915 Motherboard Roundup: Socket 775 for the Rest of Us
by Wesley Fink on December 7, 2004 12:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
DirectX 9 Gaming Performance
After the clustering of scores in Winstones, you may not have expected much variation in game benchmarks. That is why expectations get us all in trouble because there is a really a large variation in DX9 benchmarks. One thing is quite consistent across the DX9 tests, and that is the domination of performance results by the Asus P5GD2 and the Epox 5epa+. In every benchmark, either the Asus or Epox wins the test, and the other board is normally #2 or #3 in the worst case. Another board that is consistently at the top of the DirectX 9 benchmarks is the ECS PF4 915P Extreme, which will come as a surprise to many. It was certainly a surprise to this reviewer.
The other boards seem to shift positions in the middle, but we, again, have some consistency at the bottom of the performance results. The Soltek is consistently at the bottom of the performance charts, which certainly should not be a surprise, considering that it is the only board running our Fast DDR400 at DDR333 speed. We would expect that as soon as Soltek can fix this issue, the position of the Soltek will change relative to other boards in the 915 roundup.
One thing to keep in mind as you look at the benchmarks is the relative position of the top overclockers in this roundup. The Asus, Abit, Epox, MSI, Albatron, and DFI were our top overclockers in our tests, but clearly, they get to their high overclocks by different means. The MSI can reach 285 at the top, but is often near the bottom in stock performance. The DFI is pretty average at stock speeds, but it becomes a dynamo when challenged to an overclock. The Asus is a great overclocker, but it is also very fast at stock speeds. In other words, the Asus starts fast and stays fast through overclocking, making it a great choice for both stock performance and extreme overclocking.
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krelian - Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - link
I been a Intel user since the first Pentium 3 came out now I have a Intel P4 3.0C I refused to spend more money on things I had already bought so I stayed with the 478 socket, seeing as Intel wants me to move to an expensive platform, I say I'll ditch Intel head with the AMD crowd, I'm sure I won't be the only one, maybe legions of intel campers will leave.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
About the config I put together in the previous post; does anyone know if the overclock lock on the 915P chipsets apply to lower FSB's too? Could I overclock the 133MHz Celeron D to 200MHz on any 915P motherboard?ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
The 915P chipset provides good value for the money. For example:ECS 915P-A $79
Intel Celeron D 325J 2.53GHz $88
Albatron GeForce 6600 128MB $120.50
or
Albatron GeForce 6600GT 128MB $190.50
(newegg prices)
The processor can be overclocked to 3.6+GHz very easily, much like the Athlon Mobiles.
That makes a good budget gaming rig, better than anything you could put together with an AMD processor for the same money. So, at least in my opinion, AMD has a better mainstream/high-end processor, and Intel wins the value segment. Who would say?
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I have now read the entire article, and oh boy! Though I prefer to read about socket 754/939 motherboards, this has to be the best motherboard roundup I ever read. Ever. Well done.
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#22,
thank your fixing it. The typo I wrote about on page 10:
"The fact that Asus manages a higher OC than more recognized OC boards like DFI and Asus "
Don't you mean ABIT in the last word there?
ocyl - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Wesley > Thank you for paying attention to the audio features/components of these motherboards, particularly Dolby Digital Live :)Wesley Fink - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
#21 - The Foxconn results have been corrected on p.20. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
A few typos:"The fact that Asus manages a higher OC than more recognized OC boards like DFI and Asus "
page 10.
On page 20, the "Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed" table is probably wrong.
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Good article.
LeadFrog - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Why does only the socket 915 get a 16mb cache Hard Drive?danidentity - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Wes, I said thanks before but I'll say it again, great roundup. We appreciate your hard work, always.danidentity - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
Live -The P5GD2 is expensive compared to most boards, but it includes a ton of stuff, like 8 SATA ports, dual gigabit LAN, on-board 802.11g/b, and on-board hi-def audio with Dolby Digital Live (realtime encoding, like SoundStorm).
Most 915P boards aren't as close to as expensive as the Asus. The Abit AG8 is ~ $130, equal or cheaper in price than the K8N Neo2.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - link
#16 - After I did the price analysis today I changed "outstanding value" to "good value". Thanks for the comment about the review being good reading. It is appreciated as a huge amount of work went into this roundup.