System setup and notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| EPoX 9NPA+ SLI System | ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 SLI System | MSI P4N Diamond System | Intel i955XE System | |
| Processor(s) | AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 | AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 | Intel Pentium 4 660 | Intel Pentium 4 660 |
| Mainboard | EPoX 9NPA+ SLI nForce4 SLI | ABIT Fatal1ty AN8-SLI nForce4 SLI | MSI P4N Diamond nForce4 SLI I.E | Intel D955XBK i955XE |
| Memory | 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair Xpert 3200XL | 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair Xpert 3200XL | 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair Twin2X1024A-5400UL | 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair Twin2X1024A-5400UL | Memory timings | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 | 3-2-2-8 @ DDR533 | 3-2-2-8 @ DDR533 |
| Graphics Card | ATI RADEON X850 XT PE - PEG16X - CATALYST 5.4 | Graphics Card for SLI | 2x NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultras - ForceWare 71.89 | Disk Drives | 160GB WD IDE & 36GB SATA Raptor |
| BIOS Version | 7th April 2005 | 23rd March 2005 (BIOS 14) | 16th April 2005 (BIOS 16/4/05) | 14th May 2005 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | |||
| Mainboard Software | nForce4 6.39 platform driver | nForce4 6.39 platform driver | nForce4 7.02 platform driver | Intel INF Update Utility 7.0.0.1019 |
Benchmark Software
HEXUS.in-house Cryptography Benchmark
HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
ScienceMark 2.0 (7th February 2005)
Realstorm 2004
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
picCOLOR 32-bit v4.0
KribiBench v1.1.9
Microsoft Movie Maker 2.1
Simpli Software HDTach 3.0.1
SLI testing
3DMark05 b1.2.0
DOOM 3 b1282
Far Cry v1.3
Notes
No problems to report during installation or testing. I'll be comparing the 9NPA+ SLI to ABIT's Fatality AN8 SLI, another decent S939 SLI-capable board. Further, the comparison extends to LGA775 and MSI's nForce4 SLI Intel Edition P4N Diamond motherboard. Intel's i955XE completes the quartet. Both AMD boards were run with an AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 CPU and both LGA775 boards with a Pentium 4 660 CPU. Both CPUs are similar prices, so the comparison is a valid one.
The running speed of the boards was as follows:
3600.2MHz - Intel i955XBK - Intel i955X Express -Intel Pentium 4 660 - DDR2-533MHz @ 3-2-2-8
3599.4MHz - MSI P4N Diamond - nForce4 SLI I.E. - Intel Pentium 4 660- DDR2-533MHz @ 3-2-2-8
2411.2MHz - ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 SLI - nForce4 SLI - AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 -DDR400 @ 2-2-2-5 1T
2411.2MHz - EPoX 9NPA+ SLI- nForce4 SLI - AMD Athlon 64 FX-53- DDR400 @ 2-2-2-5 1T
