AOpen AK86-L UPDATE: Uncommonly Good

Performance Test Configuration

Almost everyone has a very good idea of how the Athlon 64 CPU compares to Pentium 4 in performance. For that reason, we have dropped P4 comparisons from our A64 benchmarks and added back a high speed Athlon XP, as many have requested. Since the Athlon 64 is single-channel and we have tested Socket 754 boards with a 3200+ (2.0GHz), we have also removed test results with the Dual-Channel 2.2GHz FX51. This should make charts comparing Socket 754 motherboard much easier to understand.

If you are interested in more information comparing the Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Prescott, P4, and P4EE, please see our in-depth comparisons in the recent Prescott/3400+/3000+ launch reviews:

Intel's Pentium 4 E: Prescott Arrives with Luggage
Athlon64 3400+: Part 2
AMD's Athlon 64 3400+: Death of the FX-51
Athlon64 3000+: 64-bit at Half the Price

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB)
RAM:	2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd
Hard Drive(s):	Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers:	SiS AGP 1.17 (10-07-2003) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) NVIDIA nForce version 3.13 (11-03-2003)
Video Card(s):	ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 4.1
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	AOpen AK86-L (VIA K8T800 3200+) ECS 755-A2 (SiS 755 A64 3200+) SiS 755 Reference Board (A64 3200+) Abit KV8-MAX3 (VIA K8T800 A64 3200+) ChaintechZNF3-150 (nForce3-150 A64 3200+) MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800 A64 3200+) DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400 Athlon XP 3200+)

Tests on Socket 754 Athlon 64 motherboards and Socket A Athlon XP used either Mushkin PC3500 Level II or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd memory modules. Both DIMMs use Winbond BH5 chips and perform virtually the same in our benchmarks.

All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless otherwise noted.

Additions to Performance Tests

We have recently updated to Veritest Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 and Veritest Business Winstone 2004 for system benchmarking.

Game Benchmarks

We have added several new benchmarks to our standard Gaming tests. These include Halo, Microsoft's Direct X 9.0b game; Splinter Cell, a DX9 game; X2 Benchmark, a DX 8.1 game that includes Transform and Lighting effects; the DX9 Aquamark 3; and the DX 8.1 Comanche 4 benchmark. Since we have found that Comanche 4 can become video card limited at higher resolutions, we will only include benchmarks run with 4X anti-aliasing enabled to differentiate system performance better using our standard ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card. We will be reporting more results at 1280 x 1024 resolution in future system and motherboard benchmarking where that resolution provides useful performance data.

We have dropped Yeti Studios DX9 Gun Metal 2 from our standard motherboard and system benchmarks, since there are many other DX9 choices now available that measure system performance variations better. We will be adding other benchmarks in the near future.