Athlon Boosters – Three AMD 760 Boards for DDR SDRAM – THG.RU

<!–#set var="article_header" value="Athlon Boosters –
Three AMD 760 Boards for DDR SDRAM” –>

Boost for DDR Technology: The AMD-760 Chipset

The fast-paced computer world shows the same scenario over and over again: What may be the latest thing today will be old news tomorrow. AMD’s 760 chipset, the first building block of the SocketA platform to finally support the highly anticipated DDR SDRAM memory, could experience this very fate.

AMD sees itself not as a chipset developer but as a pioneer in new memory technologies. Its core business continues to be defined very clearly. The manufacturer exclusively produces Athlon and Duron processors.

The chipset business is for the most part left to the Taiwanese manufacturers, ALi, SiS and VIA. And even though the Taiwanese chipsets have not quite been able to match AMD’s reference in the past, the manufacturer VIA has made its mark over the last year.

The AMD-760 chipset has been designed exclusively for the Socket462 platform. It can be used with AMD Athlon and AMD Duron CPUs.

Boost for DDR Technology: The AMD-760 Chipset, Continued

Basic set-up of the AMD-760 chipset.

* depending on clockgenerator

Comparing the new AMD chipset to the competition: Together, VIA and ALi hold the largest market share.

It is mainly because of VIA that the Socket462 platform for AMD processors can be found on so many motherboards. AMD’s success in the processor business could undoubtedly extend even further if the microprocessor maker decided to offer its own chipsets in larger quantities. Archenemy and rival Intel has been showing the way for years – only Intel chipsets use Intel processors to their full potential when it comes to performance. And there are almost no problems with defective driver support of deactivated functions, as still seen rather frequently with VIA chipsets.

Boost for DDR Technology: The AMD-760 Chipset, Continued

All of the three boards tested use the AMD 761 Northbridge. The building block offers not only DDR SDRAM support but also a front-side-bus with 133 MHz for the new Athlon CPUs.

The Southbridge VT82C686B, however, comes from VIA. It supports functions such as Ultra-DMA/100 and USB 4x.

In principle, the advantages of the new AMD-760 chipset can be explained very quickly: Compared to the predecessor 750 (Irongate), the newcomer offers DDR SDRAM support and 133 MHz front-side-bus. Not long ago, VIA closed the gap by introducing the KT133A chipset. The already rather successful KT133 building block was expanded with 133 MHz FSB (officially) – hence the name KT133A. The advantage left in using the AMD-760 is the DDR SDRAM support, but the VIA KT266 will support even this function in only a few weeks from now. To get an all-around picture of the qualities of the AMD-760, we have put the first three boards equipped with this chipset through extensive testing. It remains to be seen whether the VIA with its KT266 can keep up with the AMD-760 – especially in terms of performance.

The Asus A7M266 and the Biostar M7MIA are equipped with an AGP Pro slot. However, low-cost graphics cards which use this expanded functionality are not yet available.

Trio of Boards: Asus A7M266, Biostar M7MIA, Gigabyte GA-7DX

The three boards we tested have one thing in common: All three are equipped with the AMD-760 Northbridge (AMD 761B). The Southbridge used is the VIA chip VT82C686B, known from its use with the KT133A or 694X chipset. Board makers prefer this ‘mix’ over a pure AMD-AMD solution, because the VIA south bridge is supposed to cause less compatibility problems.

In regard to memory, Asus as well as Biostar and Gigabyte are showing limitations: Restricting the number of DIMM sockets to two limits possible RAM to 512 MB.

In addition, the Gigabyte GA-7DX and the Biostar M7MIA are equipped with a highpoint IDE chip, which is even able to function as RAID controller when used with the Biostar.

Asus A7M266: Variable RAM Voltage

Two major characteristics of the Asus A7M266 are the AGP Pro slot and the chipset’s Northbridge which is furnished with a fan.

A rare appearance: The Asus A7M266 is supposed to be only available to the OEM market. End users will probably not get to see this board in retail shops.

The Asus A7M266 is generously equipped: Its equipment with a sound chip, AGP Pro slot and Ethernet controller leave hardly any room for criticism. The board’s memory remains limited to 512 MB however, because the board manufacturer only allowed room for two memory slots.

There might be problems with the board design of the memory interface in general, as all three testing candidates prefer not to use more than two slots. One positive aspect to point out is that the Asus A7M266 offers the option of adjusting the voltage for the DDR memory modules. This allows aggressive memory timing while avoiding stability problems. We don’t know however, how well the DDR-memory takes an increased voltage over a longer period.

Biostar M7MIA: Additional RAID Controller

The Biostar M7MIA is furnished with an additional RAID controller allowing the connection of up to eight IDE peripherals with Ultra-DMA/100.

A view of the IDE connections of the Biostar M7MIA.

The most striking feature of the Biostar is the integrated RAID controller (Highpoint), which can be addressed using different methods. Although the performance of this board is quite satisfactory when compared to the other two testing candidates, it is still placed behind the Asus A7M266, but ahead of the Gigabyte GA-7DX. The Biostar board is also equipped with a CNR-slot, which is known to be pretty useless to end users, as corresponding peripherals are still not available.

Gigabyte GA-7DX: Typical OEM Board

The only representative in this review to be equipped with a normal AGP slot is the Gigabyte GA-7DX. All other candidates are furnished with an AGP Pro slot.

In this review, the Gigabyte GA-7DX keeps a low profile. Nothing exceptional can be said of its features; in a test run it goes through its paces without problems. Its performance is almost identical to that of the Biostar.

The front-side-bus can be adjusted rather variably between 100 MHz and 149 MHz. These adjustments, however, have only little significance in real life because the clock multiplier cannot be altered. All told, the Gigabyte board is a good solution for OEM manufacturers looking for a solid board to use with DDR SDRAM memory. No more, no less.

Overclocking is Taboo!

Asus A7M266’s mirage: The label indicating the individual settings for the clock multiplier means absolutely nothing. The board does not permit alteration of Athlon’s clock multiplier – the required switches have not been integrated into the board.

Overclocking enthusiasts who refrain from soldering-work might as well forget about using these boards. None of the tested boards offered the possibility of modifying the clock multiplier. You can only overclock the processor slightly by increasing the front-side-bus, thus also changing the memory, PCI and AGP clock.

Test Setup

To enable a comparison with conventional SDRAM memory as well, we have added the Asus A7V133 to the three candidates tested. As with the previous tests of the K133 boards, we used testing platforms with identical components. Only the processor was different – we chose a faster unit with AMD Athlon 1200.

Office Performance: BAPCo Sysmark 2000

The results of the Sysmark 2000 were surprisingly low. The Asus A7V133, which is based on the SDRAM-only chipset VIA KT133A, is just as fast as the three candidates with the AMD-760 chipset and DDR SDRAM memory. We consider this as rather unusual, since previous result showed the AMD760 in a considerably better light and with considerably higher scores.

3D Game Performance: Quake 3 Arena

Using Quake 3 Arena, the classic 3D game benchmark, however, produces entirely different results: The Asus A7V133, based on the VIA KT-133A chipset and limited to conventional SDRAM memory clearly falls behind the three candidates equipped with the AMD chipset. The difference in performance is close to 10 percent, which should delight 3D gamers. The Asus A7M266 is the fastest of these three boards with AMD chipset by a small margin.

MPEG 4 Encoding: Flask Mpeg

The difference is even greater when running Flask Mpeg for MPEG 4 encoding. Here, the DDR memory shows the greatest advantage over conventional SDRAM memory in speed. The front-runner is the Asus A7M266 with more than 16 frames per second, while the board equipped with the KT133A chipset falls behind with only 13.8 frames per second.

OpenGL Performance: SPECviewperf 6.1.2

The following six benchmark graphics show the results of the three tested boards in synergy with the SPECviewperf benchmark. All tests yielded relatively high results because a very powerful graphics card (Elsa Gloria III) was used.

Advanced Visualizer

The Asus A7M266 is the fastest board with the Awadvs-04 benchmark.

Design Review

Review of the DRV-07 design produces a similar situation: The Asus A7M266 is superior to all of the other test candidates.

Data Explorer

The Data Explorer benchmark almost results in a draw. All candidates reach nearly 19 frames per second.

Lightscape

The results of the Lightscape test also show only slight differences.

MedMCAD

The differences in the MedMCAD test with OpenGL loaded are minimal.

ProCDRS

With the ProCDRS benchmark, the board with SDRAM memory falls somewhat behind its competition, the AMD-760 with DDR SDRAM memory.

Voltage Converters: Asus the Economizer

This picture shows a bus controller with four switch transistors. This is Asus A7M266’s two-phase-controller.

This picture shows a bus controller with six switch transistors. This is Gigabyte GA-7DX’s three-phase-controller.

When you compare the three candidates’ bus controllers, you will notice a serious difference: Asus A7M266 is equipped with a less elaborate two-phase-controller while Gigabyte and Biostar rely on a three-phase-controller. The advantages of a three-phase-controller lie in the significantly lower heat production at high voltages.

DDR-SDRAM Pricier than SDRAM

Conventional SDRAM memory in comparison to the modern DDR SDRAM memory: The first deals with PC-133 memory while the DDR module is specified according to PC-266.

One thing must be said: DDR SDRAM memory is about twice as expensive as conventional SDRAM memory. When comparing the current prices of memory modules, we get the following results: While 128 MB of good-quality PC133 CL2 SDRAM memory cost about $50-60, you are charged about $120 for 128 MB of PC2100 CL2.5 DDR SDRAM. This 100% price premium is not reflected by the average 10% performance gain seen with DDR-SDRAM.

However, once you look at the cost of the complete system, the price difference between the two memory types (in case of 128 MB it’s currently about $60) has a rather small impact on overall system costs. We also expect that DDR-SDRAM prices will drop in the near future.

Conclusion

The benchmark results show up to 10% of speed increase over comparable SDRAM solutions. The differences are even more noticeable during MPEG 4 encoding: The program Flask Mpeg encodes the test sequence using AMD-760 boards approximately 15% faster than the boards with KT133A chipset and SDRAM memory.

The ten percent of speed increase come at a price however. DDR modules currently cost about twice as much as normal SDRAM memory. We hope that the prices for the new memory chip will fall significantly, because more and more chipsets and systems with DDR support are becoming available on the market. The expected costs of only 30% over SDRAM have not been met yet.

The future of AMD’s 760 chipset remains unclear. Other chipset makers like ALi and VIA are ready to supply the market with large production capacities of their (so far inferior looking) DDR-solutions. Unfortunately the quality of Taiwanese chipsets has not reached the standard of AMD chipsets. In one respect, AMD has been unbeatable: Memory performance.