AMS eCube EG65D: Decent Performance, but Many Issues

AMS eCube EG65D: The Test

The full suite of benchmarks were run with our standard ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card, to provide better data for comparison to the performance of other 865/875 systems. Mounting the 9800 PRO was easier than some competing SFF, with the slot providing more “jiggle room” than competing designs. The 9800 PRO is a tall card, however, and it is a bit of a gymnastic feat to get it seated in any SFF. The slot design precludes using a double-slot AGP card like some of the nVidia models. Once installed, the ATI 9800 PRO ran hotter than in other SFF and the AMS eCube generated higher CPU temperatures than we have seen in tests of other SFF systems.

Like the recently tested Soltek, the AMS eCube required 2-2-3-6 timings from our Mushkin memory for greatest stability. This represents a RAS-to-CAS setting of 3 instead of the 2 that normally works fine with the Mushkin PC3500 L2 at DDR400. In our other SFF benchmarks, the Mushkin memory has run fine at 2-2-2-6 memory timings. However, the slightly slower timings did not hamper performance very much, as you will see in our benchmarks.

We also were surprised that we could not get Ghost 2003 for DOS to run at all on the AMS system. For testing, we use many Ghost images with setups for the various benchmarks that we use in evaluating a system. This allows quick changes to the hard drive setup that may be required by a particular test. It also assures that a consistent image is used to run the same benchmark on different systems and motherboards. On the AMS, as soon as Ghost would load, the system turned off. At first, we thought it was the power supply being overtaxed by our ATI 9800 PRO, but the system also shut down in Ghost 2003 for DOS using just the onboard Intel Extreme Graphics 2. This has never happened on an Intel 865 board in any other system and we still don't have an explanation. Needless to say, the inability to run Ghost made benchmarking the AMS a time-consuming challenge.

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel 3.0 800FSB Pentium 4
RAM:	2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II DS 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL SS
Hard Drive(s):	Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Bus Master Drivers:	Intel INF Update v5.00.1012 Intel IAA for 875P RAID not installed for consistency of Test Results
Video Card(s):	ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 3.8
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	AMS eCube SG65D (865G) Soltek Qubic EQ3401M (865PE) Biostar iDEQ 200T (865G) Shuttle XPC SB65G2 (865PE) Asus P4C800-E (875P) ABIT IS7-G (865PE) ABIT IC7-G (875P) Gigabyte 8KNXP (875P)

Recent performance tests on Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. Previous tests of Intel motherboards used 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL Version 1.1.

All performance tests with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card were run with the AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.

Additions to Performance Tests

We have standardized on ZD Labs Internet Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking. We are no longer reporting SysMark2002 results as part of our standard benchmark suite.

Game Benchmarks

We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs as a standard game benchmark. We are also added the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects as part of the standard benchmarks. Results are reported here for reference. Jedi Knight II has been dropped form our standard Benchmark Suite. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.