ABIT KV7 (KT600): Budget Performance in a Small Package
by Evan Lieb on September 7, 2003 10:42 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ABIT KV7: Stress Testing
We performed stress tests on the ABIT KV7 in these areas and configurations:1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing, conducted by running the FSB at 211MHz.
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 ABIT KV7 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 220MHz FSB and at default voltage on the KV7, 211MHz 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 KV7 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 (2/3 banks populated) |
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| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Fast Command: | Fast |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | Disabled |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 6T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 2T |
Here, we see the KV7 performed decently with two, on par with other KT600 motherboards on the market. The reason you don’t see a Fast Command of Ultra mode is because the KV7’s BIOS did not allow from any mode but Normal and Fast. This may have contributed to the KV7’s somewhat slow stock performance in our benchmark suite. However, the difference would never be noticeable in any real world situation; it’s simply something of note.
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 (3/3 banks populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Fast Command: | Normal |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | Disabled |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 3T |
| RAS Precharge: | 6T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 1T |
In this scenario, we see that the memory modules we used needed quite a bit of relaxation operating in the KV7. This means that the KV7 was unable to operate at the fastest available performance timings located in its BIOS. nForce2 motherboards are somewhat notorious for their excellent multi-DIMM performance, so this is one area where the KV7 (and all KT600 motherboards for that matter) fall short. The real world performance is still quite small though, so we urge users not to base their purchases on these findings, but on the accumulation of our findings (stock performance, overclocked performance, price, etc.).
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 ABIT KV7 at these memory timings.
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Evan Lieb - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
Haha, thanks for clarifying that #13. ;)Take care,
Evan
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
I think #5 is referring to the apparent omission of the word "look" in the sentence. I congratulate #5 on taking the time to carefully proofread the article in search of typographical errors. As I was more focused on the substance of the review (which I thought was excellent, conistent with my general experience with Anandtech), I missed this major point that seriously affected the readability of the entire article! :)Evan Lieb - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
Oh, forgot to comment on a couple other things.#1, Anand does more than you'll ever know. Right now he's been relegated to two things: 1) Technology reviews, which he is best suited for because he is easily the most well versed AnandTech editor. And 2) administrative duties such as hiring new editors (Andrew Ku, Wesley Fink, and more people you'll hear about soon), getting the products and content editors need, and just running the web site (which includes a countless list of things).
#3, set your FSB to 175MHz (350MHz DDR), set your DRAM speed to DDR400, download CPU-Z v. 1.18, and then look in the memory section and see what your memory is running at. Your memory should adjust itself accordingly to its FSB.
Evan Lieb - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
#10, I was unaware that ABIT has that policy. I'll have to confirm that with them. Even if that is the case, other motherboard makers do the same thing, and quite honestly it's not that big of a deal IMO.#5, how is that sentence not readable? Do you have any suggestions?
Take care,
Evan
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#7, they're not charging for standard shipping, just the upgrade to express, which is understandable and was only in my message for info (since it wasn't included in the review). I even don't have a major problem with the $7 "processing fee", but to charge $150 ahead-of-time and then the additional time of waiting for the "check is in the mail" refund seems to be less of a good policy compared to other's policy of charging only if the defective unit isn't returned with 30 days.Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#7, what he explained is a quite common thing on nForce2 motherboards, especially among advanced users. I cower in fear everytime I update my bios or drivers fearing either my system or board will be hosed. You never know when you'll download that bios or driver that will just decide to kill everything (*cries about having to repair install windows xp after installing 2.41 and again 2.42, as if I didn't learn my lesson first time :P*).Granted most of these problems disappear if you leave your system alone and stick to the 2.03 driver set (if you can stand the little quirks about it), the occurrence of such problems are seemingly less in the latest VIA chipsets.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#6, I (#3) did not want to run FSB/RAM asynchronously. I want to run it in sync no matter what the FSB is set to, but the board has no clear setting for that. The available RAM settings are 266, 333, 400 and SPD in wich it goes with whatever the RAM module is rated to run at. There is no setting to simply let it follow the FSB as in all other boards I have ever encountered. I could guess that it does in fact follow the FSB anyway, but have no way to confirm it. Especially when the BIOS reports one of those set RAM speeds when booting up, regardless of FSB frequency. (I know of the AGP/PCI business but it's irrelevant to this specific technical issue)Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#2, of course ABIT is going to charge for shipping, it's ridiculous to think they're going to eat those fees.And by the way #4, nForce2 motherboards are much better than KT600 motherboards in general. This is fact, why try to deny it by claiming your experience is the norm. Idiot.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
to 3there's no need to run amd based systems FSB/mem async, it doesn't get you more speed. you'd better manipulate with multiplier. if you raise your CPU's FSB the mem/agp/pci come all along. for example if you raise your kt600 fsb to 220 your mem speed will also be 220MHz (you can't run it on pc2100 or 2700 levels to normalize your mem speed, but only on pc3200 mode) and yor agp/pci will be 73,5MHz/36,7MHz.
for example, I'm running my kt333 at 200FSB and my agp/pci is 80/40. and I cant understand how come anantech guys only got out maximum of 210 mHz fsb, i belive some peolple here need to learn more about overclocking. I've got even 215MHz of FSB out of my kt333. isn't that strange? has there been a downward evolution by VIA.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
"Anyway, today we take a close at ABIT's latest creation, the KV7."Please take the time to make your articles more readable. Thank you.