Sorry I haven't posted sooner but I've been having too much fun with this board
.
Here's some preliminary benches/observations. The only comparison I have are with performance figures from my previous P4 board, the SIS648 chipset Gigabyte 8SG667.
The first set of numbers are from the 648 mb at stock speeds (fsb @ 133 or 4x133=533) with mem set at 400mhz and timings of 23336T.
Second set are the GB boards at stock speed of 133 (533) fsb with mem at 266 and timings of 2,3,3,3, 6T.
Third set are GB with moderate o/c of 155 (620) with mem at 310 and timings of 2,3,3,3,6T. I selected that fsb speed because that's from a b0 stepped 2.53 running at 2948mhz on
STOCK VOLTAGE. Yeah...that's right. Stock! I was able to get it over 3.0gig but had to up the vcore to 1.55v but 3dm2k1 crashed half way thru. I'll get it to run later with more tweaks
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First off, 3DMark 2001se:
648: 12447
GB: 12351
GB o/c: 13587
PC Mark 2002
648: CPU=6970 MEM=6269 HDD=897
GB: CPU=6967 MEM=6280 HDD=911
GB o/c: CPU=7103 MEM=7103 HDD=1133
Sandra Pro 2003
Memory
648: Int. buf.=2946 Floating buf.=2947
GB: " " 3268 " " 3260
GB o/c: " 3832 " " 3814
CPU Arithmetic
648: Drystone ALU=6848 Whetstone FPU=3306
GB: " " 6487 " " 3265
GB o/c: " " 7891 " " 3811
Multi Media
648: Int= 10100 FPU=12876
GB: " 9419 " 12660
GB o/c: 11011 " 14800
As you can see, the SIS 648 board is slightly faster at stock speeds and 400mhz ddr ram but with a mild overclock, the Granite Bay board really shines as mentioned in numerous reviews. The "sweet spot" for my system so far appears to be @ 155fsb at stock voltage. Idle temps are 42C with load temps at 52C. Ambient temp's 78F. I'm using an AVC Sunflower and AS III. I have 3 92mm Sunon case fans in my side panel (throw back form my AMD days) hooked up to a manual rheostat switch and these were off during testing.
So far, I've run 3dm2k1 in an infinte loop for 9 hrs. (over 1000 tests) with out any lockups or crashes or temps exceeding 52C. This is proving to be a rock solid, stable board. Does the DPM make a difference? I dunno.. Looks cool tho...lol.
Now for the squawkes.
I occasionally get a very slight, split second stutter. It can appear as a mouse hang, a slight stutter in my racing sim game or 3dm2k1. I use "End it All" to shut down backround processes but by no means does it shut down the vast majority that I have no idea what they do under XP Pro. It maybe a driver issue since this doesn't happen in safe mode.
I was annoyed that there wasn't a floppy containing the RAID drivers included with the bundle. That turned into a real pain in the ass to setup.
Sometimes it takes twice as long to boot into Windows. Again, could be a driver issue. I plan on doing a system restore and investigate this issue further.
Bottom line. Was it worth the $249.00? Well, if your an enthusiast like me....Hell Yes
I wanted this board for the features and if your an occasional overclocker, this board f'n rocks!
So much for my half ass'd review
Btw, where can I find that UT and Winzip 8.1 benchmark program.
You guys have a good New Year.
Be safe
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