Athlon On The Fast Lane: Three Motherboards with nForce2-Chipset and Dual-Channel DDR

Test Setup

In order to compare the nForce2 boards’ performance to that of the KT400, we took the fastest KT400 motherboard currently available, an Asus A7V8X. You will find its benchmark results in each chart.

Benchmark Results

All benchmarks were performed with DDR333 memory at CL2, as this is the fastest configuration for nForce2. However, we also ran our benchmark suite at DDR400. The result is quite surprising, as there definitely are applications that benefit from DDR400.

In addition, we took the fastest board (Asus) and repeated the benchmark suite with only single-channel mode to find out what the real performance gap is between KT400 and nForce2 under the same conditions.

CPU Clock/ FSB Clock

As FSB overclocking within a range of 1-2 MHz can have tremendous impact on benchmark results, we regularly check if the manufacturers adhere to the specifications. Winning reviews by slightly overclocking the system means cheating the customer.

Interesting to see that all three companies stick exactly to the specifications. One reason for this is that the nForce2 chipset does not require an external clock generator.