The ASUS K8N-E Deluxe Socket 754 Motherboard

Name: The ASUS K8N-E Deluxe Socket 754 Motherboard - Page 7
Brand: The

by Jeff Bouton — Tuesday, October 12, 2004, 12:00 AM EDT

Winstone Test Suite 2004 and Conclusion

Page 7: Winstone Test Suite 2004 and Conclusion

Business & Content Creation Winstones

Real-World Application Performance

PC Magazine's Winstone Test Suite is an excellent benchmarking tool for testing the CPU, memory, and overall system performance. Content Creation Winstone focuses on common media intensive tasks, while Business Winstone assesses general workstation application performance. Below is a breakdown of each package's software complement that is used to issue an overall score when complete.

Content Creation 2004 v1.0.1	Business Winstone 2004 v1.0.1
Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1 Adobe Premiere 6.50 Macromedia Director MX 9.0 Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 6.1 Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980 NewTek's LightWave 3D 7.5b Steinberg WaveLab 4.0f	Microsoft Access 2002 Microsoft Excel 2002 Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Microsoft Outlook 2002 Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 Microsoft Project 2002 Microsoft Word 2002 Norton Antivirus Professional Edition 2003 WinZip 8.1

With the two Winstone tests, we saw a similar pattern as we did with the encoding tests. Content Creation 2004, which utilizes Windows Media Encoder 9, was a strong test for the ASUS K8N-E, topping the K8T800 Pro by 1.1 points. Conversely, Business Winstone 2004 leaned in favor of the K8T800 Pro, albeit by a mere half point. As we stated earlier, these results do not show one board having a commanding lead over the other, but merely that each is competitive as a top Athlon 64 based motherboard option.

As we bring this review to a close, we find it difficult to find many negatives with regard to the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe motherboard. The product delivered on all fronts, offering exceptional features, a premium retail bundle, and performance that is to be expected in its class. Our overclocking experience was decent, but could have been stronger, perhaps with different hardware, but general performance and stability was excellent. We had absolutely no issues installing this board and experienced no crashes during normal testing.

With a packed retail bundle and excellent feature set, the ASUS K8N-E weighs in at a respectable $138. All we can say is that if you are in the market for a premium class Socket 754 motherboard, the ASUS K8N-E fits the bill.

We Give the ASUS K8N-E Motherboard a HotHardware Heat Meter Rating of 8.5...