Systems setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz ES 800FSB CPU
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2GHz)
DFI LANPARTY 865PE (13/11/03 BIOS)
ABIT IC7 i875P Canterwood (A18 BIOS, 30/10/03)
Biostar K8VHA Pro S754 motherboard (01/10/03 BIOS)
Other components
Hercules 3D Prophet Radeon 9800XT (412/730)
2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500C2, run at 2-6-2-2 @ DDR400. Single-channel running on the K8NHA Pro.
Toshiba 8x DVD
IBM 120GXP 40GB hard drive
Dell P991 19" monitor
Software
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX9.0a
Intel 5.02.1002 chipset drivers
NVIDIA nForce3 3.13 drivers
ATI CATALYST 3.9 drivers and control pane
Pifast v41 to 10m places
Lame v3.92 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album (611MB)
Simplisoftware HDTach v2.70
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
Newer chipset and a new graphics card with new drivers render previous comparison inaccurate. With Super PATCH enabled, the DFI LANPARTY 865PE has been benched with a tuned ABIT IC7 Canterwood (Street Racer and Enhanced settings). The ever-so-impressive Athlon 64 3200+ and Biostar K8VHA Pro combination provides the competition from AMD's Clawhammer platform.
We're always interested to see just how far we can push i865/875 boards with respect to overclocking. Ever since our initial ASUS P4C800 Deluxe hit 300MHz FSB in informal testing, we've been looking to push the chipsets further and further. The shipping BIOS, dated 08/08/2003, exhibited the same symptoms as the DFI INFINITY 865PE motherboard. The problem was that PCI and AGP buses were not locked once the FSB is raised. SetFSB confirmed the fact and the board would freeze in 3D applications at 240FSB. All the evidence seems to corroborate the unlocked bus findings.
DFI managed to get us a revised BIOS, dated 13/11/2003, that enabled bus locking and added support for the upcoming Prescott CPU.
The LANPARTY 865PE uses an ICS952619CF clock generator. SetFSB shows the AGP and PCI buses as being locked now.
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:
3207.7MHz - P4 3.2GHz / DFI LANPARTY 865PE (Springdale i865PE)
3207.7MHz - P4 3.2GHz / ABIT IC7 (Canterwood i875)
1994.7MHz - Athlon 64 3200+ / K8VHA Pro (VIA K8T800)
Overclocking
Even with the new bus-locking BIOS, we found it difficult to hit anything above 255MHz FSB. That's disappointing from a board that's geared up towards it.
