Pricey Foundations: 9 Boards For The Pentium 4

Testing Configuration

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Hardware
ProcessorPentium 4 2000 MHz
Memory2x 128 MB RIMM PC-800 (Viking)
Hard DriveIBM DTLA-307030, 30,7 GBytesUltra DMA/100, 7200 rpm
Graphics card 1NVIDIA GeForce 2 UltraChip speed: 250,0 MHzMemory speed: 458,2 MHzMemory: 64 MB DDR-SDRAM
Graphics card 2NVIDIA Quadro 2 ProChip speed: 250,0 MHzMemory speed: 400,9 MHzMemory: 64 MB DDR-SDRAM
Drivers & Software
Chipset Driver:Intel V3.10.1011
Graphics Card DriverDetonator 4 Serie V14.70
DirectX Version8.0a (German)
OSWindows 98 SE, Version 4.10.2222 A
Benchmarks and Settings
Sysmark 2000Patch 51024 x 768 / 16 Bit / 85 Hz
Quake 3 ArenaV1.16 "Timedemo 1" "Demo Demo001"640 x 480 / 85 Hz / 16 Bit
CPU SpeedWCPUID 3.0c
Unreal TournamentV4.28"Timedemo1" "Demoplay UTBench"
SPEC ViewperfVersion 6.1.2

Benchmark Results [Updated]

All the boards were put through the rigors of 9 different benchmarks, and there wasn't a single serious problem throughout the entire testing process, which earns kudos for the Socket 423 CPU platform. The following benchmark disciplines will now elucidate all the boards' various aspects.

Range Of CPU Clock Speed: 1980 MHz To 2030 MHz

The testing scenario in this comparison reveals that some manufacturers are still trying to pad their results by overclocking the boards at the factory. For example, the MSI's 2030 MHz puts it at the top of the heap in several disciplines! We have seen this to be an issue with European users more so than North American users. Whether the issue is being overlooked by some reviewers, or there's some sort of cultural difference on overclocked mobos, we can't tell