|
 |
|
HotHardware Test Systems |
|
KT333 Test Beds |
|
|
Chaintech 7VJL KT333 Motherboard
512MB Corsair PC2700
DDR SDRAM
MSI KT3
Ultra-ARU
512MB Corsair PC2700
DDR SDRAM
ABIT
KX7-333
512MB Corsair PC2700
DDR SDRAM
Common Hardware:
AMD Athlon XP 2100+
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
(v.29.42)
IBM 30GB ATA-100
7200RPM Hard Drive
Sound Blaster Live!
Value |
A Few
Words About The Benchmarks:
In setting up our test machines, we install Windows XP
on a formatted, FAT32 hard drive. After installing
the relevant drivers we disable system restore, all of
the graphical enhancements in Windows XP, and the
Automatic Update feature. The desktop on each test
bed is set to 1024x768, 16-bit color and a 75Hz refresh
rate.Additionally, all three
motherboards are outfitted with the latest BIOS image
files publicly available from each manufacturer. |
 |
|
Benchmarking with SiSoft Sandra 2002 |
|
Very Similar
Performance... |
|
As a
synthetic benchmark, it would be expected that Sandra would
be able to expose any weaknesses in the KT333
platforms. Each board performs very well though,
making it difficult to predict a winner. The 7VJL is
clearly able to utilize more memory bandwidth than the other
boards, which may come into play with applications like
Quake III or Content Creation Winstone 2002.
|
|
|
Quake III: Arena |
|
The True Test:
Gaming |
|
The
original Demo001 makes a great processor benchmark, so we
ran each board through a timed demo at 640x480 to ensure the
powerful GeForce4 Ti 4600 has plenty of steam left to burn.
The result is that the processor becomes the bottleneck and
a good basis for comparison is established.
Remarkably, the 7VJL is able to put an obvious distance
(seven percent!) between itself and the competing KT333
boards.
|
|
|
3D
Mark 2001 SE |
|
A Discernable
Difference, Again |
|
Using the
latest build of 3D Mark 2001 SE it can again be seen that
the 7VJL clearly outperforms the other two machines.
We could devise endless hypotheses to explain the difference
- aggressive memory timings, the integration of the new VIA
South Bridge or some other unseen advantage. Let's
think about this some more...
CCWS
2002, BWS 2001 and Conclusion |