DDR400 for Athlon: A Comparison of 9 Motherboards

Features
By published

Test Setup

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Test Hardware
ProcessorAMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8 GHz)
RAM256 MB PC3200 CL2, Corsair Micro
Hard DriveIBM DeskStar 60GXP, IC35040, 40 GB, 7.200 rpm
Graphics CardnVIDIA GeForce 4 TI 4600, 128 MB DDR
Other Hardware
Network Card3COM 3C905-TX
Hard DriveIBM DeskStar 60 GXP / IC35, 40 GBUltraATA/100, 7.200 rpm, 2 MB Cache, NTFS
Drivers, Software & Settings
Graphics DriverDetonator 4 Serie Version 30.82
Chipset and AGP DriverVIA 4in1 4.43
DirectX Version8.1
Resolution1024x768x16, 85 HzSPECviewperf : 1280x1024x32, 85 Hz
OSWindows 2000 Professional SP3
Benchmarks
Quake III ArenaRetail Version 1.16command line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0Graphics detail set to ’Normal’Benchmark using ’Q3DEMO1’
Unreal Tournament 2003Official Demo
Comanche 4Official Demo
WinACE2.11, 178 MB Wave file, Best Compression, Dictionary 4096 kB
SPECviewperfVersion 7.0
mpeg4 encodingXmpeg 4.5DivX 5.02 Pro (YV12)Compression/quality : SlowestData Rate : 780 kBitFormat : 720x576 Pixel@25 fps150 MB VOB-Datei, no Audio
Sysmark 2002Internet Content Creation
LameLame 3.91 MMX, SSE, SSE2, 3DNow !

We ran all of the benchmarks twice : once with DDR400, the second time with DDR333. For this reason, we reduced the benchmarks to a reasonable number and also changed some parts. In lieu of Unreal Tournament, we are now using Unreal Tournament 2003, as this requires significantly more performance and also utilizes DirectX 8 features. Instead of the synthetic benchmark 3DMark, we have begun using Comanche 4.