System setup and notes
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Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| Intel i945G System | Intel i955X Express System | MSI P4N Diamond System | EQS RADEON XPRESS 200 System | Athlon 64 S939 PCI-Express System |
| Processor(s) | Intel Pentium 4 660 | Intel Pentium 4 660 | Intel Pentium 4 660 | Intel Pentium 4 660 | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ |
| Mainboard | Intel D945GTP | Intel D955XBK | MSI P4N Diamond nForce4 SLI I.E. | EQS M55P9-MLF | ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 nForce4 |
| Memory | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS2-5400UL | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS2-5400UL | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS2-5400UL | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200XL | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200XL |
Memory timings | 3-2-2-8 @ DDR533 | 3-2-2-8 @ DDR533 | 3-2-2-8 @ DDR533 | Unknown | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 | | Graphics Card | ATI RADEON X850 XT PE - PEG16X - CATALYST 5.3 |
Disk Drives | 160GB WD IDE & 36GB SATA Raptor | | BIOS Version | NT94510J.86A.0897 | BK95510J.86A.1452.EB | BIOS 1 - 19/04/05 | BIOS 1-4M - 08/03/05 | BIOS 13 -25/04 05 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2 |
| Mainboard Software | Intel INF Update Utility 7.0.0.1019 | Intel INF Update Utility 7.0.0.1019 | nForce4 7.02 platform driver | ATI CATALYST IGP 5.5 | nForce 6.39 platform driver |
Benchmark Software
HEXUS.in-house Cryptography Benchmark
Pifast Benchmark
ScienceMark 2.0 (7th February 2005)
Realstorm Raytracing 2004
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
picCOLOR 32-bit v4.0
KribiBench v1.1
Microsoft Movie Maker 2.1
Simpli Software HDTach
3DMark2001SE b330
3DMark05 b1.2.0
DOOM 3 b1282
Far Cry v1.3
Notes
I'll be looking at the performance of the i945G chipset against Intel's own i955X Express, NVIDIA's nForce4 Intel Edition, and ATI's RADEON XPRESS 200 boards. Further, an nForce4 Ultra S939 board completes the lineup. Memory timings were set to 3-2-2-8 at DDR533. However, EQS' M55P9-MLF RADEON XPRESS 200 LGA775 board doesn't allow you to define its memory timings; it also run with DDR1 memory which was limited to DDR400 speeds. Further, the onboard GMA 950's performance will be compared to the M55P9-MLF XPRESS 200's.
The running speed of the boards was as follows:
3600.7MHz - EQS M55P9-MLF - RADEON XPRESS 200 - Intel Pentium 4 660
3600.2MHz - Intel D945GTP - Intel i945G - Intel Pentium 4 660
3600.2MHz - Intel i955XBK - Intel i955X Express -Intel Pentium 4 660
3599.4MHz - MSI P4N Diamond - nForce4 SLI I.E. - Intel Pentium 4 660
2411.2MHz - ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 - nForce4 Ultra - AMD Athlon 64 4000+
ASUS Installs Two PCI Express x16 Slots on i945P Platform (2005-05-16)