Test Setup

The ULi M1697 chipset fully supports all AMD Athlon 64 processors in both stock and overclocked conditions.

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s): AMD Athlon 64 4000+ utilized for all tests
RAM: 2 x 512MB OCZ Technology PC4800 Platinum Edition Settings- DDR-400 at (CL2-2-2-5, 1T)
Hard Drive(s): 2 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer), 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300R0 300GB 7200 RPM IDE (16MB Buffer)
System Platform Drivers: ULi SATA Driver - 1059
ULi PowerExpress Engine Enabling driver - 1006E
Video Cards: 1 x MSI 7800GTX (PCI Express) for all non-SLI tests
2 x MSI 7800GTX (PCI Express) for SLI tests
Video Drivers: NVIDIA nForce 81.98 WHQL
Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500
Power Supply: OCZ Power Stream 520
Operating System(s): Windows XP Professional SP2
Motherboards: Abit AT8
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Albatron K8SLI
Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8KRS
Asus A8R-MVP (ATI RD480/ULi1575)
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe

We tested our MSI 7800GTX video cards using NVIDIA 81.98 WHQL drivers to provide recent performance results. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1280x1024x32 unless SLI is enabled. Resolution in SLI benchmarks is 1600x1200x32 with 4XAA and 8xAF where applicable. 3DMark and Aquamark3 benchmarks use a "Standard Score" setup at the 1024x768 video resolution for both SLI and non-SLI testing.

Note that while newer Beta drivers are now available from NVIDIA's nZone site for the 7900 series cards, the 81.98 remain the most recent official release. Testing began prior to the launch of the G71 cards, but the ULi PowerExpress Engine drivers appears to work with all current Beta drivers as well.

Epox EP-9U1697 GLi: Overclocking General Performance & Encoding
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  • Spoelie - Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - link

    Another very small quirk: page 7 3rd graph shows latency - lower is better - but the boards are still ordered like higher is better..
  • Spoelie - Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - link

    hmm and apparantly all the audio utilization graphs as well :) And since we're still at it, since for storage performance differs only from southbridge to southbridge and not from board to board, it might ease up those graphs to just display one representative for each + the board in review.
  • Rock Hydra - Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - link

    Er sorry, forgot to mention you said DDR2.
  • Googer - Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - link

    Here is another just released review on this same motherboard:

    http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/newspro/viewnew...">http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/newspro/viewnew...,
  • Gary Key - Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - link

    Sorry about that, corrected. :)

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