System setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Clawhammer CPU. RAM running with an 10 divisor (2.0GHz, DDR400, single channel)
AMD Barton XP3200+ (2.2GHz/ 200MHz FSB) Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz ES 800FSB CPU
Biostar M7NCG 400 nForce2 mATX board with 200MHz CPU and 166MHz memory support
Biostar K8NHA-M nForce3 150 mATX board (29/09/03 BIOS)
ABIT IC7-MAX3 i875P Canterwood (21/08/03 BIOS) for the 3.2GHz 800FSB P4
Other components
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (380/340)
2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500C2, run at 2-6-2-2 @ DDR400 for boards. Single-channel running on the SN85G4. Run with 'Enhanced' on the IC7-MAX3
Toshiba 8x DVD
Samcheer 420w PSU
Dell P991 19" monitor
Thermaltake AX478 cooler with a 25CFM fan
Zalman 7000Cu S478 / 754 cooler
Taisol 760 modified with dual fans
Software
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX9.0a
Intel 5.00.1015 chipset drivers
NVIDIA nForce2/3 3.13 drivers
ATI CATALYST 3.7 drivers and control panel (6378s)
Pifast v41 to 10m places
Lame v3.92 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album (611MB)
XMPEG v5.02 and DivX 5.05 Pro
Kribi Bench 1.19
ScienceMark 2.0
Realstorm Raytracing benchmark 320x180x32
3DMark 2001SE v330
UT2003 Retail (Build 2225)
X2: The Threat - Rolling Demo
Comanche 4 benchmark
Serious Sam 2: Sierra De Chiapas Demo.
Quake 3 v1.30 HQ
Notes
Firstly, the M7NCG 400. It's rated to support 200MHz FSB CPUs and DDR333 memory. Testing showed that it had no problems with that. We ran a Radeon 9800Pro and raised the RAM frequency to DDR400 levels, or synchronous to the FSB. To gain any kind of stability we needed to raise the chipset voltage to 1.8v. It would then complete benchmarks without problems. Using the onboard graphics which are inextricably tied in with system memory was a different matter. No matter which combination of settings or timings was inputted, the board would lose stability quickly. Another peculiar trait was the inability to load the OS with all features turned off. It would simply hang just past the POST screen. 2D on the integrated GeForce4 MX was decent enough for day-to-day use and far, far better than Intel's Extreme Graphics 2.
The K8NHA-M suffered from no obvious problems. Features installed correctly and worked first time. The new NVIDIA 3.13 chipset package was used for the first time without noticeable issue.
Benchmarks were carried out three times and the lowest and highest results were discarded. The running speed of each of the protagonists was as follows:
3208.2MHz - P4 3.2GHz / ABIT IC7-MAX3 (Canterwood)
2204.8MHz - XP3200+ / M7NCG 400 (nForce2)
1994.8MHz - Athlon 64 3200+ / K8NHA-M (nForce3 150)
The M7NCG 400 was run with a Barton XP3200+ and its default DDR333 memory support. As it managed to run with DDR400 memory, albeit with increased chipset voltage, we'll also include those results obtained with a discrete Radeon 9800 Pro. Remember that the Barton XP3200+ has a 200MHz advantage over the Athlon 64 3200+. The latter should make up ground in memory-intensive tasks, thanks to its on-die memory controller and other core enhancements that were detailed in our recent review.
Overclocking
Basic stability, in an overclocking sense, consisted of running all of 3DMark 2001SE's tests without fail. The nForce2 board managed a steady 214MHz FSB and the nForce3 150 hit 223MHz without trouble. The latter was probably more bound by the locked CPU. We'd expected higher overall overclocks, but anything above default is a bonus.
