Test Setup

Abit NF7-M nForce 2: Athlon XP 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TWINX, Swiftech H20-8500, ATi AiW 9700 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, Catalyst 3.4.

Abit NF7-M nForce 2: Athlon XP 2400+, 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TWINX, Swiftech H20-8500, ATi AiW 9700 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, Catalyst 3.4.

Test software will be:

SiSoft Sandra 2003
PC Mark 2002
PiFast
Unreal Tournament 2003 CPU Tests
Quake 3: Arena
Jedi Knight 2

The comparison CPU will be a TBred 2400+. Tests will be run with both CPUs at stock speeds to see if the extra 100PR points the 2500+ has over the 2400+ is deserving. We will also be running the 2500+ @ 15x133, to match the 2400+ clock speed. Finally, both CPUs will be evenly matched at 2GHz, running 12x166.

 

SiSoftware Sandra 2003

Although a synthetic benchmark, it's a popular one, freely available if you wish to make comparison benchmarks. We will be testing the CPU, and MMX speeds.

CPU Arithmetic Benchmark

CPU Multimedia Benchmark

It would appear that the extra 256KB of cache is giving the Barton a nice boost over the TBred. It isn't anything big though, but the improvement is there. Part of the reason is SiSoft is clock speed dependant, but it isn't enough for the 2400+ to catch up. This gap is more evident when we match the clock speeds, and we can see the Barton really pull away.

PC Mark 2002

As with the SiSoft scores, our PC Mark scores follow a similar trend. Nonetheless, the Barton does show that the extra 100PR is justified.

PiFast

A good indicator of real world CPU/Motherboard performance is PiFast version 4.2. We used a computation of 10000000 digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory.

Again, pretty close across the board. The Barton continues to lead the way, but the reality is, there is only a 2 second improvement on average, clock speeds being equal.

Unreal Tournament 2003

We used the scripts written by , which are excellent tools in testing various resolutions and detail levels. We selected the CPU test.

Here, things get a little clearer. Even at a lower clock speed, the 2500+ manages a 24fps improvement over the 2400+ at stock speeds, and a 17fps improvement when the 2400+ is pushed to a 166FSB.

Quake 3 Arena, 640x480 - Fastest

As with UT2003, we see similar performance scales with Quake 3. You'll notice here, as well as with the last and upcoming benchmarks that performance is best served with a faster bus.

Jedi Knight 2, 640x480 - Fastest

It's looking like the Barton is living up to its performance rating, and is showing the 2400+ that its time has past. JKII is a little more CPU dependent than Q3, and it shows here that the 2400+ is having some trouble keeping up.

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