System setup and notes
System setup
| HEXUS high-end test system | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.8GHz, 2MiB L2 cache, AM2) | ||||
| Motherboard | ASUS CROSSHAIR | ASUS M2N32-SLI Wireless Edition | abit KN9 SLI | ATI Sturgeon Reference | ASUS M2R32-MVP |
| Actual CPU speed | 2812.7MHz - 200.9MHz FSB | 2812.8MHz - 200.9MHz FSB | 2813MHz - 200.9MHz FSB | 2813MHz - 200.9MHz FSB | 2804.4MHz - 200.3MHz FSB |
| Memory | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair EPP | ||||
| Memory timings | 4-4-4-12 2T @ DDR2-800 | ||||
| Graphics card(s) | NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX SLI | Radeon X1900 CrossFire | |||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB 7200.9 SATA 3Gbps | ||||
| BIOS revision | 0121 (07/24/06) | 0504 (06/14/06) | 1.12 (18/05/06) | 08.00.13 (04/05/2006) | 1028 (07/28/06) |
| Mainboard software | 9.34 | Catalyst 6.6 Southbridge package + 2.5.1540.25 (ATI AHCI SATA driver) |
Catalyst 6.8 Southbridge package + 2.5.1540.28 (ATI AHCI SATA driver) |
||
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 91.27 | Catalyst 6.6 | Catalyst 6.8 | ||
| Operating System | Windows XP Pro SP2 32-bit | ||||
Testing software
- ScienceMark Memory Bandwidth
- ScienceMark Memory Latency
- HEXUS.pifast
- KribiBench
- HEXUS WAV encoding
- HEXUS DivX encoding
- Cinebench 2003
For 3D performance we used:
- Far Cry v1.33
- Quake 4 v1.04
- Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.05
All games were run at 1024x768. We also ran SC:CT at 1920x1200 in single and dual-GPU modes to verify that the boards could handle multi-GPU scenarios aptly. Cat 6.8 also sees a new SATA driver, but the version number difference is only small.
Notes
We used Catalyst 6.8 drivers on our X1900 XTX CrossFire setup, so expect 3D results to differ (in a positive sense) from the Sturgeon reference board.
The CPU clock recovered from CPU-Z is a few MHz lower than the other boards. This shouldn't make a difference, but if we spot any fractional deficits, this could be part of the reason.
Ready? Let's go.