Performance Test Configuration

 Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s): AMD Athlon64 FX51 (2.2GHz)
AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz)
AMD Opteron Socket 940 at 2.0GHz (9x222) 444FSB
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB)
Intel Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz (800FSB)
Intel Pentium 4 at 3.0GHz (800FSB)
RAM: 2 x 512MB Mushkin Registered ECC DDR400 High Performance
2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II
4 x 512MB Legacy ECC at 2.5-3-4-5
2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TwinX LL (v1.1 )
Hard Drive(s): Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: NVIDIA nForce version 2.45 (7/29/2003)
VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.49 (August 20, 2003)
NVIDIA nForce version 2.03 (1/30/03)
Video Card(s): ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers: ATI Catalyst 3.7
Operating System(s): Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards: Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 (nForce3) Athlon64 FX51
ChaintechZNF3-150 (nForce3) Athlon64 3200+
FIC K8-800T (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+
MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800) Athlon64 3200+
nVidia Reference nForce3 Opteron144 @ 222.0 MHz FSB (2.0GHz)
DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+
Albatron KX18D PROII (nForce2 U400) Barton 3200+
Asus P4C800-E (Intel 875P) 3.2Ghz P4

The Athlon64 FX requires Registered or Registered ECC memory. Tests with the Gigabyte K8NNXP-940 were performed with Mushkin High Performance Registered ECC DDR400 memory. Recent performance tests on nForce2 Ultra 400 and Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. Previous tests of motherboards used 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Mushkin PC3500 L2 was used to preserve the 2-2-2-6 timings that were used in tests with Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1. Both Mushkin and Corsair use the same Winbond BH5 memory chips in these modules.

All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.

For the fairest comparisons, benchmarks were recompiled on the Asus P4C800-E using the 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor.

Additions to Performance Tests

Science Mark 2 Memory Performance, 9/23/03 update, was included to compare Memory Bandwidth and Latency of the Athlon64 FX51 and Pentium 4 3.2GHz. AnandTech has standardized on ZD Labs Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking.

Game Benchmarks

We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs, the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects, and Aquamark3 to our standard game benchmarks. We will be adding other benchmarks in the near future. Jedi Knight II has been dropped from our standard Benchmark Suite. We were forced to use different patches for operation on Athlon and Intel Pentium 4, which made cross-platform comparison difficult, if not impossible. In addition, Opteron/Athlon64 requires a third patching variation for benchmarking. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.

Gigabyte K8NNXP: Tech Support and RMA Content Creation, General Usage and Memory Performance
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  • Anonymous User - Saturday, October 11, 2003 - link

    Hmm.. something just occured to me. (This is #24 again.) Anyone else remember the days of the Pentium and Pentium Pro? Well, it seems like we may be reentering the whole "high-end CPUs are different from midrange ones in ways other than clock speed" thing.. except this time around, the Macs aren't faster (the G5 and its super-deep pipeline can kiss my ass, thanks.. and probably the Hammer's while it's at it), and there are two companies in the game. This is going to be fun.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, October 11, 2003 - link

    Hey, why isn't the Nehalem in this review? So what if it doesn't exist? They've got like 80% of it planned out now anyway, it's unfair to have this review biased towards AMD.

    Well, SOMEONE had to be ignorant and stupid, and hell if I'm going to say a thing about the Pentium 4 Xeon MP Edition.

    Uh. Anyway. The Athlon FX may just be a rebranded Opteron, but it's cheaper than the rebranded Xeon MP and much better at its job, so who cares what's a rebranded what? Not that I'd ever buy an Athlon 64 at these prices, but it seems the only market sector Intel has left is the low high end :D
  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    Excellent review! I'll be reading all of your writings from now on. :D
  • sandorski - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    Sweet motherboard, makes me think that as Athlon 64/FX motherboards mature, more performance will be acheived.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    Haha, good point #20!
  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    #12, perhaps because P4EE does not exist...
  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    When will this board be released?
  • Reflex - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    #11: I am not reffering to Quad-Channel DDR as I think you believe. I am reffering to Quad-Data Rate SDRAM. It uses the same pin count as DDR but sends information four times per clock, resulting in twice the bandwidth as DDR. If AMD supported it in their on board controller it would not require a higher pin count.

    However there must be some technical reason for QDR not appearing by now since its been 'just around the corner' for over two years now...
  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    Mostly I meant that running hand-compiled 64-bit apps would be irrelevant. I'd love to see another article in a few months, when Linux apps start actually arriving in 64-bit versions. But until then, it would be akin to Tom's OC'ing the P4EE. It may be interesting to a few people, but it would appear biased to almost everyone else.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    #15, 64-bit tests running linux would not be relevant? what about those of us who are running linux right now? I for one would love to see a 64-bit set of linux benchmarks included.

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