Benchmarks III
The 2206 build of Unreal Tournament 2003 should give the motherboards a workout. We've set the detail to maximum. Sound, as always, has been disabled so as not to colour the results. First the flybys at 1024x768x32.
Even though the test is considered to be card limited with a Radeon 9800 Pro, we still see reasonable gains when switching from a Granite Bay to a Canterwood motherboard. It all looks impressive although with a top-of-the-line card you'll be playing with heavy anisotropic and/or anti-aliasing. That'll, quite frankly, put the total onus on the card and less on the subsystem, giving greater parity between chipsets and platforms.
Quake III's v1.30 provides a drag race.
Nothing much changes at the top. The validity of this benchmark lies in its consistent and repeatable results.
Performance summary
Asus, MSI, and EPoX know how to manufacture motherboards. Asus and MSI are two of the biggest names in the industry and EPoX have a cult following amongst enthusiasts. With excellent credentials we didn't expect performance to deviate wildly between their respective Canterwood boards. The three retail boards run at different frequencies and use different memory timings; both of these factors were outside of our control. Our benchmarks indicate that the MSI was the slowest of the triumvirate, but that performance deficit is only realised in benchmarks. It's slack memory timings cause it to lose out to the EPoX and Asus boards. Speaking of Asus, we've seen a steady increase in performance from various BIOS releases. There is nothing to suggest that the EPoX and MSI won't benefit from subsequent BIOS releases, too.
The proximity of the Canterwoods' results should inform you that performance isn't the overriding factor that'll distinguish the boards from one another. We feel they'll be differentiated on features, cost, and availability. All three boards impressed us with their FSB overclocking prowess. After all, a Canterwood is a Canterwood is a Canterwood. And all three ran comfortably above the specified 200FSB. The Asus managed a whopping 300FSB. No one manufacturer has a magic wand that'll give them a definitive performance advantage over another. What'll sell each respective board is brand loyalty, features and price. At the outset we alluded to the difficulty in manufacturing a 'bad' Canterwood. With a wealth of features and decent performance from these three retail boards, that premise is generally true. Take your time and look at exactly what you require in a motherboard. Then simply choose the one that fits your requirements. Simple but sage advice.
