System setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.Motherboards
- Soltek K8AN2E-GR, S754, NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb chipset (Rev T1.2 BIOS)
- BIOSTAR K8NHA Grand, S754, NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb chipset
- DFI LANPARTY i865PE Springdale
Other components
- AMD Sempron 3100+ (1.8GHz, 256KB L2 cache)
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB, AGP, 350/1000
- 512MB OCZ Platinum Rev 2 PC3200 RAM, run at 2-2-2-5 @ DDR400 on both AMD boards
- 512MB (2x256MB) Corsair XMS3500 RAM, run at 2-2-2-5 @ DDR400 on i865PE
- Pioneer 105 DVD-RW
- Western Digital 160GB (WD1600) 8MB cache hard drive
- Dell P991 19" monitor
Software
- Windows XP Professional
I'll be taking a look at the Soltek board's performance against a BIOSTAR nForce3 250Gb motherboard. A direct comparison should determine if Soltek is on the right path. Further, I'll be using a budget S754 CPU, the Sempron 3100+, for testing. I'll also add in the results obtained from a Pentium 4 2.8GHz Prescott CPU and DFI Springdale board combination. The Sempron line isn't really scheduled to compete against a full-blown Pentium 4 part, but the 3100+ shares many family traits present in the excellent Athlon 64 range.
There were no problems to report during installation or benchmarking. I'll leave talk of overclocking until the end of the article. I reckon you'll be pleasantly surprised by the K8AN2E-GR's results.
