NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra: Biostar's Performance Surprise
by Gary Key on February 16, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Ethernet Performance
The current motherboard test suite includes LAN performance measurements. All of these boards utilize PCI Express controllers with the only difference being the supplier of the core logic.
The Windows 2000 Driver Development Kit (DDK) includes a useful LAN testing utility called NTttcp. We used the NTttcp tool to test Ethernet throughput and the CPU utilization of the various Ethernet Controllers used on the Intel motherboards.
We set up one machine as the server; in this test, an Intel system with an Intel CSA Gigabit LAN connection. Intel CSA has a reputation for providing fast throughput and this seemed a reasonable choice to serve our Gigabit LAN clients.
At the server side, we used the following Command Line as suggested by the VIA whitepaper on LAN testing:
All standard Ethernet tests were performed with standard frames and the NVIDIA Active Armor suite disabled unless otherwise noted. Gigabit Ethernet supports Jumbo frames as well and provides a further reduction in CPU overhead. We added another test scenario in which ActiveArmor and Jumbo frames were enabled on the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe board via the 6.82 WHQL platform driver set. This is shown for illustrative purposes and shows the favorable impact of this technology.
The current motherboard test suite includes LAN performance measurements. All of these boards utilize PCI Express controllers with the only difference being the supplier of the core logic.
The Windows 2000 Driver Development Kit (DDK) includes a useful LAN testing utility called NTttcp. We used the NTttcp tool to test Ethernet throughput and the CPU utilization of the various Ethernet Controllers used on the Intel motherboards.
We set up one machine as the server; in this test, an Intel system with an Intel CSA Gigabit LAN connection. Intel CSA has a reputation for providing fast throughput and this seemed a reasonable choice to serve our Gigabit LAN clients.
At the server side, we used the following Command Line as suggested by the VIA whitepaper on LAN testing:
Ntttcpr -m 4 ,0,‹server IP› -a 4 -l 256000 -n 30000On the client side (the motherboard under test), we used the following Command Line:
Ntttcps -m 4 ,0,‹client IP› -a 4 -l 256000 -n 30000At the conclusion of the test, we captured the throughput and CPU utilization figures from the client screen.
All standard Ethernet tests were performed with standard frames and the NVIDIA Active Armor suite disabled unless otherwise noted. Gigabit Ethernet supports Jumbo frames as well and provides a further reduction in CPU overhead. We added another test scenario in which ActiveArmor and Jumbo frames were enabled on the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe board via the 6.82 WHQL platform driver set. This is shown for illustrative purposes and shows the favorable impact of this technology.
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Zoomer - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
I was really interested in buying this board to replace a dead board until I read the part about ALC 850. Urgh.The 10/100 ethernet was also an issue, but I could have lived with that. But no HD Audio? This is 2006, not 1996.
neweggster - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
I would like to see more articles from Biostar. They seem to have a good idea on what performance is. Any idea if you guys could get a article on the Biostar TForce4U Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra AMD mobo?Gary Key - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
We are working on it. :)cpeter38 - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link
How come AT has taken down the RS580 article (at least) twice now??Gary Key - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link
The NDA for the RD580 is on 3/2/06. ATI has requested the review sites adhere to this date. However, if you look around the net the article has been saved in a zip file and is available for viewing. ;-)
cpeter38 - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link
THANK YOU!!!!(for the explanation)
cpeter38 - Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - link
ACCCHHH!!********** EDIT *************** EDIT ************
RD580!!!
ronein - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
I second that!
lexmark - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Very detailed and coherent article! I am in no way in the market for an intel/biostar board (how many are? ;), but the review was a pleasure to read. I found the author's writing style to be very unique and the article overall was outstanding. Keep up the good work AT!bldckstark - Thursday, February 16, 2006 - link
Good job on including the min and max frame rates on the graphs. That is an excellent addition. Now if we can just get the median and mode......... *>}