|
How We
Configured Our Test Systems:
To help fully explain the scores we listed in the following
benchmarks, we'll explain how the systems were set up before
running the benchmarks. Our normal practice is to start off
by manually optimizing the BIOS settings to the most
aggressive system options available to us. For example, the
memory frequency was manually set to DDR400 with the CAS
timings set to 2-5-2-2 on the Abit IS7-G. However, as
we have mentioned earlier, we could not change any settings
on the GA-8S648FX. We were left at running the system
using default memory timings and the system performance
setting left at "default".
Once the BIOS options were set, the hard drive was formatted
as a FAT32 partition, and Windows XP Professional with
Service Pack 1 was installed. After the Windows installation
completed, we installed the latest Intel chipset drivers for
the 865PE boards, the SiS AGP drivers on the 648FX, and
upgraded to DirectX 9.0a. We then installed the
drivers for the rest of the components, using drivers
supplied on each manufacturer's CD, except for the Tyan
Tachyon G9500 Pro video card. For the G9500, we
installed the latest (at the time of testing) ATi Catalyst
drivers, version 3.4. Auto-Updating, Hibernation, and
System Restore were disabled, and then we set up a 768MB
permanent page file. On these test systems we set the visual
effects to "best performance" in system performance to limit
any effects these settings would have on the benchmarks.
Satisfied that every thing was set up correctly, we
installed all of the benchmarking software, defragged the
hard drive, and rebooted one last time.
 |
|
HotHardware Test Setup |
|
The
SiS648FX goes up against the big boys |
|
Motherboards
Tested:
Gigabyte GA-8S648FX (SiS 648FX)
Abit IS7-G (Intel 865PE)
Chaintech Apogee 9PJL (Intel 865PE)
Common Hardware:
Intel Pentium 4
Processor 2.40C 2.4GHz / 800MHz System Bus
512MB (256MB x2) GEIL DDR433 SDRAM (2-5-2-2)
Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro
Western Digital 20GB ATA100 Hard Drive
52x Creative Labs CD-ROM
Software /
System Drivers:
Windows XP with
Service Pack 1
DirectX 9.0a
ATi Catalyst Drivers, v3.4
Intel Chipset Software, v5.00.1012
SiS AGP Driver, v1.16.01
SiS MiniIDE driver, v2.04
 |
|
SiSoft Sandra Benchmarks |
|
Synthetic testing |
|
SANDRA (the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic
and Reporting Assistant) is an information and
diagnostic utility put out by the folks at SiSoftware.
It's a quick and easy
way to compare the CPU, Memory, and Hard drive performance
of a given system against an internal database of similar
systems and drives. These benchmarks are theoretical scores,
and can't necessarily be measured in real-world terms, but
provide a good way to make comparisons amongst like
components. All of these tests were run with our CPU
set to its default clock speed (~2.40GHz / 12 x 200MHz).
( ALU MEASURED IN MIPS / FPU
MEASURED IN MFLOPS )
( MEASURED IN IT/S )
( MEASURED IN MB/S )
In Sandra's CPU
benchmark, the GA-8S648FX went pound for pound with the two
Springdales, bettering them slightly on one score, and then
falling slightly behind in the other. The multimedia
performance scores were also very close, although the
Floating Point calculations on the Gigabyte board began to
drop off by 600 points. The real difference came in
the memory performance, which was what we expected.
The scores for the GA-8S648FX were good, for a single
channel based board but fell far behind the bandwidth
provided by the Dual DDR channels on the other two boards.
With or without "PAT-like enhancements", the Springdales are
a force to be reckoned with.
Winstones and PCMark2002 Benchmarks |