nForce2 6-way Motherboard Roundup - December 2002

ABIT NF7-S: Stress Testing

There is quite a bit a stress testing potential with this nForce2 motherboard due to the abundant amount of BIOS options available. We managed to test the NF7-S in several different areas and configurations, including:

Front Side Bus Stress Test Results

At 186MHz FSB we were able to run the NF7-S beautifully. As usual, we ran 24 hours straight of Prime95 torture tests at 186MHz FSB before we decided the NF7-S was reliable enough for our liking for the time being. We also ran some other apps while Prime95 was crunching away, which included various DX8 games (JKII, etc.), data compression, and light apps like Word and Excel. With the little time we had left we ran a few more benchmarks a second time, including SPECviewperf 7.0, Sciencemark and XMPEG. Still, we couldn't faze the NF7-S at 186MHz FSB. We should note that 187MHz FSB was very stable as well, though we did encounter a crash in SPECviewperf once.

Memory Stress Test Results

This first memory stress test is quite a challenge for some so-called "DDR333" motherboards, but the nForce2-powered ABIT NF7-S is easily able to handle this particular scenario. Here were the timings we were able to achieve:

These are very aggressive timings. What stands out the most is the Precharge to Active setting, which is lower than we've ever been able to run any motherboard before. In case you're wondering, the "CPU Interface" option was enabled during this stress test.

This final memory stress test tests how high (up to no more than 400MHz) the NF7-S can run three memory modules at the timings listed below. Here were our results:

Running at 400MHz, these are great timings when you consider that all memory banks are filled and fully operational. These are the best timings we've seen yet for three DIMMs running at 400MHz.

Memory overclocking on the NF7-S wasn't particularly spectacular. We experienced similar results with other nForce2 boards as well. Still, the results aren't too shabby:

These are nice numbers, especially at the timings listed. Even when we did back off on the aggressive timings though, stability over 412MHz wasn't possible.

As we always do, we ran a bunch of tests to make sure our memory timings and overclocks were stable. We started off by running Prime95 torture tests; a grand total of 24 hours of Prime95 was successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. None of the stress tests were able to bring the NF7-S to its knees.

SoundStorm Stress Test Results

We ran the same sound tests on the NF7-S as we did with all the other nForce2 motherboards tested here today. The following demos were run with SoundStorm enabled:

There have been some minor, ongoing issues with NVIDIA's nForce1 APU drivers since the nForce1's introduction last year. Some users have experienced a Blue Screen of Death with nForce sound enabled in games like Unreal Tournament. However, the latest nForce2 unified driver package (v 2.00) has seemingly fixed the sound issues that nForce1 users were experiencing. This is backed up by our own test results, which show that SoundStorm is able to smoothly play five of some of the most popular games out there, including Unreal Tournament.