System setup and notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition | Intel Pentium 4 660 System 925XE | NVIDIA nForce4 SLI System | |
| Processor(s) | Intel Pentium 4 660 - 3.6GHz | Intel Pentium 4 660 - 3.6GHz/ | AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 - 2.4GHz |
| Mainboard | NVIDIA reference nForce4 SLI I.E | EPoX 5LWA+ 925XE | ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe |
| Memory | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair DDR2-667 @ DDR667 | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair DDR2-667 @ DDR667 | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200 | Memory timings | 4-4-4-12 | 4-4-4-12 | 2-2-2-5 1T |
| Graphics Card | 2x GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E -ForceWare 71.84 for 3D tests | ATI RADEON X850 XT PE - PEG16X - CATALYST 5.3 for 2D tests | 2x GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E -ForceWare 71.84 for 3D tests | Disk Drive | 160GB WD IDE |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | ||
| Mainboard Software | nForce4 7.02 platform driver | Intel INF Update Utility 6.3.0.1007 | nForce4 7.02 platform driver |
Benchmark Software
HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
ScienceMark 2.0 (7th February 2005)
Realstorm 2004
CINEBENCH 2003
MP3 encoding using Intel compiler and LAME 3.97a
PicCOLOR 32-bit v4.0
Kribibench v1.1.9
Microsoft Movie Maker 2.1 media encoding
DOOM 3 Timedemo 1
3DMark05 b1.2.0
AquaMark 3
Notes
We're looking at performance from 2 viewpoints here. Firstly, how does the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition compare with an Intel 925XE chipset-based board with an identical processor, and against an AMD FX-53 running on an nForce4 SLI S939 board?. All three systems were run through our 2D tests with a single ATI Radeon X850 XT PE PCI-Express card in situ. The second question, and perhaps more fundamental to gamers, is how does the nF4 SLI I.E. perform against its AMD counterpart when run with 2 GeForce 6800 GT PCI-Express cards in SLI mode?. If the reference NVIDIA board can match the 925XE's 2D performance and nF4 SLI AMD's 3D performance, we'll have a winner on our hands.
Clock speeds were recorded as follows:
3630.8MHz - Intel Pentium 4 660 - Intel 925XE
3608.5MHz - Intel Pentium 4 660 - nForce4 SLI Intel Edition0
2411.2MHz - AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 - nForce4 SLI AMD Edition
Expect Intel's 925XE, ceteris paribus, to have a small led in most benchmarks. It's clocked just a touch higher than NVIDIA's reference board. No problems to report during installation or testing.
