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 |
|
Date |
:
Jul 24th, 2001 |
| Category |
:
Motherboards |
| Manufacturer |
:
ECS |
| Author |
:
Jin-Wei Tioh |
|
Let's put the K7AMA
to the test...
| Platform
Information |
| CPU/s |
AMD
Duron 800MHz |
| Motherboard |
ECS
K7AMA |
| Cooler |
ThermalTake
Mini Copper Orb |
| Interface
Material |
Arctic
Silver II |
| Memory |
2
x 128MB PC-150 CAS 3 (Kingmax)
1 x 256MB PC2100 CAS 2 DDR (Apacer)
|
| Hard
Drive |
Seagate
U10 10GB 5400rpm U-ATA 66 |
| CD-ROM
Drive |
AOpen
36x |
| Network |
RealTek
8139C (onboard) |
| Video
Card/s |
ABIT
Siluro MX400 64MB (default clock - 200/166) |
| Operating
System |
Windows
2000 Professional (Service Pack 2) |
| DirectX
Version |
8.0a |
| Video
Drivers |
4.13.01.1241
(ver 12.41) |
| Benchmarks |
ZDLabs
WinBench 99
SiSoft Sandra 2001te Professional
3DMark 2001 Pro
Quake III Arena (Retail) -
demo001 |
| Stability
Tests |
FreeBSD
4.3 - makeworld
StabilityTest
HotCPU Lite
3DMark 2001 Pro
Quake III Arena (Retail) -
demo001
|
For the results below (including both SDRAM and DDR-RAM), the K7AMA was run with standard parameters (ie. no
overclocking) at 800MHz (8 x 100 FSB), CAS 2.
| Testbed |
Benchmark
Results |
Methodology |
|
| Motherboard |
Crashes |
CPUMark
(WinBench 99) |
FPUMark
(WinBench 99) |
Memory
Benchmark
(Sandra 2001 Pro) |
3DMark
2001
(640x480x16) |
Quake
III Arena
(Normal) |
| ECS
K7AMA (ALiMAGiK 1 / 100MHz
/ SDRAM) |
64.6 |
4390 |
342
- ALU
366 - FPU |
2346 |
103.1 |
| AOpen AK73 Pro (A)-
null (KT133A / 100MHz) |
67.6 |
4390 |
391
- ALU
433 - FPU |
2854 |
120.3 |
| ECS
K7AMA (ALiMAGiK 1 / 100MHz
/ DDR-RAM) |
65.5 |
4390 |
375
- ALU
421 - FPU |
2430 |
109.07 |
| Testbed |
Stability
Results |
Methodology |
|
| Motherboard |
Crashes |
makeworld
(FreeBSD) |
Stability
Test |
HotCPU
Lite |
3DMark
2001
(640x480x16) |
Quake
III Arena
(Normal) |
| ECS
K7AMA (ALiMAGiK 1 / 100MHz
/ SDRAM) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| AOpen AK73 Pro (A) (KT133A /
100MHz) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| ECS
K7AMA (ALiMAGiK 1 / 100MHz
/ DDR-RAM) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
We were unable to perform any overclocking tests because the K7AMA is simply devoid of any means of overclocking. The AMI BIOS is rather bare with very little tweaking options, save the memory CAS and performance settings. No doubt there is an option
labeled "CPU PnP Setup", the settings are fully locked, not allowing the end-user to adjust the CPU clock multiplier, FSB speed (a jumper on the board sets it to either 100MHz or 133MHz), nor CPU core voltage. Initially, we thought it was just a bug in our sample. However, we discussed the matter with the folks from ECS and it was confirmed that the K7AMA was designed to do so.
The K7AMA is hurt by its low overclocking potential. If ECS had included more overclocking features, it would have greatly improved on its already very competent performance. Cost should not be an issue, as the K7AMA is already US$20 cheaper than the closest competitor. There are always two sides to a coin. The lack of overclocking features does make the K7AMA a more "secure" motherboard, suitable for deployment in a corporate / educational scenario, as the potential of a user buggering-up the system is significantly lowered.
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