Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
by Wesley Fink on June 2, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Gaming Performance
Halo and Splinter Cell are both Direct X 9 games and they are very useful for testing video performance. However, we are finding in many months of benchmarking that Halo and Splinter Cell are not very useful as motherboard/system benchmark tests. As you can see in our results, both tests produce similar results across our tests. Even the FX51 test results are almost the same as those with the faster FX53. For these reasons, Halo and Splinter Cell will be dropped as a standard benchmark for future motherboard and system testing.
The K8T800 PRO and nForce3-250 Ultra are close in gaming performance, but the VIA chipset is generally a slightly better performer. The exceptions are the excellent Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory, where the F3-250 takes the lead, and Comanche 4, where the chipsets switch the lead depending on resolution. Overall, we would consider the gaming performance so close that you would never notice any performance differences in the 2 chipsets. Both are excellent gaming performers.
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Filibuster - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
Via will support Athlon 64 with PCI-Express with the K8T890 chipset.Nvidia chipset plans are less clear. The only thing I've seen is a Inq. article saying Q4'04. :(
Hopefully it is sooner.
WileCoyote - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
After all the buildup in the first few pages of this article I was kind of disappointed by the very close benchmarks. All the chipsets perform within a couple percentage points of each other.ripdude - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
<quote>2 - Posted on Jun 2, 2004 at 1:55 AM by Brian23
What's the deal with the orange PCI connector?
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the orange PCI connector is, AFAIK, excepted from the PCI bus bandwidth and is directly connected to the chipset.
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3 - Posted on Jun 2, 2004 at 3:07 AM by adntaylor
Nice review but... still no tests of the AGP optimisations for the GeForce FX and 6 series cards on the nForce chipset.
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I, too, read about NVidia gfx cards getting a boost on NVidia chipsets, a 6 serie card on nforce-250gb could yield quite some surprises.
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6 - Posted on Jun 2, 2004 at 3:53 AM by Eidolon
Are PCI-Express mobos using either chipset planned? Any news on when that may be?
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I'm waiting for a good 939 board with PCI-E slots too. With ATI and NVidia announcing PCI-E cards they should be too far behind.
XRaider - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
No doubt # 6. Motherbord manufacturers seem to be dragging their feet on this... unless they are waiting for Nvidia and Ati..? I REALLY like the 939 FX53.. but I'm holding out until the PCI express standard gets implemented on the new motherboards, cause I'm not planning on upgrading for awhile after this new system build. :\Eidolon - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
Are PCI-Express mobos using either chipset planned? Any news on when that may be?Eidolon - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
tfranzese - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
From what I remember the orange PCI slot is specifically for communications.adntaylor - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
Nice review but... still no tests of the AGP optimisations for the GeForce FX and 6 series cards on the nForce chipset.Please can somebody just chuck a card in and see if the GeForce 6800 is boosted by the nForce3 chipset!
http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/nforce3-gefor... - this was the Tech Report's test of the FX 5950, and it delivered some surprising performance boosts. I'm desperate to see if the 6800 reacts similarly!
I'm interested to know what that orange PCI slot is for too.
Brian23 - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
What's the deal with the orange PCI connector?nycxandy - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
With the 939 CPU's already shipping, when will the 939 motherboards show up in stores?