Rambus Is Alive: SiS 658 In An Exclusive Test

Test Setup And Details, Continued

We used several different benchmark tests in an effort to depict an all-round and balanced view of the performance of SiS 658 chipset. The benchmark results of the various DDR and RDRAM platforms provide a transparent overview.

We calculate the OpenGL performance using four different Quake 3 tests and the Direct3D performance from the DirectX package using the 3D Mark 2001 SE (based on DirectX 8.1). A new test we've added is the 3D Mark 2003, which measures the performance under DirectX 9. The various MPEG encoding benchmarks form a comprehensive test scenario. The "mp3 Makers Platinium" is used to code a 178 MB WAV file into "MPEG-1 Layer 3 format". Additionally, we use Main Concept 1.3 to convert a DV video (1.2 GB) into a file in MPEG-2 format. Pinnacle Studio 8.5 is used to perform a coding exercise into MPEG-2 format. Particularly relevant to everyday practical use is the packing of files, which we have recently started to test using the Winrar packer 3.11. To measure the Office performance, we resort to the tried-and-tested Sysmark 2002 benchmark. Last but not least, SiSoft Sandra 2003 can't be left out of the test. Not forgetting the established 3D game for DirectX8 Unreal Tournament 2003. For overclocking enthusiasts, the PC Mark 2002 is interesting when seeking, by way of a reference, comparative values for the overclocking performance. The 3D rendering performance is tested using Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max and Lightwave.