Benchmarks II
On to the OcUK SETI benchmark. I'm an avid SETI runner now so this was of particular interest for me. This takes a while to complete.
The power of dual-channel DDR on the nForce2 is graphically highlighted here. Running at 133FSB with twinbank in operation, it takes around 5-minutes out of a fast KT400 chipset. As always, the CPU speed is constant on both. Revving the CPU up to 166FSB and running dual-DDR333, twinbank truly shines as it takes 8 minutes out of the similarly-powered KT400 motherboard. The P4 struggles here. Once again, running a single module of RAM asynchronously is defeating the object.
Next is DVD-to-DivX encoding. DivX4.12 with a 2-pass encoding of Gone in 60 seconds with an 1800kb/s bit rate. An average is calculated when the first VOB is complete. The times taken for each pass can be different, and an average is calculated from both. DivX encoding is another benchmark that benefits from generous amounts of memory bandwidth and controller optimisation.
Dual-channel DDR at 133FSB gives the ABIT NF7-S around a 1.3FPS lead over the KT400 being run at the same 133FSB. It's even faster than the KT400 when its run at 166FSB (12x). The previously dominant P4 is thrown off its perch by the speed exhibited by the nforce2, dual-channel DDR333, and hypothetical 333FSB CPU - It simply screams.
