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How We
Configured Our Test Systems:
To help fully explain the scores we listed in the following
benchmarks, we felt it was necessary to explain how the
systems were set up before running the benchmarks. Our
normal practice is to start off by manually optimizing the
BIOS settings to the most aggressive system options
available to us. This meant that on each of the
boards, the memory frequency was manually set to DDR400 with
the CAS timings set to 2-5-2-2. Since each of these
Springdale-based boards came with some form of memory
enhancement, we opted to enable this as well, which was set
to the most aggressive option available.
Once the BIOS options were set, the hard drive was formatted
as a FAT32 partition, and Windows XP Professional with
Service Pack 1 was installed. After the Windows installation
completed, we installed the latest Intel chipset drivers and
upgraded to DirectX 9.0a. We then installed the
drivers for the rest of the components, using drivers
supplied on each manufacturer's CD, except for the Tyan
Tachyon G9500 Pro video card. For the G9500, we
installed the latest (at the time of testing) ATi Catalyst
drivers, version 3.4. Auto-Updating, Hibernation, and
System Restore were disabled, and then we set up a 768MB
permanent page file. On these test systems we set the visual
effects to "best performance" in system performance to limit
any effects these settings would have on the benchmarks.
Satisfied that every thing was set up correctly, we
installed all of the benchmarking software, defragged the
hard drive, and rebooted one last time.
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HotHardware Test Setup |
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Can
the 4PDA2+ come out to play? |
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Motherboards
Tested:
Epox 4PDA2+ Version 2.0 (Intel
865PE)
Abit IS7-G (Intel 865PE)
Albatron 865PE Pro-II (Intel 865PE)
Asus P4P800 Deluxe (Intel 865PE)
Common Hardware:
Intel Pentium 4
Processor 2.40C 2.4GHz / 800MHz System Bus
512MB (256MB x2) GEIL DDR433 SDRAM (2-5-2-2)
Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro
Western Digital 20GB ATA100 Hard Drive
52x Creative Labs CD-ROM
Software /
System Drivers:
Windows XP with
Service Pack 1
DirectX 9.0a
ATi Catalyst Drivers, v3.4
Intel Chipset Software, v5.00.1012
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SiSoft Sandra Benchmarks |
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Synthetic testing |
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SANDRA (the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic
and Reporting Assistant) is an information and
diagnostic utility put out by the folks at SiSoftware.
It's a quick and easy
way to compare the CPU, Memory, and Hard drive performance
of a given system against an internal database of similar
systems and drives. These benchmarks are theoretical scores,
and can't necessarily be measured in real-world terms, but
provide a good way to make comparisons amongst like
components. All of these tests were run with our CPU
set to its default clock speed (~2.40GHz / 12 x 200MHz).
( ALU MEASURED IN MIPS / FPU
MEASURED IN MFLOPS )
( MEASURED IN IT/S )
( MEASURED IN MB/S )
If anything,
these three tests seem to be a "push" - that is, it's hard
to claim a true winner when the scores are so close
together. The CPU performance graph is the closest
grouping of the three with the Epox 4PDA2+ V2 taking the
slimmest of leads in the ALU test and slightly behind in FPU.
The "stock" speed of the board, as shown in WCPUID, was a
robust 201.44MHz, which partially helps account for the high
numbers, although none of the boards actually clocked in at
an even 200MHz. In the Multimedia module, the Epox
4PDA2+ V2 takes the number two slot in both measurements,
behind the Asus P4P800 Deluxe in Integer Point calculations
and the Abit IS7-G in Floating Point. The test we were
most curious to see what the Memory Performance Module.
It was here that we saw the major differences between the
boards in our
Springdale Showdown. While all of the boards in
this review have a PAT-like enhancement, it remained to be
seen how well it worked. Well, the verdict is that
Epox's engineers have done a great job, with memory scores
rivaling that of Abit's renowned "Game Accelerator
Technology" (GAT).
Winstones and PCMark2002 Benchmarks |