|
 
 |
|
Overclocking |
|
A Clear
Advantage... |
|
When it
came to overclocking these two motherboards, the
difference was night and day. With our
Thunderbird 1.2GHz. processor in the
Epox 8KHA+,
we were able to obtain a maximum overclock of 1440MHz.
This was achieved by setting the CPU multiplier to
10.5x and the system bus speed to 137MHz. The
increase of 240MHz. yielded an effective gain of
20%-not bad at all.
Next, we
dropped the same processor and RAM into the Shuttle
AK31 Ver.3.1 and began overclocking. We found
the sweet spot for this board with the CPU multiplier
set at 11.5 and the bus speed set at 136MHz. yielding
at total CPU speed of 1564MHz. With an increase
of 364MHz, we achieved an exceptional gain of over
30.33%!
Clearly, when it comes
to overclocking, both of these boards are quite
capable of getting the job done. However, in
this comparison the Shuttle AK31 Ver.3.1
demonstrated a clear advantage in this round of
testing. We feel it is important to note
though, from what has been seen on the net in
regards to the Epox 8KHA+, the overclocking
performance of this particular board is not the
norm.
Now we'll
move on to some performance numbers and see what these
boards are capable of...
 |
|
The Hot Hardware Test Systems |
|
Rockin'! |
|
|
AMD Athlon @ 1200MHz.
Shuttle AK31 Ver.3.1 Via KT266A
256MB IBM PC2100
(CAS 2)
GeForce 3 Ti500
(21.85 Drivers)
Hercules Game
Theater XP
IBM 7200RPM 15GB
HD
Pioneer 16X/40x
DVD-ROM
Standard Floppy
Drive
Windows 2000 SP2
DirectX 8.1
Via 4-in-1s
v.4.35
|
AMD Athlon @ 1200MHz.
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A
256MB IBM PC2100
(CAS2)
GeForce 3
Ti500(21.85 Drivers)
Hercules Game
Theater XP
IBM 7200RPM 15GB
HD
Pioneer 16X/40x
DVD-ROM
Standard Floppy
Drive
Windows 2000 SP2
DirectX 8.1
Via 4-in-1s
v.4.35
|
 |
|
Performance Comparisons With Sisoft
Sandra |
|
Time for some
numbers... |
|
|
The Shuttle AK31
The Epox 8KHA+
|
CPU @
1200MHz
.jpg) |
CPU @
1200MHz
.jpg) |
The Sandra CPU
scores for each board were very close, with little
discernable difference, giving a very slight edge to the
Shuttle AK31 Ver.3.1. Now we'll look at the
Multimedia portion of the test...
|
MM
@ 1200MHz
.jpg) |
MM
@
1200MHz
.jpg) |
Like we've
seen with the CPU scores, the Multimedia results were,
once again, very close, giving the edge to the Shuttle
AK31 Ver.3.1. Now we'll move on to Memory
performance...
|
MEM
@ 1200MHz
.jpg) |
MEM
@
1200MHz
.jpg) |
With the
Memory results, the Epox 8KHA+ had the upper hand over the
Shuttle AK31 Ver.3.1, albeit subtle. In the next
round of tests we'll get to see which has the greater
effect on application performance.
 |
|
Overclocking |
|
Way out of spec
but still rock stable |
|
Below are the
results for the two boards during the overclocking phase
of testing. Obviously, the Shuttle AK31 Ver.3.1
stole the show with its 30.33% gain, but the Epox posted a
respectable overclock as well!
The
Shuttle AK31
The Epox 8KHA+
|
CPU
OC'd @ 1565MHz.
(11.5X136)
.jpg) |
CPU
OC'd @
1440MHz.
(10.5X137)
.jpg) |
|
MM
OC'd @ 1565MHz.
(11.5X136)
.jpg) |
MM
OC'd @
1440MHz.
(10.5X137)
.jpg) |
Next, we'll
head on over to the Winstones and see how Content Creation
and Business Winstone perform with these impressive
boards, then we'll pump some Quake 3 lovin' through their
veins...
|
|
More
Head-To-Head Benchmarks |
 |
 |
.gif)
