Part Seven: Testing [The Test
Setup]
Why don't we benchmark this board against it's
biggest rivals, the excellent Epox 8KHA+ and the Iwill XP333R.
We used: -
The boards in question [Abit
KR7a RAID, Epox
8KHA+ and the Iwill
XP333R]
AMD Athlon
XP 1900+ [1.60GHz]
256MB Micron
Cas 2 PC2100
ATI Radeon
8500 Retail
45GB IBM
75GXP ATA 100
300w AMD approved PSU
Windows 98
(All boards at their fastest stable ram timings, defaults
for other options.)
Part Eight: 3D Performance
Firstly we have the excellent 3DMark 2001, not
only a great DX8 benchmark but a nice indication of relative
bandwidth and memory timings.
(3DMark 2001 - 32bit)
|
3DMark
2K1
|
640x480
|
800x600
|
1024 x
768
|
1280 x
1024
|
1600 x
1200
|
|
Iwill
XP333
|
10173
|
9459
|
8489
|
7001
|
5428
|
|
EPOX
8KHA+
|
10599
|
9818
|
8688
|
8055
|
5506
|
|
Abit KR7a
RAID
|
10701
|
9929
|
8789
|
8121
|
5582
|
(Results Expressed In '3DMarks')
The KR7a makes a more than impressive start in this DX8
benchmark. The Epox board is close but the Abit board makes
more than a sizable difference in this benchmark.
(Quake 3 Arena - Time Demo 001 - 32bit
- Highest Detail Settings)
|
Quake 3
Arena
|
640x480
|
800x600
|
1024 x
768
|
1280 x
1024
|
1600 x
1200
|
|
Iwill
XP333
|
177.4
|
175.6
|
168.8
|
137.5
|
99.3
|
|
EPOX 8KHA+
|
200.7
|
198.6
|
185.4
|
145.0
|
102.7
|
|
Abit KR7a
RAID
|
202.9
|
200.1
|
186.1
|
145.8
|
101.9
|
(Results expressed in frames
per second)
The trend continues in the Open GL based Quake
3. The Abit is smashing the figures from the XP333 and continues
to edge out the Epox board based upon the same chipset. The
Epox makes up some ground by just nudging ahead at the maximum
resolution but it's close all the way here.
(Max Payne - 'Shooting Alex' Time Demo
- Highest Detail Settings)
|
Max Payne
|
800 x 600
32bit
|
1024 x
768 32bit
|
1600 x
1200 32bit
|
|
Iwill
XP333
|
99.9
|
78.1
|
41.0
|
|
EPOX
8KHA+
|
103.2
|
84.6
|
44.8
|
|
Abit KR7a
RAID
|
106.7
|
85.6
|
44.9
|
(Results expressed in frames per second)
In this excellent and extremely fill rate intensive
benchmark the differences in 'real world' terms start to narrow.
It's to it's credit though that despite being based on the
same chipset, the KR7a is consistently faster than it's Epox
challenger. The KR7a leads the way as we move on to the more
theoretical benchmarks, lets see how Abit's star socket A
board fares...
Page Six: Mainboard
Performance
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