nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding
by Wesley Fink on February 28, 2005 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Standard Performance Test Configuration
If you are interested in more information comparing the LGA 775 Prescott, Athlon 64, P4, and P4EE, please see our indepth comparisons in the recent reviews:Intel Pentium 4 6xx and 3.73EE: Favoring Features Over Performance
Intel's Pentium 4 570J - Will 3.8GHz do the trick?
Pentium 4 3.46 Extreme Edition and 925XE: 1066MHz FSB Support is Here
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ & FX-55: A Thorough Investigation
Intel 925X: Exploring the Overclock Lock
Intel's 925X & LGA-775: Are Prescott 3.6 and PCI Express Graphics any Faster?
Intel 925X/915: Chipset Performance & DDR2
Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and FX-53: The First 939 CPUs
Intel's Pentium 4 E: Prescott Arrives with Luggage
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ 520 watt PowerStream |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | nVidia nForce 6.39 |
| Video Cards: | nVidia 6800 Ultra (PCIe) 2 x nVidia 6800 Ultra (PCIe) SLI |
| Video Drivers: | nVidia nForce 71.80 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 Direct X 9.0c |
| Motherboards: | Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum |
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. These same chips are available in memory modules from G. Skill, Corsair, Geil, Mushkin, PQI and others. Please refer to Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules for more information on Athlon 64 memory performance.
At the present time, SLI is only supported by nVidia chipsets and video cards. All single and dual GPU benchmarks were run with a matched pair of nVidia 6800 Ultra reference cards, identified as Rev. A04. Other companies have demonstrated "SLI-like" dual video solutions or they have announced their intention to manufacture SLI-like solutions in the future.
All game benchmarks, both single video and SLI, were run in 1600x1200 video mode with 4X Anti-Aliasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering enabled. The exceptions are Aquamark 3, 3DMark 03, and 3DMark 05, which use a standardized 1024x768 setup to generate comparable benchmark results. These three benchmarks used standard mode, which generates a standardized score for comparison.
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eva2000 - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
whoops no mention of psu was used in system config listing but didn't read till page 20 of the review it mentions OCZ 520W PS psu hehSlaimus - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
They used a OCZ 520W.neologan - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I think the test results for 3dmark2003 single and SLI are the wrong way around?http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2358&am...
F4810 - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Why did they show no benchmarks with the mobo's overclocked? It doesnt make sense to say these boards are better becuase you can clock the memory higher if the overall CPU clock is roughly the same. The reason they dont show you is that due to the onchip memory controller on the AMD chips, the high memory frequency doesnt make much of a difference at all in real world terms. As long as you can clock the CPU high that is all that really matters. Also they dont take into account cost as some boards cost 50% more that the others.dornick - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I was considering jumping on the SLI bandwagon until I had some sense knocked into me.I'd like to see a comparison of the Ultra chipset MBs, including the Chaintech, Epox, etc... since that's where I think the nForce 4 market will go.
eva2000 - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
missing one vital piece of info, what PSU you used heheSpacecomber - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Thanks for doing the indepth analysis of this new chipset and how it is being implemented by some major motherboard manufacturers.There was one detail that I was hoping to see some reference to. I understand, from a friend, who has the MSI SLI motherboard, that the Creative Live sound chip only works if your power supply has a -5 volt connector on it. It looks to me like the OCZ power supply that you used has this, but many of the new power supplies, such as the Enermax v2.0 power supplies, no longer have a -5 volt connection. He was using a Enermax 535 watt Whisper II (SLI ready) when he ran into this issue. This kind of compatability problem slipping through QA seems like another indication that the everyone was in a big hurry to get these motherboards to market, maybe before they were thoroughly tested.
Space
Regs - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I liked the subtle hints Wes.In your final words you stated, "If you want the best performance possible then the answer would likely be yes". Then how would this apply for users getting two 6600GTs?
xsilver - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
great articleminor gripe -- the overclocking "graphs" are useless -- what would be better is the resulting fps of overclocking to show people if its worth it to get that extra xxx fps
arfan - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
now i am waiting ultra mobo benchmark. What about the price of all this mobo ? i fell disappointed with msi doesn't have PCI 1x. (Sorry my english language is very bad)