The ECS P4VXAD -Vs.- The Azza P4X2-AV
Battle of the VIA P4X266s!

By, Marco Chiappetta
November 29, 2001

OVERCLOCKING PROWESS:

Unfortunately, overclocking isn't a strong point for either of these boards.  Pentium 4s, or any other Intel CPUs for that matter, are multiplier locked.  To overclock an Intel processor, one is forced to raise the Front Side Bus (FSB) to increase the overall clockspeed of their processor.  Due to the Pentium 4's "Quad-Pumped" FSB (100MHz effectively runs at 400MHz), raising the FSB has a much more dramatic effect on clockspeed.  The keep things stable, while increasing the FSB, we would usually increase VCore and Vio voltages, but neither of these boards had that ability.  If we take another look at the Frequency setting screens in the BIOS...

ECS

AZZA

You'll notice both boards have the ability to raise the FSB, but that is the extent of their overclocking options.  The ECS board isn't capable of adjusting the FSB in 1MHz. increments, instead it has a list of preset options ranging from 100-145MHz.  We're expecting to get a new BIOS revision from ECS shortly, if this changes we'll let you know.

Azza on the other hand does offer the ability to adjust the FSB in 1MHz. increments between 100 and 132MHz., but it too does not have any voltage tweaks.  With that said, what we have to report we didn't have much luck overclocking at all.  We were able to take our 1900MHz. P4 up to 1957MHz. (19x103) with the ECS board, and up to 1995MHz. (19x105) with the Azza board.  Because these numbers reflect such a small relative overclock, we won't be including any overclocked benchamarks in this review.

For now, let's move onto the numbers...

The Hot Hardware Test Systems
You Just Have to Love Them!

Intel Pentium 4 1900MHz.

ECS P4XAD (VIA P4X266)

256MB Crucial PC2100 (CAS 2)

GeForce 3 (21.85 Drivers)

3Com 3C905 NIC

On-Board Sound

IBM 7200RPM 30GB HD

Creative Labs 52X CD-Rom

Standard Floppy Drive

Windows 2000 SP2

DirectX 8.0a

Via 4-in-1s v.4.35

Intel Pentium 4 1900MHz.

Azza P4X2-AV (VIA P4X266)

256MB Crucial PC2100 (CAS 2)

GeForce 3 (21.85 Drivers)

3Com 3C905 NIC

On-Board Sound

IBM 7200RPM 30GB HD

Creative Labs 52X CD-Rom

Standard Floppy Drive

Windows 2000 SP2

DirectX 8.0a

Via 4-in-1s v.4.35
Performance Comparisons
Time for some numbers...

The first tests we ran were using the popular synthetic benchmarks in  SiSoft Sandra...

SiSOFT SANDRA:

ECS
CPU @ 1900MHz

AZZA
CPU @ 1900MHz

As you can see, there is no discernable performance difference between either of these boards in Sandra's CPU test.  Performance was right where is should be for this board / CPU combination.

ECS
MM @ 1900MHz

AZZA
 MM @ 1900MHz

Very similar results here.  Sandra's Multi-Media benchmark shows both boards running neck and neck.

ECS
MEM @ 1900MHz

AZZA
MEM @ 1900MHz

In what is probably the most significant test, we see the Azza board edge slightly ahead of the ECS board.  The difference isn't anything to get excited about though.  As we mentioned earlier, ECS has promised to supply us with a new BIOS that should increase performance.  If things change significantly we'll let you know.

ECS
Hard Disk

AZZA
 Hard Disk

Both of these boards used the exact same IDE controller in the 8233 Southbridge, and it shows looking at the above scores.  Let's move on to some gaming numbers...

QUAKE 3 ARENA:

Running Quake 3 at a low resolution isolates CPU performance.  As you can see, both the ECS and AZZA boards performed very well in this test.  The 1% performance lead ECS held is well within the "margin of error", in essence these scores are identical.

Jammin' to the Stones