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Date |
: Apr 24th, 2002 |
| Category |
: Motherboards |
| Manufacturer |
: AOpen |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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Since our last motherboard review, we have updated our test suite. Let's see how the AX4B Pro fares...
| Platform
Information |
| CPU/s |
Intel
Pentium 4 1.7GHz |
| Motherboard |
AOpen
AX4B Pro |
| Cooler |
Intel
Retail HSF |
| Interface
Material |
Arctic
Silver II |
| Memory |
1 x 256MB PC2100 CAS 2 DDR (Apacer)
|
| Hard
Drive |
Seagate
U10 10GB 5400rpm U-ATA 66 |
| CD-ROM
Drive |
AOpen
36x |
| Network |
RealTek
8139A |
| Video
Card/s |
ABIT
Siluro MX400 64MB (default clock - 200/166) |
| Operating
System |
Windows
2000 Professional (Service Pack 2) |
| DirectX
Version |
8.1 |
| Video
Drivers |
6.13.10.2311
(ver 23.11) |
| Benchmarks |
ZDLabs
WinBench 99
SiSoft Sandra 2001te Professional
3DMark 2001SE Pro
Quake III Arena (Retail) -
demo001 |
| Stability Tests |
FreeBSD
4.5 - makeworld -j4
StabilityTest + HotCPU Lite
Ultra-X RAM Stress Test
3DMark 2001SE Pro
Quake III Arena (Retail) - demo001
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For the results below, the AX4B Pro was run with standard parameters (ie. no overclocking) at 1.7GHz (17 x 100 FSB), CAS 2. Please note however, that you shouldn't compare the results obtained here to rate a Socket-A motherboard and vice versa.
| Motherboard |
Benchmarks |
CPUMark
(WinBench 99) |
FPUMark
(WinBench 99) |
Memory
Benchmark
(Sandra 2001 Pro) |
3DMark
2001
(640x480x16) |
Quake
III Arena
(Normal) |
| AOpen AX4B Pro (i845 / 100 MHz / DDR-SDRAM) |
105 |
5800 |
1028 - ALU
1078 - FPU |
5010 |
173.9 |
| MSI 845 Ultra-ARU (i845 / 100 MHz / DDR-SDRAM) |
104 |
5800 |
1125
- ALU
1150 - FPU |
4938 |
179.4 |
| Motherboard |
Crashes |
makeworld -j4
(FreeBSD) |
Stability Test
+
HotCPU Lite
|
RAM Stress Test |
3DMark 2001
(640x480x16) |
Quake III Arena
(Normal) |
| AOpen AX4B Pro (i845 / 100MHz / DDR-SDRAM) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| MSI 845 Ultra-ARU (i845 / 100MHz / DDR-SDRAM) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
In addition to tests using standard parameters, we performed overclocking tests to ascertain the highest FSB speeds the system could sustain. We started by setting the CPU to run at 17 x 100MHz FSB and verified its stability via informal testing. The FSB is gradually increased, and stability is tested using Ultra-X's RAM Stress Test, Stability Test and HotCPU. All tests were done BIOS default memory settings with the CAS latency set to 2.5, to minimize the chances that the RAM was the limiting factor.
While the clock generator on the AX4B Pro is capable of cranking out 248MHz, we reached the stability limit at 128MHz with the processor running at 2.17GHz. This is already pretty good considering the Pentium 4's bus is quad-pumped, ie. a 28MHz FSB increase results in a 112MHz increase.
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