SFF Roundup, Part I: Socket 478 and 754 Systems

Benchmark Setup

Before we get to the benchmark scores, let us reiterate that the total performance level of the systems as configured is not a major factor in our reviews of these systems. The CPUs used are not the fastest models available, and we're really just verifying that none of the units have any major performance issues. While we only have a single socket 754 unit in this roundup, it is there as a baseline measurement, so if we receive any additional units based on that platform in the future, they will be compared with each other.

Our test configuration is as follows:

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz 1MB cache) Socket 754 Intel Pentium 4 3.0C/ES (3.0GHz 512KB cache) Socket 478
RAM:	2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2
Hard Drive(s):	Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM IDE (8MB Buffer) Seagate 80GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers:	nVidia nForce 5.10 WHQL Intel 6.3.0 SiS AGP 1.19a; IDE 2.04a
Video Card(s):	Sapphire (ATI) X800 Pro AGP VIVO
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 5.1 without CCC Intel 865G 14.10 SiS UniVGA 3.60 (from Foxconn)
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP2
SFF Systems:	Aopen XC Cube AV EA65-II ASUS Terminator T2-P Deluxe Commercial Biostar iDEQ 210P (AMD Socket 754) Foxconn e-bot Shuttle XPC SB61G2 V3.0

All systems used DIMMS with Samsung TCCD chips running 2-2-2-5 timings, except for the iDEQ, which ran with 2-2-2-10 timings. The X800 Pro graphics card was used as a system stress component to verify the ability of the various units to support a reasonably high-end GPU. For the noise tests, either the integrated graphics were used or else a fanless GeForce MX440 AGP card was installed. Performance testing without the X800 Pro was not performed on all systems, but a quick test with a couple of units showed that the performance in standard business applications was close enough to the performance with the X800 Pro, so we did not rerun all tests.

As we have stated, we feel that the primary use will be office, HTPC, or perhaps portable gaming, so we haven't looked at running any workstation benchmarks on the systems. True workstations generally require a professional level graphics card, and our SFF lab is currently lacking such a part. Since we are running a reduced set of benchmarks for our SFF reviews, if you have any strong feelings about additional tests you would like to see run, please let us know. This is the first such article, and if there is sufficient demand for other benchmarks, we will do our best to go back and include them.

For the graphs, all of the Intel systems will use blue-colored bars and the sole AMD system will be colored green. This is not meant as a comparison between AMD and Intel, but the AMD socket 754 3200+ is priced similarly to the Intel socket 478 3.0C. While most of the systems will support faster processors, check the features pages to make sure; not all systems can officially support the Intel 3.4E Prescott chips.