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 | | Benchmarks and Comparisons | | Getting A Feel for the Big Picture | |
Quake 3:
One of the simplest, and more familiar ways to gauge a motherboard's CPU and memory performance is by running the Quake 3 Timedemo "DEMO001." We configured the test to run at 640x480x16 and lowered all other settings to eliminate any effects the video card may have on the score.
At stock speeds and 64-Bit DDR, the system pushed out 226 FPS. Although this is nowhere near the highest score we've seen before, it is still pretty good and 15 FPS better than what the MSI KT4 Ultra was capable of. Just for fun, we ran the overclocked scores at both 64 and 128-Bit to see the affects of overclocking and DualDDR. Right off the top, the system added 50 FPS to its score at 64-Bit while 4 more frames were tacked on at 128-Bit. Not a huge gain, but we have more scores ahead!
MadOnion's PCMark2002Pro:
Another good way to assess a system's overall performance is by giving the system a run at MadOnion's PCMark2002 Pro. This application stresses the three most important components of a system; CPU, Memory, and Hard Drive. We ran the test at both 64 and 128-Bit DDR, at stock and overclocked speeds, and threw in a stock score for the MSI KT4 Ultra as a reference point.
The first thing we see is the CPU performance was superior to the MSI KT4 in all aspects of the test. With the DDR running at 64-Bit, the system exceeded the MSI board by roughly 75 points and jumped an additional 5 points with 128-Bit enabled. The scores soared with the system overclocked, increasing close to 700 points. At both 64 and 128-Bit, the scores were almost equal, within 3 points of one another.
With the Memory test, we were anxious to see a more definitive assessment of DualDDR compared to standard 64-Bit DDR. What we found was a nice increase in score with 128-Bit mode enabled, although it was nothing astronomical. What did get us excited was the gains found when we overclocked the board. Normally when we overclock an Athlon based system, we see a nice gain of 500-700 points (shooting from the hip), but the nForce2 board took off. We topped our memory scores an additional 1000+ points, exceeding the 5000 mark. When it comes to memory performance, the nForce2 put up a great showing.
DirectX, OpenGL, and a Dash of Winstone
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