System setup and notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| System | MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R | MESH Titan RD 1900 XT System | HEXUS AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 System | HEXUS Intel Presler 965 System |
| Processor(s) | Intel Core Duo T2600 - 2.16GHz, 2MB L2 cache, dual-core | AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 - 2.6GHz. 2MB L2 cache, dual-core | AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 - 2.8GHz, 1MB L2 cache, single-core | Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 - 3.73GHz, 4MB L2 cache, dual core |
| Mainboard | MSI 945GT Speedster A4R | ASUS A8R32-MVP Radeon Xpress 3200 CrossFire Edition | ASUS A8N32-SLI nForce4 X16 | Intel D975XBK | Chipset driver | Intel INF Update Utility 7.2.2.1006 | ATI CATALYST 6.2 | NVIDIA 6.70 | Intel INF Update Utility 7.2.2.1006 |
| Memory | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS2-5400UL DDR2 SDRAM | 2GBytes (2x1024MB) DDR PC3200 SDRAM | 2GBytes (2x1024MB)Corsair TwinX3500LL XMS PRO DDR SDRAM | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS2-5400UL DDR2 SDRAM | Memory timings | 4-4-4-10 2T @ 667MHz | 3-3-3-8 2T @ 400MHz | 2-3-2-6 1T @ 400MHz | 3-2-2-8 @ 667MHz (DDR2) |
| Graphics Card(s) | ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 512MB and Intel Gen 3.5 (integrated) | 2x ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB in CrossFire setup | 2x ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 512MB in CrossFire setup (Master Card at XT speeds) | ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB | Graphics Card Driver | ATI CATALYST 6.2 and Intel XP1420 | ATI CATALYST 6.2 | ATI CATALYST 6.2 | ATI CATALYST 6.2 | Disk drive(s) | Western Digital 160GB IDE | Maxtor 400GB 16MB cache SATA | Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 SATA | Western Digital 160GB IDE | Monitor | Dell 3007WFP Widescreen (2560x1600) | Dell 2405FPW Widescreen (1920x1200) | Dell 2405FPW Widescreen (1920x1200) | Dell 2405FPW Widescreen (1920x1200) | Operating system | Windows XP Pro SP2 | Windows XP Home SP2 | Windows XP Pro SP2 | Windows XP Pro SP2 |
Benchmark Software
ScienceMark 2.0 (21st March 2005)HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
HEXUS DivX encoding test
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
KribiBench v1.1
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - HEXUS custom benchmark
Quake 4 HEXUS Custom Benchmark
Far Cry - HEXUS custom benchmark
Notes
The MSI 945GT Speedster motherboard was an engineering sample and it had a few general niggles. The BIOS wasn't quite as polished as we're used to seeing, and, in terms of hardware, the CPU fan didn't function correctly. We finally tested with the 10E BIOS, supplied by MSI tech.Problems aside, benchmark performance, once the board was tweaked, was consistent enough to deliver a set of solid results. We undertook 2D testing with integrated graphics and 3D testing with a stock-clocked ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 512MB PCIe graphics card.
We're suprised that MSI underclocks the FSB just a touch.
A lack of DDR voltage manipulation forced us to run with conservative 4-4-4-10 timings at DDR2-667 speeds.
