The DFI AD73 RAID Motherboard Review
Plain on the Outside, Powerful on the Inside

By, Jeff Bouton
April 18, 2002

Benchmarking with Sisoft Sandra 2002 Pro Starting with the Synthetic...

SiSoft Sandra 2002 Professional is an excellent utility for gauging a systems capabilities when compared to a large internal database.  We ran the scores at both the default bus speed of 133MHz. and the overclocked rate of 140MHz.
 

CPU@1.53GHz.

CPU@1.61GHz.

There isn't much to say here.  The CPU scores were right on-par with what we would expect from an AthlonXP 1800+ processor.  Once we overclocked the system, the processor's scores increased nicely, taking a firm lead over each of the comparison processors.

The memory scores were decent, performing slightly better than the PC2100 KT266A reference system.  Once we clocked the bus to 140MHz. the scores increased fairly well, surpassing the Intel 845 reference system with PC2100, although the Intel 850 system with RDRAM still held a firm lead over all systems.
 

Hard Drive - RAID

The hard drive scores with the Promise RAID controller were slightly below the reference system, but respectable nonetheless.

Now synthetic benchmarks are fine-and-dandy for giving you an idea of a systems potential, but the real test is when we start making the board earn its scores.  So let's get to it and start cranking out the numbers!
 

Benchmarks and Comparisons The CPU Test

One of the first tests we like to run on a motherboard is the Quake3 Timedemo "DEMO001" at 640x480 with all textures set to their lowest settings.  This allows us to test the raw CPU power of the system by reducing any possible load on the video card.  In this test and all the others, the scores were compared to two new KT333 based systems, the MSI KT3 Ultra ARU and the Shuttle AK35GT2/R.  We do this for a frame of reference to show how the system compares to other popular systems.

Quake 3:

Well now, it looks like the KT266A isn't ready to retire yet.  The DFI AD73 took charge of the CPU test, pumping out an excellent 260FPS.  The MSI came in a very close second (256) while the Shuttle board brought up the rear with 253FPS.  So when it comes to pure CPU load, the DFI board had the edge, but does it mean that it will take it to the KT333 in all the tests?  Let's take a look.

Our next round of tests is the newcomer to the testing world, PCMark2002.  Unlike 3DMark2001SE, PCmark2002 is a full system benchmarking program that tests all areas of a computer system in one easy to use program.  PCMark2002 rounds out the tests with 3 scores, CPU, Memory and HDD.  Let's take a look and see if the KT266A board could still hold its own with the new kids on the block.

PCMark2002 "CPU":

Once again, the DFI system had the highest score in this test, although the gap between the three systems is much narrower.  Next is the "Memory" score.

PCMark2002 "Memory":

Here is where the MSI board shines, with a solid lead over the DFI and Shuttle systems.  Surprisingly, the DFI came in second over the Shuttle system.

Next we'll take a look at the hard drive performance of all three systems.

More PCMark2002, The Winstones & 3DMark2001SE