Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
General Performance and Encoding
We never expected the nVidia nForce3 Ultra to be a better performer in Winstone benchmarks than the VIA K8T800 PRO. However, both the nF3 Ultra boards are outperforming the VIA boards by a significant percentage. Since the nVidia 6800 Ultra video card was used for all benchmarking in the roundup, we plan to verify these results with an ATI X800 XT as soon as that board is available to the Motherboard Lab for testing.
The performance of the Socket 939 boards in the new AuotGK 2-pass Media Encoding benchmark was also a mild surprise. We expected Intel to retain their lead in media encoding due to our logical choice of DivX 5.1.1 as the encoding codec. This codec fully exploits some of the features of the Intel chipset, like SSE3, and generally favors the Intel processors. The DVD2AVI engine at the heart of AutoGK, on the other hand, generally favors AMD processors. It appears that you can really show whatever you wish in encoding these days depending on the Encoding program and codec used. Anand did extensive research on media encoding and chose the new AutoGK/DivX 5.1.1. as our new standard due to the fair, balanced and respected results obtained with this combination.
It certainly looks like the combination of Socket 939, FX53, and AutoGK/DivX 5.1.1 balances the field for media encoding. The difference between top systems from AMD and Intel is now less than 3% with Divx, which can be considered equivalent. A quick check using a 2-pass test with the Xvid codec shows the Intel 3.6 at 35.2 and the AMD FX53 at 35.8, again essentially a dead heat. The upcoming move to 64-bit encoding should significantly boost Athlon 64 performance, giving A64 a formidable lead in encoding benchmarks.
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bigtoe33 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Asus USA did block sales of the A8V but some US resellers decided to go it alone with imported european boards.While it does p1$$ me off that there were still boards in europe not upto scratch you have to commend Asus USA for blocking sales and trying to at least look after some customers...they are also honouring RMA's also.
So #1 it does show some resarch was needed before you bought your board as i tried to let everyone know that the first boards available were not PCI lock fixed although any of them do work with the lock and work VERY well.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#1 - Asus never advertised or listed an AGP/PCI lock as a feature on the original release of the A8V Deluxe. That is the only reason we have not yet reviewed this board. While we did have a sample with a working lock, we have stated in every comment about the A8V in memory reviews and articles that Asus had not yet released a production board with this feature, but that they planned to implement this feature in the future.It is also our understanding that the US office even held release of the board to the US market, but many huge on-line vendors direct imported this board or brought it in from European sources. Since we were working with Asus, we know they tried very hard to hold release of this baord until they could work through issues of adding a stable PCI/AGP lock to the A8V.
It is our understanding than Revision 2.0 will implement an AGP/PCI lock, but we have not yet seen the production board, which we expect this week. We will confirm the new feature when the board is received.
We tried to caution readers about the AGP/PCI lock on early VIA boards as loudly as we could. In fact we got a lot of flak from manufacturers and VIA about our articles on the problems with the AGP/PCI lock on early VIA boards.
Asus did not even list the AGP/PCI lock as an option on the AV8 Deluxe. Our suggestion is to contact Asus, but you got the features Asus advertised and listed for this board.
shamgar03 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
I bought a ASUS A8V like 3 weeks ago, but in the article it says they are re-releasing it or something, does anyone know if they are going to patch that with bios updates, or did I just get the shaft?