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Gigabyte K8NNXP-940: Built on Athlon64 FX51 Strengths

 by Wesley Fink on October 9, 2003 11:52 PM EST
35 Comments | Add A Comment
35 Comments

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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  • juc - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    can you try and put in a lower clock opteron and see what type of overclocking you can do w/ it?, is the regular 14x opteron unlocked? it would be nice if it was.

  • Reflex - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    #1: A RDRAM version would completely eliminate the advantage of having an on-die memory controller on the CPU as it is very very high latency by design. The A64 thrives on very very low latency/high IPC, and RDRAM does not provide that.

    Honestly, what would be truly ideal is a QDR solution. But everytime I hear about it being close nothing seems to come of it. Too bad...

  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    Considering the performance gain, money ain't that important :-)

  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    #1,

    Samsung PC-3200 512 MB DDR SDRAM $125
    Samsung PC-3200 512 MB ECC Reg. DDR SDRAM $174

    +49

    Corsair XMS3200 PC-3200 512MB DDR SDRAM $175
    Corsair XMS3200 PC-3200 ELL 512MB DDR SDRAM $220
    Corsair XMS3200LL-RE PC-3200 ECC Reg. 512MB DDR SDRAM $235

    +15 (+60 compared to slower timings)

    completely unmeaningful to anyone with the money to buy an fx.

  • Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link

    Looks like a cool mobo, and an amazingly fast CPU, but . . .

    Who's going to buy one of these!?!?!?

    The price you'll spend on memory put's this way out of most people's price range! And before you yell at me for saying that, look up pricing for registered modules!

    You could probably buy an awesome Athlon 64 system now, then upgrade your mobo and CPU to FX when the 939 pin version comes out, and still spend less money than paying this ridiculous premium on memory. Plus, it would be upgradable to future FX chips, not an unsupported beast. Anyone remember socket 423?

    Say goodbye to the idea of 'surpassing the 4Gb memory limitation,' unless you have like $10,000 to spend on memory!

    My real question here is why, when the Athlon 64 (non-FX) is such a success, would they make this strange beast?

    What I would LOVE to see (I know you're going to hate this one) is a really tight RDRAM chipset ready when the 939-pin chipset comes out.

    What do you think? Quad Channel 1200Mhz RDRAM on the new FX? Ain't gonna happen, but I can dream.
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