Soltek NV400-L64: Purple, Practical, AND Performance!

Soltek NV400-L64: Stress Testing

We performed stress tests on the Soltek NV400-L64 in these areas and configurations:

1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing, conducted by running the FSB at 215MHz.
2. Memory stress testing, conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with one DIMM slot filled and at 400MHz with both DIMM slots filled, at the lowest memory timings possible.

Front Side Bus Stress Test Results:

As standard practice, we ran a full range of stress tests and benchmarks to ensure that the Soltek NV400-L64 was absolutely stable at each overclocked FSB speed. These stress tests included Prime95 torture tests, which were run in the background for a total of 24 hours.

In addition, we ran several other tasks: data compression, various DX8 and DX9 games, and apps, like Word and Excel. Moreover, Prime95 was running in the background. Finally, we ran our benchmark suite, which includes ZD Winstone suite, Unreal Tournament 2003, SPECViewperf 7.0, and Gun Metal Benchmark 2. While we were able to boot and run some tests at speeds as high as 223MHz FSB and at default voltage on the NV400-L64, 215MHz was the highest achievable overclock without encountering any reliability issues.

Memory Stress Test Results:

This memory stress test is very basic, as it simply tests the ability of the NV400-L64 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR) and at the lowest supported memory timings that our Corsair TwinX LL modules support:

Stable Dual DDR400 Timings (1/2 banks populated)
Clock Speed:	200MHz
Timing Mode:	N/A
CAS Latency:	2.0
Bank Interleave:	N/A
RAS to CAS Delay:	2T
RAS Precharge:	4T
Precharge Delay:	2T
Command Rate:	N/A

It’s not startling to see the Soltek NV400-L64 run at the lowest timings that we could establish on the board. We often see 2-4-2-2 timings working well with better nForce2 boards in dual-channel mode. So, we certainly predicted single-channel mode to run at these maximum speed timings. The nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, like Corsair LL memory, seems designed to give the lowest possible memory timings, and the nForce2 400 single-channel is behaving in the same manner. As we have seen in previous reviews on memory performance, this does not always translate into the fastest memory performance. Nevertheless, lowest memory timings is one means of comparing motherboards. It is most useful when comparing boards based on the same chipset.

Filling both available memory banks is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing one bank in single-channel mode, as it tests two DIMMs running 400MHz DDR at the most aggressive memory timings available in the BIOS:

Stable DDR400 Timings (2/2 banks populated)
Clock Speed:	200MHz
Timing Mode:	N/A
CAS Latency:	2.0
Bank Interleave:	N/A
RAS to CAS Delay:	2T
RAS Precharge:	4T
Precharge Delay:	2T
Command Rate:	N/A

We were pleased that the Soltek handled the same aggressive memory timings with two Corsair DIMMs installed as with one DIMM installed. While there are only two DIMM slots available on the Soltek, both slots can be filled with the confidence that you can run at the most aggressive settings handled by the memory. Please keep in mind that the fastest timings do not always equate to the best performance when it comes to memory. It is also true that the real world performance difference between aggressive memory timings and more relaxed memory timings, such as SPD, can be very small. Unless your goal is to squeeze every last bit of performance from your system, SPD timings will work just fine 99% of the time.

We tested all these memory timings using several stress tests and general applications to guarantee stability. Prime95 torture tests were successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. None of the three stress tests created stability problems for the Soltek NV400-L64 at these memory timings.