nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400Gb: Fast LAN, Firewall, SATA, RAID for Athlon XP
by Wesley Fink on May 13, 2004 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Performance Test Configuration
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB) AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz) |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd OR 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 80GB or 120GB IDE 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce version 4.24 SiS AGP 1.17 (10-07-2003) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) |
| Video Card(s): | ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 4.4 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400Gb Reference Board MSI K8N Neo (nVidia nForce3-250Gb) AOpen AK89 Max (nVidia nForce3-150) nVidia nForce3-250 Reference Board 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 (462) used either Mushkin PC3500 Level II or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd memory modules. Both memories 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.
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vkristof - Monday, May 24, 2004 - link
Does anybody know when any Ultra 400GB MBs will be available for purchase?plonk420 - Thursday, May 20, 2004 - link
i mainly want to see Xvid tests in addition to Divx, since Divx is HEAVILY weighted in Intel's favor. plus it's pretty decently superior to Divx ^_^ and there's no excuse, now that Xvid's gone one-point-ohGandalf90125 - Monday, May 17, 2004 - link
"Performance on shipping boards will be the same as any other nForce 2 Ultra 400 board - this is about added features."Consequently, it could be argued that the benchmarks are pointless.
Wesley Fink - Saturday, May 15, 2004 - link
#9 - We actually do more overclocking tests at AnandTech today than we have ever done in the past. Check our recent reviews of motherboards where we reach 347 FSB or memory where we test at DDR570.We always test OC on full retail reviews, but the chipset in the review is well known here. This is also a Reference Board - not designed to test overclocking since there are no ratios. We did test OC on the VIA K8T800 PRO Reference Board because the PCI/AGP lock was a new feature on that chipset. However the core chipset capabilities are well know here and there seemed little point to doing OC tests, when the capabilities of the nForce2 Ultra 400 are already well known. 400Gb is a features upgrade using a new MCP (or southbridge), not a new chipset.
noxipoo - Friday, May 14, 2004 - link
Does anandtech do overclocking tests anymore? where is anand these daysWesley Fink - Friday, May 14, 2004 - link
#6 - With chipset introductions and Reference Boards we expected you would be more interested in where they "fit" overall, which is why the Athlon 64 comparisons.You can't buy a Reference Board, and the nForce2 Ultra 400 SPP is the same chip used by nVidia for months. So, there is really nothing new in performance here.
Performance on shipping boards will be the same as any other nForce 2 Ultra 400 board - this is about added features.
GokieKS - Friday, May 14, 2004 - link
Even though the GbE is a great feature (thanks to 2 875P systems, I've already got a GbE network set up, and I can't imagine going back to 100Mbps), I'm more interested in the older nF2 boards with MCP-T, which hopefully will drop in price because of this, to be paired with something like an AXP-M 2400+. :)~KS
Jeff7181 - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
Not to be an ass, but what good is it to compare this to Athlon 64 boards? That tells me absolutely nothing about whether I should buy it to replace my A7N8X Deluxe or not. I see a few tests were done with an nForce2 motherboard... yay. There shouldn't be ANY socket 754, 940, or 939 boards in this review since they use entirely different processors.Hey... why didn't ya throw in some Intel 865 chipset mobo's in there for comparision too?
... I'm confused... all this tells me is that an Athlon-64 solution is most likely going to be better than sticking with socket A... and I didn't need to read this article to figure that out, I thought it was a well known fact.
Gromis - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
#3, but how often do people upgrade CPUs anyway? I'm a tech in a PC shop, and from what I see, not a whole lot. By the time you start thinking about upgrades, you find yourself in a market for a complete new PC anyway. Those who upgrade every 6-12 months are an extremely tiny minority. I myself used a PII/350 for nearly 5 years, swapped it for a Duron 1200 a year ago, planning next upgrade in another 8-9 months - most likely A64 by then.hifisoftware - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
Nice article, but when will we see motherboards with this chipset? It is going to take 3+ month for them to come out then it is a not very usefull chipset.