Benchmarks IV
We've introduced Comanche 4 into our gamut of benchmarks recently. Like most aircraft simulations with huge landscapes, it requires an intense amount of CPU / memory throughput. Deficiencies in either the chipset or memory throughput can be quickly diagnosed with such a benchmark. Benchmarked at 1024x768x32, a resolution that is still heavily subsystem limited.
I was somewhat surprised that the MSI did not pull out a more substantial lead over the other DDR boards on show, after all, it is running a faster memory subsystem. The performance, however, was more than acceptable, especially at 133FSB.
Let's now turn to the cornerstone of gaming benchmarking in the form of Quake 3. If ever there was a practical test that highlighted the differences between competing motherboard subsystems, then Quake 3 would most likely be it. Onto the numbers. I'll only benchmark 512 Fastest as tests at higher resolutions are coloured by the bottleneck presented by the graphics card, the results will simply become more convergent.
The SiS645DX powered motherboard beats out the rest when used at 100FSB, no mean feat considering RAMBUS was the previous king of the hill in the performance stakes, the MSI also puts up an excellent showing at 133FSB, only trailing the I845E by an inconsequential 7fps whilst being disabled by lower available memory bandwidth.
Let's wrap it all up now.