Overclocking Performance

The overclocking performance graphs have been added to the standard benchmark test suite and should allow for a better comparison on the overclocking capabilities of tested boards. For more details on the specific overclocking abilities of these boards, please refer to the Overclocking and Memory Stress Test section in the Basic Features section.

Overclocking

Overclocking

When we benchmarked these boards, it was actually surprising to see the Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal out-pace the MSI P4N Diamond; although, the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset is specifically aimed at the computer enthusiast. We did find that the memory timings on the Gigabyte board, when set to auto, were generally more conservative than the MSI setup. Both boards have excellent overclocking abilities and certainly pushed the Intel 840EE to its limits.

We believe that the MSI board would have made a better showing if the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset fully supported the Intel Pentium D processor series. It was very disappointing to see the MSI board shut off the second core when the CPU multiplier was changed. We sent our test findings to both MSI and NVIDIA for resolution. NVIDIA responded and stated this issue is a known limitation in the current chipset and will be fixed in future product releases.

Gaming Performance Disk Controller Performance
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  • smn198 - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link

    Welcome Gary. Look forward to seeing more from you.
  • Gary Key - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link

    smn198,

    Thank you. I really enjoyed doing this article, working with Wes, and having the opportunity to share my experiences with the great members and visitors here at AnandTech. I certainly hope you will be seeing more from me. ;-)

    Sincerely,
    Gary Key
  • Evan Lieb - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link

    Welcome Gary, and have fun!
  • Ecmaster76 - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link

    Looks like it went up early.

    Good read though. At first I was like "Holy $#!+" when I saw the gaming benchmarks, but then they mentioned about the Gigabyte BIOS being effed up.
  • cryptonomicon - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link

    DRAM Voltage Auto, 1.80V to 2.3V in 0.1V increments


    uh.. but isnt ram like 2.5-2.8v?
  • Pete84 - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link

    DDR2 runs at much lower vdimm than DDR.
  • cryptonomicon - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link

    ah yes of course..

    so much for active cooling then
  • BlvdKing - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link

    I can't believe the Nforce 4 for AMD supports dual core but the Intel edition only has limited support and no support for the 820.
  • coomar - Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - link

    no a diamond can't beat a royal flush

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