Intel 925X Roundup: Creative Engineering 101
by Wesley Fink on August 12, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Standard Performance Test Configuration
If you are interested in more information comparing the LGA 775 Prescott, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, P4, and P4EE, please see our in-depth comparisons in the recent reviews:Intel's 925X & LGA-775: Are Prescott 3.6 and PCI Express Graphics any Faster?
Intel 925X/915: Chipset Performance & DDR2
Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and FX-53: The First 939 CPUs
The Athlon 64 FX-53: AMD's Next Enthusiast Part
Intel's Pentium 4 E: Prescott Arrives with Luggage
Athlon64 3400+: Part 2
AMD's Athlon 64 3400+: Death of the FX-51
Athlon64 3000+: 64-bit at Half the Price
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | Intel 560 (3.6GHz) Socket 775 AMD FX53 (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Crucial/Micron DDR2 533 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev.2 (Samsung 2-2-2-5) |
| Hard Drive(s): | 2 x 250GB Maxtor MaXLine III (16MB Cache) in SATA RAID Seagate 120GB 7200RPM SATA (8Mb buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | Intel Chipset Driver 6.0.0.1014 Intel Application Accelerator 4.0.0.6211 NVIDIA nForce version 4.24 |
| Video Card(s): | nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra PCIe nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP 8X |
| Video Drivers: | nVidia 61.77 Graphics Drivers |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Power Supply: | HiPro 470W (Intel) OCZ Power Stream 520W Enermax 465W |
| Motherboards: | Abit AA8 (925X) Asus P5AD2 Premium (925X) DFI LANParty 925X-T2 (925X) Foxconn 925X-A01 (925X) Gigabyte 8ANXP-D (925X) Intel 925XCV (Intel 925X) Socket 775 Intel 915GUX (Intel 915G) Socket 775 MSI K8N Neo2 (nForce3-250 Ultra) Socket 939 |
925X/915 tests used either Crucial PC2-4300U or Micron PC2-4300U memory modules. These are basically the same memory. DDR2 was run at 3-3-3-10 timings, at default voltage, which are faster timings than the SPD 4-4-4-12. Tests of the FX53 used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev.2, which is based on Samsung memory chips, at 2-2-2-5 memory timings at JEDEC standard 2.6V.
The nVidia 6800 Ultra was used for all 925X/915 benchmarking, and the AGP 8X 6800 Ultra was used for FX53 tests. This allows for better comparison of all results, since the 9800 PRO is not available in a PCIe configuration. All performance tests were run with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless otherwise noted.
Workstation Benchmarks Not Included
Workstation benchmark results with SPECviewperf 7.1.1 have been extremely variable on the 925X/915 chipsets. Results are so inconsistent, with up to 50% variation from one board to another using the same configuration, that Workstation benchmarks will be excluded from 925X/915 reviews until we can discover and fix the inconsistency or we can establish a new suite of Workstation benchmarks.Additions to Performance Tests
AutoGK (Auto Gordian Knot) has been selected as the new standard for Encoding benchmarking. This benchmark is partially based on the DVD2AVI engine and we use DivX 5.1.1 as the encoding codec. Test results are complied with a 2-pass encoding using "Sum of All Fear", Chapter 9 as the video source.Game Benchmarks
We have added four new Gaming tests to our standard suite of gaming benchmarks. Far Cry is a popular Direct X 9.0b game, which is run with a custom benchmark called airstrip. We have also added UT2004 with a custom benchmark called UTBench, although we are continuing to run UT2003 standard benchmarks to allow comparison to past tests. Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Within is a recent OpenGL game based on the Quake engine. We are finding that it is an excellent benchmark for measuring system performance, and it will likely replace Quake3 as our standard OpenGL benchmark down the road. We have also included the Final Fantasy XI benchmark, which is DX9.Other standard game benchmarks include Halo, Microsoft's Direct X 9.0b game; Splinter Cell, a DX9 game; X2 Benchmark, a DX 8.1 game, which includes Transform and Lighting effects; the DX9 Aquamark 3, and Unreal Tournament 2003. The DX 8.1 Comanche 4 benchmark is also used with the 4X anti-aliasing setting a 1280x1024 resolution to differentiate system performance better using the nVidia 6800 Ultra.
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JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
On the Gigabyte 8ANXP-D:Page 10
Memory Slots Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots
Gigabyte provides 6 DIMM slots, but the total memory and number of sides that can be used is the same as the other boards in the roundup.
JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Typo page 5:"The memory stress test measures the ability of the Abit AA8 to"
should read Asus P5AD2. :)
only on page 5, may be more.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
allright, point taken. howabout testing lower lga775 cpus and combining the results with 939 scores?Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#5 - You're welcome.We also ran and reported the rest of our standard motherboard tests, which included Business and Multimedia Content Creation Winstones and Media encoding (which Intel won by a small margin).
As we stated in the review the only reason we did not include our standard SPECviewperf 7.1.1 benchmarks is because we have seen variations of up to 100% in SPECviewperf results with certain 925X boards. We don't believe these results are real, and we are trying to find answers for these variations in benchmark results. Until we find some answers, publishing the workstation benchmark results would not really reveal anything about the performance of the 925X boards we are testing.
The FX53, Intel 925X, and Intel 915 results are included for reference and completeness. We are comparing five 925X motherboards in performance, and we do not mean to detract from that comparison with AMD Socket 939 benchmarks. Please consider the 939 results to be a frame of reference.
AnnoyedGrunt - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
From what I can see, the P4 560 is about $750, so that puts it right between the 3800+ (about $650) and the FX-53 (about $850) in price. It would be nice to add the 3800+ scores (if you have any) to that review just so we could see how the price/performance of the 560, 3800+, and FX-53 compare.-D'oh!
Shimmishim - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#2 - Achieving a 4 ghz overclock on a pentium is nothing to sneeze at... i think 3.8 may be possible on air but 4.2 is really pushing.As much as a lot of us would love to see overclocked processor results, i think it's best that they only show stock clock results as they are easier to compare...
#3 - Its hard to say how fair it is to use a FX-53 against the 3.6 ghz 775 chip... but if you think about it, they are comparing the top end pentium 775 skt (new pin count) vs. the top of the line A64 939 skt (new pin count)..
Both are also 1 megs of L2 even though the extra cache doesn't help the A64 greatly.
Maybe a 3800+ would have been better comparison but i think he was trying to make things as easy to compare as possible...
Even if he had used a 3800+ or even a 3700+ i don't think the gaming results would have been that much different... we all know that the A64's dominate in gaming.
maybe some more tests besides gaming would have been better...
but all in all...
thank you Wes for a good article!
Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#3 - The 3.6 is the fastest Intel processor. If you will check our launch reviews you will see the 3.6 outperformed the 3.4EE. We are indeed comparing the best performing Intel - the 3.6 - to the best performing AMD - FX53.Prior to the 3.6, the 3.4EE was the fastest Intel CPU.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
lately i've been noticing unfair comparisons between intel and amd, in this article, high end processors are being compared with the top of the line from amd. this isnt really helpful to anyone, so please go back to the old anandtech way.Anemone - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice article !If I could have had one extra wish it would have been to show a set of test charts with a moderate oc on them, think that would put the FX @ 2.6-2.7 and the P4 560's @ 4.2-4.3.
If the boards can overclock, and the 939's can too, where does it all land for those using just normal or at most water oc'ing.
No worry, these wishes do not detract from a very nice article.
Thank you
stickybytes - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice to see asus get a award but unfourtanetly the word "prescott" mentioned in any sentence will probably scare away 80% of AT'ers.