UT2003, X2, Quake III
To better load the CPU and chipsets, the retail Unreal Tournament 2003 game is used. It's patched up to build 2225 and a custom 800x600 SunTemple bot match is benchmarked. Bot matches are often cases where the subsystem is the limiting factor.
Excellent performances from the pair of chipsets and the A64 3200+. The nForce3 150 keeps squeezing ahead. What's more impressive is how the single-channel A64 can match and even beat the dual-channel FX-51 when overclocked to the same core speed. The performance potential of an FX-51 run via regular dual channel, low latency memory is truly massive. We wait in anticipation.
Here's an extremely odd result. X2: The Threat is a lovely-looking benchmark but it seems to favour the VIA K8T800 board heavily. The results were consistent over a dozen runs. It's unexpected and surprising, but that's exactly the way it was.
Quake III shows tangible gains from the Athlon 64 3200+ run on both chipsets. Again, the overclocked combination comes exceedingly close to toppling the impressive FX-51. The real jewel in AMD's 32/64-bit crown may not be the FX-51 after all.
