Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
DirectX 8 & OpenGL Gaming Performance
DX8 and OpenGL games show the same consistent performance between the VIA and nVidia 939 chipsets except for X2 and RCW-ET. X2, a Direct X 8.1 game with demanding T&L (transform and lighting effects), performs best on a VIA chipset, while Wolfenstein-Enemy Territory, an OpenGL game, is best on nForce3. We do plan to take a closer look at Halo, X2, and RCW-ET performance when we can repeat the tests with an ATI X800 XT video card.
Generally, the domination of the Socket 939 results compared to Intel's top Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) on the top 925X chipset is not a pretty picture for Intel, in DX9, DX8, or OpenGL. Clearly, the Athlon 64 processors in general, and the Socket 939 in particular, continue their domination of Gaming benchmarks.
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Richdog - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
bigtoe33 - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
If you are looking for the K8NN939 beta M03 again its availabale at bleedinedge.com on bigtoe's bios bin.http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32...
grdh20 - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
http://forum.abit-usa.com/attachment.php?s=&po...abit av8 1.3 bios link
grdh20 - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
The msi K8N Neo2 will hit the states in 2 weeks according to MSI.How will the A8V rev. 2.0 be sold in terms of order by model #. Same or different? Rev. # is only printed on the PCB, not the box.
Brickster - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
I love my new Gigabyte 939 board! It kicks a*s and is perrrty in the dark! :)Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
#36 - The new Gigabyte BIOS DOES have multipliers in BIOS as I detailed in the review specifications. See the link in #35.RyanVM - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
With performance getting so similar between the various boards/chipsets, it seems to me that AT is overlooking some of the bigger differentiating factors: integrated features. It would be nice to see how the USB, Firewire, IDE/SATA, Ethernet, Sound, etc. implementations differ in CPU utilization and overall performance.For example, the Gigabyte (inexplicably) uses a 3rd party GigE controller instead of the NF3-250's controller. What impact on throughput/CPU utilization does this have? How is VIA's SATA implementation compared to nVidia's?
It seems to me that those are become more relevant of questions than "Which board has a higher Winstone rating?"
Parc - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
I had heard the Gigabyte board would not let you adjust the multipler in the bios but I saw a picture where it could be adjusted from the software in windows? Is this true? Any disadvantages to this? Also just how bad is the voltage limit holding the Gigabyte board back? Is there anyway Gigabyte could allow you any more voltage adjusts through the bios in the future or is this board hopeless for volts?bigtoe33 - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
For all who want the AV8 bios...first join the forums over at www.bleedinedge.com, then look in bigtoe's bios bin. you will find the bios under abit amd boards.http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32...
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
#31 - A friend will post a host for the BIOS soon, as I can't handle all the individual requests. Until then email me and I will be happy to send it to you.#32 & #33 - The Socket 939 boards WILL handle ECC and non-ECC memory, but I suspect the question is larger than this. Socket 940/Opteron requires REGISTERED memory and the ECC can be on or off. We have tested the 939 with Registered memory and it is definitely NOT compatable with Registered memory. If you want to keep using Registered memory (Which you may have bought for 940) you will have to stick with an Opteron.