ATI Radeon Xpress 200: Performance, PCI Express & DX9 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on November 8, 2004 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
ATI RX480: Measuring Performance
The ATI Bullhead has shown itself to be an outstanding performer in overclocking performance, easily matching or surpassing the best Athlon 64 boards that we have tested. But the best overclocking that we have seen doesn't mean much unless the ATI RX480 also shows stock performance that is competitive with the best Athlon 64 boards.To determine how the ATI RX480 Bullhead compared to other Socket 939 boards, several different areas were compared.
- First, the ATI RX480 Bullhead was compared to performance of the Gold Editors Choice MSI K8N Neo2, which is based on the nVidia nForce3 Ultra chipset. We ran a brief series of game benchmarks on both boards to see if the ATI measured up in performance at stock speed. The ATI is PCI Express and the MSI is AGP, so the ATI Bullhead was equipped with an ATI X800 XT PCIe, and tests on the MSI K8N Neo2 were with an ATI X800 XT AGP video card. Both systems used the same 3800+ and the same 2-2-2-10 memory. Results are on page 9.
- Next, the performance of the PCI Express ATI RX480 was compared to the PCI Express nForce4 using the same ATI X800 PCI Express video card. A brief series of benchmarks on both boards were performed using the same FX55 CPU and memory. Results are on page 10.
- The performance of the ATI RX480 and nForce4 were then compared using the same nVidia 6800 Ultra PCI Express video card. The FX55 and memory were the same on both test boards. Results are on page 11.
- Full motherboard benchmarks were run with the ATI RX480 Bullhead using both the ATI X800 XT PCIe video card and the nVidia 6800 Ultra PCIe. These results are to establish baselines for both video cards on the ATI RX480 that can be compared to past benchmarks and to future motherboard testing. The purpose was not to compare video cards, although we suspect that the results will be used by some for comparing nVidia and ATI PCIe performance. Results begin on page 12.
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flatblastard - Saturday, April 9, 2005 - link
Hmmmm, still no real availability even now...Looks like MSI may be our only chance at this chipset....what as bummer :(philpoe - Sunday, February 20, 2005 - link
Hmmm, after no real availability (in the US at least) as of Friday 2/18/05, there's suddenly a slew of shops selling the MSI board on pricewatch, including Newegg. Anyone know of a reason why the boards are so slow to trickle out?philpoe - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Is it possible to purchase these reference boards? I seem to see them in retail-looking packages in reviews from Canada.If you can get your hands on one, are the BIOSes available to the public, or only to the select HW review sites?
Wesley Fink - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
PERFORMANCE WITH 4 DIMMS CORRECTED>We have added the following update to p.6:
"UPDATE 11/11/2004: ATI has provided an updated BIOS which corrects the issues of 333 timings with 4 double-sided dimms. With the new BIOS we were able to run 4X512MB DS OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev.2 at 2-2-2-10 timings at DDR400 with a 2T Command Rate. This performance matches the best we have seen with 4 DS dimms on an Athlon 64 motherboard."
Momental - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
#35: I'm right there with ya, bud. Just when I "think" I've made up my mind to do the complete overhaul, the next exit appears on the highway taking me that much closer to the "Best Soft Serve in Town"!!The ol' gut tells me to hold out until some time just after the ball drops in Times Square and we'll all be in Fat City, so to speak. ;)
callius - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Somewhat OT maybe:anyone seeing a reason that the next rev of A64 supporting SSE3 (in market Q1/05) coul not be plugged in a 939-mobo (nvid, ati or via) without problems (except any necessary BIOS update) ?
callius - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Only minus vs nforce4 is that the SB does not support SATA-II's NCQ (for Seagate's upcoming 7200.8 series). Maybe with next SB in Q1/05 though ???mlittl3 - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Completely off topic, but does anyone know why there are four chipsets (two actively cooled, one passively cooled and the other with no cooling) in the SLI Tyan motherboard that #33 gave a link for?xeper - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
i can't seem to find ANY mention whatsoever of shared memory allocation. can someone help me out here?nserra - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Isn’t this very funny, I mean Ati was a very close partner to Intel, and they now bring to intel its one competition product but for the intel competitor.I see now no reason for Dell or other companies go for intel, because really intel had (has) the edge with integrated solutions.
A "part" I thought that there weren’t AMD IGP chipsets because it wasn’t possible to use the integrated memory controller for graphics, at least until AMD64 rev E0 came out?
If ati is going amd on pcie first, these shows that amd have the best processor and will continue for the time been. Even dothan can do much to turn it around again to intel side. And i bet that new p4 2mb is still with problems (performance, heat, …) and every one is running away from intel because already know this even intel, bringing dothan to the desktop market.