Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
by Wesley Fink on June 2, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Basic Features: VIA K8T800 PRO Reference Board
| VIA K8T800 PRO Motherboard Specifications for 939 MSI MS-6702E (K8T Neo2) |
|
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX |
| Chipset | VIA K8T800 PRO/VIA VT8237 |
| CPU Ratios | None |
| HyperTransport | Auto, 1Ghz, 800MHz, 600MHz, 400MHz, 200MHz |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 250MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Automatic, Async at 66.8 or 75.4 |
| Core Voltage | No Adjustments |
| DRAM Voltage | No Adjustments |
| AGP Voltage | No Adjustments |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard Serial ATA RAID | VIA 8237 (2 Drives, 0, 1) |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard VIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by 8237 No Firewire |
| Onboard LAN | VIA VT6122 Gigabit LAN |
| Onboard Audio | VIA VT1616 codec AC '97 2.3 6-Channel with UAJ |
While both Reference Boards were manufactured by MSI, it is important to note that they were different from each other in some important ways. The VIA-based 6702E was a special board produced by MSI for AMD - mostly for review and qualification of the Athlon 64 Socket 939 CPU. While this K8T800 PRO board is based on the upcoming MSI K8T Neo2, it is missing the voltage controls and adjustments that are included on production boards. By contrast, the nVidia-based 7025 was an all but finished production version of the K8N Neo2 Platinum, with all of the ratio and voltage adjustments that you will see on the shipping K8N Neo2. We were assured that the performance of both boards was close to what will be found on production Neo2 boards for Socket 939, but you will still likely see some changes in adjustments and performance on the final shipping motherboards from MSI. Still, the opportunity to do a direct comparison of Socket 939 boards from the same manufacturer was too good to pass up.
Basic Features: nVidia nForce3-250Gb Reference Board
Performance Test Configuration: Chipset Comparison
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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?
</quote>
the orange PCI connector is, AFAIK, excepted from the PCI bus bandwidth and is directly connected to the chipset.
<quote>
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.
</quote>
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.
<quote>
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?
</quote>
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?