Socket 754 Roundup, Part 3: Asus, Soltek & DFI

Final Words

With this round of second generation 754 boards, we are finally seeing a broader range of performance differences than what we have seen in past benchmark tests. All three of these recent boards are generally among the better performers compared to other 2^nd generation 754 boards. The differences are still not huge, but they are there. The Soltek, in particular, seems to appear at or near the top in almost every benchmark. The same can be said for the Asus K8N-E, and the DFI remains one of the better overall performers in the comparison at stock speed.

The message here is that if performance at stock speed is your primary criteria, then any of these three boards will do a good job for you, along with several choices from earlier testing. The Soltek, in particular, is fast at stock, and very reasonable to buy. However, when we look beyond stock performance, the picture does begin to change.

In the real world, features do matter also, and if we look more closely at the 3 boards, we do see quite a few differences. All three boards use the superior nF3-250Gb chipset that provides on-chip LAN capabilities and nVidia LAN and Firewall. All 3 also appear to use the proper PHY gigabit LAN to bypass the PCI bus on the nVidia chipset for top LAN speed. However, the Soltek and Asus do not fully implement the nVidia "any-drive" RAID, and go their own route for SATA channels beyond 2. As much as we admire Soltek's Promise controller with 2 added SATA and an additional IDE slot, we would trade it in an instant for SATA performance that would go beyond a 233 CPU setting. This is even truer for the Asus with 6 total SATA ports, none of which would work beyond 230 in our overclocking tests. In fairness, both the Soltek and Asus performed much better with IDE drives. The Asus is one of the better-performing nF3-250Gb boards that we have tested when coupled with an IDE drive. The Soltek quickly reaches the board limit of 250 with IDE, which is low, but without a higher range of CPU settings, we can only guess what the real capabilities of the K8AN2E really are.

Of the three boards tested here, the DFI is the only one that fully implements the features of the nVidia nForce3-250GB, and this shows in the ability of SATA ports 3 and 4 to perform just as well as IDE on the DFI board. While the Soltek and Asus are a bit faster, the DFI clearly wins on feature quality. The Asus has more SATA ports, but the SATA ports don't work at extended range as the DFI SATA does.

This brings us to our last criterion, overclocking performance. Here, there is just no contest at all. The DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb is the best overclocking Athlon 64 board that we have ever tested. In addition, the range of overclocking options is commendable, providing the kind of adjustments that will bring a smile to any overclocker's face. The Asus K8N-E is also a surprisingly decent overclocker with 2 DIMMs, but the extremely limited memory voltage range is a serious problem for the Asus. Most of the fastest DDR400 that we have for testing cannot even be set at specification in the Asus, since manufacturers are specifying voltages around 2.8V for the latest Samsung TCCD memory. Asus also provides much more limited ranges for their overclocking options, which many enthusiasts will find wanting. There is also the poor SATA performance in overclocking that will be a concern if you will use SATA drives in overclocking. The Soltek has the potential to be a decent overclocking board, but it is currently hampered by a limited range of CPU adjustments to just 250 and limited onboard SATA overclocking capabilities.

Based on features, overclocking performance, flexibility and value, the DFI LANParty UT nF3-250Gb certainly deserves our Gold Editors Choice. While the DFI does not displace past selections of Socket 754 motherboards, there is no doubt that the DFI is the 754 motherboard that will most please the computer enthusiast. DFI may be a relatively new name to the performance arena for some, but make no mistake about the fact that this DFI nF3 250Gb is the best overclocking Athlon 64 motherboard we have tested. It achieves this distinction with ease, effortlessly taking our reference memory to DDR616. It continues to please with decent performance at stock speeds and the full implementation of nVidia nForce3-250Gb features.

If you do not plan to overclock your motherboard, then any of these three boards will provide excellent performance. For these users, we would lean toward the Soltek for a non-overclocked system simply because it is so fast at stock speed and it also is an excellent value at less than $100. For those who also need Firewire capabilities, the Soltek does not provide them, but the Asus and DFI both provide on-board Firewire.

There is no doubt that Socket 939 is a bit faster at stock. The dual-channel AMD solution is some 2% to 5% faster at the same speed than the single-channel 754 solutions. However, that modest performance gain comes at a steep price, since there are not really any value 939 chips at present. Until prices on 939 drop, you can get a very capable Athlon 64 system with one of these more inexpensive 754 boards combined with a value 754 AMD Athlon 64. Combine that chip with the DFI LANParty nF3-250Gb and you might even reach new performance heights in an Athlon 64 system.