Elite PC Titan FX: Setting New Standards in Gaming
by Wesley Fink on November 30, 2003 10:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Elite PC Titan FX: MSI K8T Master2-FAR Motherboard
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket-940 Athlon64FX/Opteron |
| Number of CPUs | One or Two A64FX or Opteron |
| Chipset | VIA K8T800 (North Bridge) VIA VT8237 (South Bridge) |
| Bus Speeds | 200 to 233 in 1MHz increments |
| AGP/PCI Speeds | No adjustment |
| Core Voltages Supported | Fixed |
| AGP Voltages Supported | Fixed |
| DRAM Voltages Supported | Fixed |
| Memory Slots | 4 184-pin Dual-Channel DDR DIMM Slots 2 DIMMs (2 x 512MB) Mushkin High Performance ECC Registered Memory installed provide 1 GB of DDR400 memory at 2-3-2-8 timings |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 4 PCI Slot |
| Onboard Graphics | None — ATI 9800 XT installed |
| Onboard RAID | VIA SATA RAID 2 x 36.7GB WD Raptor SATA 1000RPM Drives Installed in Raid 0 configuration |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | SIX USB 2.0 supported through 8237 FireWire Controller on Audigy 2 |
| Onboard LAN | 100/1000 |
| Onboard Audio | AC '97 2.2 Audio disabled Creative Audigy 2 5.1 Digital Audio installed |
| Onboard Serial ATA | Two Standard SATA connectors 8237 Used by SATA RAID 0 |
The MSI K8T Master 2-FAR motherboard is a standard ATX motherboard designed for Workstation use. Elite PC chose this board to be able to provide outstanding performance with a single FX chip and future expansion with a second socket for dual Opteron processors. Since we have found the Opteron to scale very well with multiple processors, this is an excellent option if the single CPU version performs competitively. For more information on Opteron CPU performance with multiple processors, please see Part 2 of our Opteron review.
Since the MSI K8T Master 2-FAR is a stock motherboard, you can find more information on the board and BIOS upgrades at MSI's site. While MSI classifies the K8T Master 2 as a workstation board, the feature-set is comparable to a desktop board. USB 2.0, SATA RAID, 8X AGP, standard PCI slots, and ATA133 IDE are all standard features. The only major concession to providing Dual CPU support is that MSI could only fit 4 PCI slots on the K8T Master.
The Titan FX is equipped with 2 x 512Mb (1GB) of Mushkin High Performance ECC Registered memory. This very fast registered memory can perform at 2-3-2-8 timings, which is much faster than other registered memory that we have tested. The memory is based on Winbond CH5 memory chips. OCZ also provides a fast 2-3-2-8 registered memory based on the same chips. We plan to compare available Registered Memory for the Athlon64 FX/Opteron in an upcoming memory review. The Mushkin is one of the fastest registered modules that we have tested and is a good choice for the Titan FX.
The Titan FX uses the top-line Radeon XT with 256Mb of memory to fill the 8X AGP slot. Two of the four PCI slots available on the K8T Master-2 motherboard are filled with a Creative Audigy 2 sound card and the MSI TV@nywhere card. This leaves 2 available slots for expansion, though there is so much already installed on the Titan FX that there should be little need for additional expansion slots. They are there if you need them.
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rupe120 - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
So no dual Opteron test?Nighteye2 - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
About the not working well with 4 sticks of RAM: maybe there are only 2 banks for each processor, given that each processor has it's own memory controller?MS - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
Wes,ok, I would need to check which version I am using .... D'UH, here it is: 3.43 from June 20 (release date). I guess I need oto check with nVidia and see whether there are newer drivers that increase performance :-)
Thanks!!
(gotto run a few errands now, be back later)
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
Michael,We don't generally use nVidia's IDE drivers either, but we do use the chipset driver set. The nForce unified drivers released just a few weeks ago appear to improve performance quite a bit on the nF3 compared to the earlier unified driver.
MS - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
Wes,Thanks for clearing that one up, actually I am just using a standard Barracuda SATA -V drive on the SiI controller without the nForce drivers, also, I am getting some 59.8 - 59.9 on the ASUS K8V and the ABIT KV8 MAX3 (VIA chipset)
With respect to the GunMetal benchmark, I am (presumably) using the same system as the one you have and the only thing that makes a difference there is how much eye-candy is turned on or off. --- I don't know either what to say here but GM appears to be more GPU limited than anything else. Which is why I would like to find out about your magic sauce for the FX-51..
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
Michael - The Dell is a 3.2 P4, while the Shuttle AN50R is an nForce3-150 Athlon64. You likely used nVidia's latest drivers, which do improve benchmark performance. We are using them for our upcoming reviews, but the nF3-150 scores were from earlier reviews using the slower earlier drivers. Those are likely the differences between your scores and ours.As I stated in the review, the Gun Metal 2 scores among FX51 chipsets remain a mystery. We are searching for answers.
MS - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
"While Dell just achieved the first Content Creation score to approach 60, the Titan FX scores almost 70 in the same test. The Titan FX score of 67.9 is almost 10 points higher than the best that we have ever seen in this benchmark. That is 10 points better than a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 running almost the same components in the Dell Dimension XPS."Huh???
We are getting over 60 with a standard Shuttle AN50R (single drive) and almost 65 with the FX-51 system, what's wrong here?
Also, I don't quite understand the GunMetal benchmark results of the FX51 system, can you elaborate on those, that is, why is the FX51 system so much faster than anything else? Just curious what it is that I am overlooking here...
Doop - Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - link
Well that's good Wesley Fink...AMD said they wouldn't work, you tested and they didn't work.Sorry for the comment about the article didn't mean to offend, I just usually expect AnandTech to be the most complete.
It just seemed obvious to me to wonder why they would ship a single only CPU in a dual mobo. Glad you made the effort to check. Take care.
stncttr908 - Tuesday, December 2, 2003 - link
Wow, if I were rich and didn't build my own systems, this would be on my desk in a heartbeat.rupe120 - Tuesday, December 2, 2003 - link
So when will the article be redone with dual Opterons? :o)