Socket 940 Roundup: Motherboards for the Athlon64 FX
by Wesley Fink on December 18, 2003 1:39 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Basic Features: Socket 940 Motherboards
| Motherboard Specifications | ||
| Asus SK8N | Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 940 AMD Athlon64 FX and Opteron | |
| Chipset | nVidia nForce 3 150 | |
| Bus Speeds | 200 to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) | |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, or Fixed | Auto, or Fixed 66-100 (in 1 MHz increments) |
| Available CPU Ratios | 4.0 to 20.0 in 0.5 increments | 4.0 to 25.0 in 0.5 increments |
| Core Voltage | 1.075V - 1.775V in 0.025V increments | 0.8V - 1.7V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.5V – 2.7V in 0.1V increments | Normal, +0.1, +.2, +.3V |
| AGP Voltage | 1.5V to 1.7V in 0.1V increments | Normal, +0.1, +.2, +.3V |
| Chipset Voltage | No Adjustment | Normal, +0.1, +.2, +.3V |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Registered or Registered ECC DDR to 4GB Total |
|
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
|
| Onboard Serial ATA/RAID | Promise PDC20378 (2 Drives, 0, 1) |
Silicon Image Sil3112 supports Raid 0/1 |
| Onboard IDE/RAID | Two ATA133/100/66 (4 devices) Plus Promise PDC20378 (2 Drives, RAID 0, 1) |
Two ATA133/100/66 (4 devices) Plus 2 GigaRAID ATA133 IDE RAID 0, 1, 0+1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 6 USB 2.0 ports by nF3 2 1394a (400 MB/s) FireWire ports |
6 USB 2.0 ports by nF3 TI 1394B (800 MB/s) FireWire (2 ports) |
| Onboard LAN | CK8 Realtek RTL8201BL 10/100 LAN | DUAL LAN, Realtek Gigabit LAN + Realtek 10/100 LAN |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC650 codec | Realtek ALC658 codec AC '97 2.3 6-Channel with UA |
| BIOS Revision | 1004 (12/09/03) | F3 (10/23/03) |
| Motherboard Specifications | ||
| Asus SK8V | MSI K8T Master-FAR | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 940 AMD Athlon64 FX and Opteron | |
| Chipset | VIA K8T800 Northbridge, VIA VT8237 Southbridge | |
| Bus Speeds | 200 to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) | 200 to 233MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | No Adjustment | No Adjustment |
| Available CPU Ratios | 800 - 4000MHz in 100MHz increments | Not Adjustable |
| Core Voltage | 0.80V – 1.75V in 0.025V increments | Fixed, Not Adjustable |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.6V to 2.8V in 0.1V increments |
Fixed, Not Adjustable |
| AGP Voltage | 1.5V, 1.7V in 0.1V increments |
Fixed, Not Adjustable |
| Chipset Voltage | VLink, 2.5V, 2.6V | Not Adjustable |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Registered or Registered ECC DDR to 4GB Total |
|
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots, WiFi Slot |
1 AGP 8X Slot 4 PCI Slots |
| Onboard Serial ATA/RAID | VIA 8237 (2 Drives, 0, 1) Promise PDC20378 (2 Drives, 0,1) |
VIA 8237 (2 Drives, 0, 1) |
| Onboard IDE/RAID | 8237 (4 drives ATA133) Promise PDC20378 (2 Drives, 0, 1) |
8237 (4 drives ATA133) No IDE RAID |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports by 964 2 1394a FireWire ports |
6 USB 2.0 ports by 8237 No FireWire ports |
| Onboard LAN | 3Com 3C940 Gigabit LAN | Broadcom Gigabit LAN |
| Onboard Audio | ADI AD1985 SoundMax 6-Channel with SPDIF |
AC '97 2.2 Audio |
| BIOS Revision | Beta 1002.018 (11/23/03) | 1.1 (11/07/03) |
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AnonymouseUser - Saturday, December 20, 2003 - link
Since this review is for the Athlon64 FX motherboards, shouldn't the links for the "Anandtech Deals" (just below the title) be for Athlon64 FX (socket 940) instead of the non-FX 3200+ (socket 754)?O_o
Wesley Fink - Saturday, December 20, 2003 - link
#7 -The scores with the 11/03 nVidia platform drivers combined with Catalyst 3.9 and the latest BIOS' we tested have dropped the GunMetal 2 benchmarks to those reported in this review. We have discussed the very unusual GunMetal scores we got in the past with Yeti Studios who is looking into the scores.
At this point, we are concerned that the GunMetal 2 bechmarks are really telling us very little about the performance of the boards and systems we are testing. Unless Yeti can update or explain what we have been seeing in Socket 940 scores, we will likely drop GunMetal 2 from our benchmarks.
We apologize for the confusion regarding GunMetal 2 bechmarks, but we have shared with you over several reviews our growing skepticism over their validity in benchmarking FX and Opteron.
TrogdorJW - Friday, December 19, 2003 - link
#7, if you look at those benchmarks in question, the results are HIGHLY questionable in the original benchmarks. They even mentioned it at the bottom of the page:"The astounding scores in GunMetal 2 by the Dual-Channel Opteron and Athlon64 FX51 are difficult to explain, since they are not duplicated by our single-channel Athlon64 benchmark. We were convinced that these scores on the original Opteron must be a fluke until they showed up again in our tests and retest of the K8NNXP-940 Dual-Channel."
My bet is that the earlier versions of the GunMetal benchmark were in some way flawed. Perhaps it was a driver issue, and the game was really only rendering about 2/3 of the screens that it was reporting. Given that all the other systems appear to be close to maxed out on frame rate by the graphics card, the FX and Opteron scores were initially incorrect and have now been fixed.
justly - Friday, December 19, 2003 - link
Wesley Fink, I have had issues with previous Anandtech articles and I thought (or at least was hopefull) that they would happen less often with some of the new staff. I now regret being so hopefull as I am still seeing the same problem.What I would like to know is what would cause the gun metal benchmarks on the Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 to drop 25% or more since the review of that same board on 9 Oct (there was even a link to this article on page one).
I realize that the motherboard and video drivers have changed along with some hardware, and BOIS updates mentioned on page 1 (stating that they "offering improved performance and added features"). The thing is that none of these changes should lead to this kind of preformance hit. What is the story here, was there a mistake in benchmarking, if so what article is correct, if not how do you explain this since most of the other benchmarks on this board varied (an estimated)5% or less.
Icewind - Friday, December 19, 2003 - link
Doubtful #5 as there is no BIOS option to enable or disable it for the VIA boards.bex0rs - Friday, December 19, 2003 - link
The integrated LAN on the SK8N is 10/100 only, not gigabit as mentioned several times.http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=SK8N&langs...
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/products1-2.asp...
Also, would there be any way to run the HT bus on the VIA boards at 600 to make a determination if that is the limiting factor on nV's implementation?
Wesley Fink - Thursday, December 18, 2003 - link
#1 - You are correct, and page 4 has been corrected. The SATA ports for the SK8N were correctly stated as 2 in the Feature listing for the 4 motherboards.Icewind - Thursday, December 18, 2003 - link
Unless im mistaken #1, is that one right next to the CPU cooler itself in the picture below? Hard to judge from the contrastIcewind - Thursday, December 18, 2003 - link
Best to wait for the 939 pin socket without the unregistered memory modules. I know I will. Paired with a possible PCI Express, SATA 2.0, ATi's 420, 2004 is gonna be a freaking expensive upgrade but better get the best before I finally move outa my folks house.adipose - Thursday, December 18, 2003 - link
http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1936&p=...On this page you state:
The IDE connectors, IDE RAID, and 4 SATA connectors are all in good locations. They should present no problems in most case designs.
But I believe the SK8N only has 2 SATA connectors, and I can only see two on the image.
-Dan