at what EasyTune III is all about,
check out this page on Gigabyte's site.
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The Hot Hardware Test Systems |
|
You Just
Have to Love Them! |
|
|
AMD Athlon @
1400MHz. & 1450MHz.
Soyo K7-DRAGON VIA KT266
2568MB Corsair
PC2400 (CAS 2)
GeForce 3
(21.85 Drivers)
3Com 3C905 NIC
Hercules Game
Theater XP
IBM 7200RPM
30GB HD x (2)
Creative Labs
52X CD-Rom
Standard Floppy
Drive
Windows
Millennium
DirectX 8.0a
Via 4-in-1s
v.4.33
|
AMD Athlon @
1400MHz. & 1450MHz.
Gigabyte 7DXR AMD 761 / VIA 686B Hybrid
2568MB Corsair
PC2400 (8-8-8-2-6-2-2)
GeForce 3
(21.85 Drivers)
3Com 3C905 NIC
Hercules Game
Theater XP
IBM 7200RPM
30GB HD x (2)
Creative Labs
52X CD-Rom
Standard Floppy
Drive
Windows
Millennium
DirectX 8.0a
Via 4-in-1s
v.4.33 &
AMD AGP Drivers
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Performance Comparisons |
|
Time for
some numbers... |
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The first benchmark
we ran was the venerable SiSoft Sandra...
SiSOFT SANDRA:
|
Soyo
CPU @ 1400MHz
|
Gigabyte
CPU @ 1400MHz
| As you
can see, there is no discernable performance
difference between either of these boards in
Sandra's CPU test.
|
Soyo
MM @ 1400MHz
|
Gigabyte
MM @
1400MHz
| We see
more of the same here. Sandra's Multi-Media
benchmark shows both boards running neck and neck.
|
Soyo
MEM @ 1400MHz
|
Gigabyte
MEM @
1400MHz
| In the
all important memory benchmark we see the AMD-761
powered GA-7DXR outpace the KT266 powered
K7-DRAGON by hair. The difference isn't
anything to write home about, but every megabyte
counts. The AMD-761 is also known to have to
lower latency than the original KT266 (the KT266A
turned the tables though). The slight
increase in available bandwidth along with the
lower latency should theoretically yield better
performance in bandwidth intensive applications.
|
Soyo
RAID 0
|
Gigabyte
RAID 0
| Both
of these boards used the exact same on-board
Promise 20265R RAID controller, and it shows
looking at the above scores.
|
Soyo
CPU OC'd @ 1590MHz.
(11.5X138)
|
Gigabyte
CPU OC'd @
1590MHz.
(11.5X138)
| We
also pushed our 1.4GHz. Athlon to it's limit with
both boards. This particular CPU isn't the
best overclocker, 1590MHz. was the maximum speed
we could hit. The K7-DRAGON and 7DXR both
took this CPU to it's limit without a problem.
This same CPU has been installed in an IWill
KK266Plus and an Epox 8K7A+, some of the best
"overclocking" boards out there, and has never
made it past 1590MHz. and remained stable.
Time
for some gaming scores...
QUAKE
3 ARENA:
At 640x480x16,
using a high end graphics card, Quake 3 Arena is
limited by the CPU's performance. At this
low resolution, the K7-DRAGIN and 7DXR both posted
nice scores, just barely missing the 200FPS
barrier. The Gigabyte 7DXR had a miniscule
2FPS advantage...
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Jammin' to
the Stones
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