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  • dariush - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    For Gaming, AMD is better but not all computer users are gamer, When Talking about about video encoding and stability (must important in critical cases) you see Intel says the last words.
  • Wesley Fink - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    #32 - I would sincerely appreciate your reading the review before posting comments. Overclocking is covered on p.3 - which is actually titled "Overclocking and Stress Testing".

    Second, this is a First Look which is less detailed that a full review - the idea is to bring you more reviews quicker. We used to include a page explaining this, but I removed it this go-round because I assumed the idea was well-known by now. It appears I was should have kept the explanation page in the review.

    Third, First Look uses PCMark2004 as a General Performance comparison. However, as I stated in Comment #18 the complete Winstones and media encoding do not provide additional information. However, they are already posted in Comment #18 and I'll repeat them:
    "We did run a full suite of benchmarks for future comparisons, but nothing really changes.

    925XE/3.46EE - 925X/3.6E - nF4/FX55 - Benchmark
    34.1 - 34.4 - 39.3 - MM Content Creation 04
    26.7 - 26.5 - 31.1 - Business Winstone 04
    73.1 - 73.4 - 69.1 - AutoGK DivX 5.1.1".

    Fourth, we use a standard setup to allow easier comparisons. Where standard 1024x768 benchmarks are CPU or GPU bound we do use AA and/or higher resolutions to allow valid comparions of motherboard performance. For example Comanche 4 is run at 1280x1024 with 4X AA because 1024x768 without AA reveals nothing about true performance. The "Score" bench for Aquamark 3 uses 4AA by default. We run the newest games at highest settings as detailed in the chart descriptions.
  • T8000 - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    If you talk about enthousiast options, overclocking is usually one of them. Still, no single overclocked CPU was included in the benchmarks.

    There was also no mention about the 925XE containing more options to keep PCI-E within spec during overclocking.

    Besides, there where only gaming benchmarks with high end GPU's running at 1024x768 with no AA or AF, thus creating an unlikely scenario with performance numbers that do not reflect real world performance differences, even for those who just play games.

    Who would even consider buying a $500 GF6800U to play only at settings that a $200 GF6600GT does with ease?
  • danidentity - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link

    #28 - The Dolby Digital Live encoding on this board is functionally the same as SoundStorm on the NF2 boards. No PCI sound cards currently support Dolby Digital Live.
  • cALIx - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link

    Not to change the subject, but in this review, Doom 3 is listed as a dx9 game. Isnt D3 an opengl based game? If you open the console you can easily see all the gl_ extensions that are open. Also Hardocp always lists D3 as an opengl game when they benchmark with it. So I'm just wondering if someone could clear that up for me. I understand what they are individually, but i'm still confused as to how they work/dont work together...
  • LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link

    Ouch...my brand new $140 MSI K8N Neo 2 mainboard and I feel sorry for those who choose to shell $250-300 for this board. Not that it's a bad piece of hardware, not that Intel's high-end P4 chips are bad hardware either...but you can do better for far less money, so why would you pay this kind of cash? Especially when you could balance out your system with the money you've saved by upping your graphics card or opting for more RAM or a faster hard disk. Guess I'm just someone who doesn't see the point in buying a Jaguar when an Acura RSX-S would do what I want for less.
  • tc2k04 - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link

    I know i'm late, but,
    Did anybody else notice the talk about the audio solution, is this encoding comparable to the output of nforce2 boards? they say its a first for on the motherboard audio, can you buy seperate pci cards at reasonable prices which can do this?

    i'm trying to get a sound solution that can output 2 channel audio in 5.1 through a digital out like my nforce2 onboard does. If this can do this, i might end up buying an intel.
  • Googer - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link

    Intel's engineering DEPT takes orders From queer mac using Marketers.
  • Googer - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link

    #3 it works. I have done it. Super7 is like a Swiss Army Knife.
  • TrogdorJW - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Hey Wes,

    Any chance of some OC tests and numbers from a standard Prescott core?
    I'm wondering if a 2.8E has the potential to reach a 1066 FSB overclock.
    (I'm also including hard returns due to the overly long link someone posted.)
    As the 2MB cache alleviates some of the pressures of the FSB, a 1MB cache might benefit more.
    Besides, if a 2.8E could actually OC well to 3.73 GHz and a 1066 FSB, that might be worthwhile!
  • mkruer - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    I love Intel’s comment a while back when they stated that their version of dual core would be better because it “shares resource” between the cores.
  • Monkeydonutstick - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    #22 can you not read?
  • classy - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    LOL Dothan. Unless you can oc that bad boy extremely it will get crushed by an A64. It does better at gaming than desktop Intel chips, but performs poorly at rendering and the like. Stop with Pentium M Dothan nonsense. And by the way, the motherboards are priced in server board territory. Lets OC an Athlon 64 platform and see the scorching the Dothan will get.
  • Monkeydonutstick - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=nav...
  • ariafrost - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    But Dothan doesn't scale up to high clock speeds and won't compete directly with Athlon 64 procs...
  • Monkeydonutstick - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Try Dothan with a faster bus. preliminary benchmarks show a clock for clock intel advantage
  • Wesley Fink - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    #17 - This is a First Look review and not a full motherboard review. As we explained when we launched First Look, we will use that format to bring more motherboard reviews more quickly to AnandTech readers. PCMark 04 is used to provide a braod General Performance comparison that includes media encoding in the benchmark.

    We did run a full suite of benchmarks for future comparisons, but nothing really changes.

    925XE/3.46EE - 925X/3.6E - nF4/FX55 - Benchmark
    34.1 - 34.4 - 39.3 - MM Content Creation 04
    26.7 - 26.5 - 31.1 - Business Winstone 04
    73.1 - 73.4 - 69.1 - AutoGK DivX 5.1.1
  • danidentity - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    #13 - Ugh, Intel's answer is EM64T, which is functionally identical to AMD64 and is fully compatible with it. CPUs supporting it will be on sale before WinXP-64 is released.

    About the review, WHY do you have a ton of gaming benchmarks and only a single solitary non-gaming benchmark. Do you think the people who read your reviews do nothing but play games? I'd like to see an equal number of non-gaming benchmarks. Content creation, business apps, encoding, etc.

    Also, why didn't you test an 800MHz FSB CPU in this board? The overclocking potential is much better because of the 1066MHz FSB support.
  • smn198 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    No. I didn't have a pre-production 50MHz CPU ;)

    I meant 550MHz
  • smn198 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Haven't bought an Intel CPU since I had my K7 50Mhz a long time ago but I really did like my PII 233 @ 350. I'd switch back to Intel in an instant if they offered better price:performance.
  • ceefka - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    oh yeah and of course EE, 1-2MB caches.
  • ceefka - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    #12 Makes you wonder why Asus would go through their trouble ;-) The 1394b is nice of course, but not with a CPU like that. If a boost in FSB isn't doing it for Intel, then what will?

    #8 I have been wondering about Intel's answer to AMD64 since it came out. There's no (real) answer still, but we've seen Prescott, 1066 FSB, DDR2, BTX and 3.8GHz. They're missing a key element to improve performance and it's not been in the above.
  • jimmy43 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    This is depressing...I honestly dont see the point of any of these intel reviews, its like their purpose is to remind us occasionaly about that other company that makes cpus, what was their name? OH RIGHT! Intel
  • Aikouka - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    It's nice to see ASUS whomp on the sell-out and his fancy little board ;). But I think the Gigabyte NF4 board Anandtech showed a little bit ago may either win or tie in features. The Gigabyte board does lack an awesome sound codec, though.

    Maybe nVidia will be the saving grace of Intel like it was for AMD back in the nForce 2 days. We certainly know VIA wasn't helping to raise performance by a lot :P.
  • j@cko - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Obviously, Intel didn't learn from it's previous lessons..
  • j@cko - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Moving to new standard is a rather old trick from Intel. If you look back at Pentium III with PC1333 in which involved VIA's PC133 and INtel's RAMBUS...

    Now, Intel is doing it again... While cannot beat AMD with its DDR, they move on to DDR II...
  • overclockingoodness - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    It is being speculated that dual-core from Intel and AMD will bring them closer in performance, but until then Intel is in deep waters. Seriously, what was the world's largest chip maker thinking by moving to newer standards so suddenly?

    While Intel is facing some serious loses right now, I have a feeling that Intel may get the last laugh in a couple years when it is back in lead. By that time, all these technologies will mature and slowly start to spread out in the market. AMD is moving to PCIe soon so that's good news, but what about DDR2?

    Ah well, it's a constant debate that will never settle. :)
  • Bozo Galora - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Intel has checkmated itself.
    They have no options - except dual core.
  • robbase29a - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    So Mr. Fink, did you say that you can put an intel 560 in this and it would still work, and probably work better than in a 925x motherboard? I would like to see those numbers along with some overclocking numbers too.
  • bob661 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Oh, one more thing. Let the flaming begin!!!!!
  • bob661 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    #3
    Fiiiiiiirrrrreeeeeee!!!!
  • carl0ski - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    who knows why anyone will buy a state of the art product for $1000
    but people do.

    at this stage though i would rather spend $300 on a comparable AMD. then the Intel product benched.

    or my pet project
    intel pentium 75 MHZ on a Asus Super socket 7 board overclock setting of upto 133mhz
    and a stick of pc133 ram
    i wonder what would happen
  • MAME - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    #1: Although you're obviously biased, AMD does hold a certain advantage over Intel in the gaming field.
  • Beenthere - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link

    Someone would HAVE to be a damn fool to buy Intel products at this point in the game... especially a $1000 piece of crap that gets blown away by a $140 A64 3000+ CPU. If someone is that dumb, send me all of you're money and I'll send you an A64 system with a ignorant "Intel Inside" sticker on the case and you'll think you have the faster Pig 4 on the face of the Earth!

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