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Test
Setup Western
Digital 80GB Special Edition (8MB cache)
512MB Corsair
TwinX 3200
NVIDIA
GeForceFX 5800 Ultra (Det 44.03)
AMD
Athlon (Barton) 3200+
Microsoft WindowsXP Pro + SP1 + DX9.0a
ABIT KV7 motherboard
(KT600)
Epox 8RDA3G (nForce2 400 Ultra)
Due to some memory instability
problems on the KT600 based boards both they and the nForce2 boards were run using
Corsair's suggested timings despite the fact we've run at far tighter timings
on other boards. This gives us a level playing field for testing but doesn't accurately
reflect the nForce2's ability to push beyond such conservative settings and the
benefits this brings.
Results SiSoft
Sandra MAX3 Although
synthetic in nature SiSoft's Sandra offers a valuable insight towards overall
performance levels. Memory
Bandwidth Despite
the fairly restrained benefits gained from running dual channel memory this was
one area above all that I expected to see the nForce2 board romp ahead in and
I wasn't disappointed. 
The
lead is perhaps a slightly flattering one though as I feel certain there's more
to come from tweaking the BIOS a little. Memory specs have pulled a little too
far ahead of the boards that run it and we've run into no end of compatibility
problems during testing various boards here. In the KT600s favour haowever is
the fact that it happily ran all our Corsair XMS and TwinX memory in one and two
stick configurations without batting an eyelid, something none of our nForce2
boards have managed (remember though that KT600 isn't dual channel even with two
sticks). Where it fell down however was when it came to running these sticks of
memory at more agressive timings, even the kind of timings that we know they can
do on nForce2 boards, so either VIA have tweaked the memory to the point where
there's no more headroom left or there's a little more work to be done in the
BIOS. 
Even
so I was pleasantly surprised at how close things were between the nForce2 and
KT600 and slightly suprised to see the KT6 Delta ahead of the ABIT board, though
not by much more than a gnat's whisker. Cache and Memory
Performance 
Cache
and memory subsytem performance was right on the money too which is perhaps to
be expected from what is now a very mature core logic architecture with a well
rounded driver set.. | 
