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Review: Rockdirect Xtreme 64 4800+ DTR

by Tarinder Sandhu on 30 December 2005, 09:34

Tags: rock, Stone Group

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaec4

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System setup and notes

Hardware and Software

Test Platforms

System Rockdirect Xtreme 64 4800+ Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 laptop Rockdirect Xtreme Ti laptop AMD Athlon 64 desktop system
Processor(s) AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Intel Pentium M 770 Intel Pentium 4 570 AMD Athlon 64 4000+
Mainboard VIA K8T890 Intel i915PM Sonoma Intel i915P PCI-Express ABIT AX8 VIA K8T890 PCI-Express
Memory 2GBytes (2x1024MB)Corsair DDR400 SODIMMs 1GByte (2x512MB) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs 1GByte (2x512MB) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200XL
Memory timings 3-3-3-8 @ 400MHz 4-4-4-11 @ 533MHz 4-4-4-11 @ 533MHz 2-2-2-5 1T @ 400MHz
Graphics Cards GeForce 6800 Go Ultra 256MB GeForce 6800 Go Ultra 256MB Mobility RADEON X800 XT 256MB GeForce 6800 GT 256MB (desktop)
Disk drive(s) 2x 100GB Hitachi 100GB 7,200RPM Fujitsu 100GB 4,200RPM 2x 60GB Hitachi 7,200RPM in RAID0 160GB Western Digital 160JB
Screen 17-inch WSXGA+ (1680x1050) 17-inch WUXGA (1920x1200) 17-inch WSXGA+ (1680x1050) 20-inch Dell 2001FP (1600x1200)
Operating system Windows XP Home SP2 Windows XP Home SP2 Windows XP Home SP2 Windows XP Professional SP2


Benchmark Software

ScienceMark 2.0 (7th February 2005)
HEXUS in-house Cryptography Benchmark
HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
Realstorm Raytracing 2004
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
picCOLOR 32-bit v4.0 (build 479)
KribiBench v1.1
Simpli Software's HDTach 3.0.1.0

DOOM 3 Timedemo 1
3DMark05 b1.2.0
Half-Lfe 2 - HEXUS custom benchmark (prison demo)

Notes


We're stacking up the dual-core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ against Dell's ever-so-impressive Inspiron XPS Gen 2 (now morphed into the M170 since the introduction of the mobile G70 part) and Rockdirect's very own XTI 3.8 that uses a similar Clevo D900T chassis but is powered by a single-core Intel Pentium 4 570 CPU instead. The test, then, will be to see what kind of performance benefits a top-of-the-range dual-core CPU offers over single-core models. It's just a shame that our sample wasn't equipped with NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7800 GTX mobile part.

No problems to report during a weekend of testing. The BIOS, as expected, didn't allow any frequency manipulation at all. Clock speeds of the lineup were as follows:

3801.5MHz - Rockdirect XTI 3.8 - Intel Pentium 4 570 - ATI Mobility Radeon X800 XT 256MB
2411.1MHz - ABIT AX8 (VIA K8T890) - AMD Athlon 64 4000+ - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB
2400.2MHz - Rockdirect Xtreme 64 4800+ - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ - NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra 256MB
2129.5MHz - Dell Inspiron XPS Gen2 - Intel Pentium M 770 - NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra 256MB

The interesting comparison will be against the desktop AMD Athlon 64 4000+, a CPU that runs at the same speed as the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ but only has a single core with 1MB of L2 cache. Taking into account the slower memory timings on Rock's laptop, the '4800+ should benchmark reasonably close in single-threaded apps. and be far ahead in multi-threaded programs.

A brief test of battery life showed that the laptop, once fully charged, lasted less than an hour when playing games and just over the 60-minute mark when general browsing and playing video. Think of mobility as an afterthought with this model, folks.

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