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, MMX, and memory speeds.

CPU Arithmetic Benchmark

CPU Multimedia Benchmark

As expected there is hardly any difference in the K7N2 Delta-ILSR and the ABIT NF7-S, since they are both based on the same chipset. But you can really see the MSI board flex its muscles when overclocked, putting in some impressive numbers.

Memory Benchmark

Memory scores show something interesting. The MSI board pulls just in front of the ABIT NF7-S although in real world terms you wont notice the difference. Once again at 10.5x219, the K7N2 Delta-ILSR puts in some fantastic numbers.

PC Mark 2002

No real surprises here, both boards are neck and neck until we 'free the reins' as it were and overclock the MSI board.

PiFast

A good indicator of CPU/Motherboard performance is version 4.2, by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000 digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory. Note that lower scores are better.

Lower is better

Here we can see something interesting in that the ABIT NF7-S is left behind somewhat. PiFast is said to be very memory intensive, and going by the scores here it would seem that the MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR has a slight advantage over the ABIT board. Of course, in the real world mileage is going to vary.

TMPGEnc MPEG Encoding

Video editing is a taxing chore, and we'll be testing the K7N2 Delta-ILSR using TMPGEnc 2.512 to encode a 7.78MB, 1:30 movie trailer to a 23FPS MPG file. You can grab a screenshot of our settings here. Note that lower scores are better.

Lower is better

Both boards perform on par with one another which is to be expected, and this test really shows the power of a high FSB coupled with Dual Channel memory.

Unreal Tournament 2003

UT2K3 is a real system killer, and can bring many systems to its knees. We used the [H]ardocp UT2003 Benchmarking utility version 2.1, which are excellent tools in testing various resolutions and detail levels. We selected the CPU test, which uses the dm-inferno map.

Once again both boards put in good numbers and once again they are neck and neck until the K7N2 Delta-ILSR is overclocked. Nothing surprising here.

Quake 3 Arena, 640x480

It's getting old, I know, but Quake 3 is still a decent benchmark for almost anything. For motherboards and CPUs, we run at the lowest settings and fire away.

No surprises here

Jedi Knight 2, 640x480

Jedi Knight II stresses the system more than Quake III Arena but the nForce 2 400 Ultra chipset is more than up to the task. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, both boards are neck and neck.

3D Mark 2003

We're still up in the air about 3D Mark 2003 here at VL and I for one don't particularly trust what it tells me. But it is useful for the CPU tests.

Again no surprises here. Both the NF7-S and the K7N2 Delta are on par with each other, neither one having a great advantage over the other. And once again when overclocked the scores take a healthy boost.