Overclocking and System Setup
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
If there existed a place where the nForce reference board was lacking, it was in the field of overclocking. There simply weren’t any options for this, as I fully expected. After speaking with my NVIDIA rep, I was able to get out of him that the manufacturer’s had plans to offer all the overclocking options that you are used to seeing on other motherboards, including Vcore, front-side bus, multipliers and more. The decision on whether or not to include these options will remain up to the discretion of the board manufacturers, but based on recent signs, I would expect them to be available on most models.The system setup for these tests was very similar to those seen in the previous reviews of the KT266A chipset boards such as the Shuttle AK31 Rev3 and the Epox 8KHA+. There are couple slight differences though, so pay attention!
Most importantly is the use of a new set of NVIDIA Detonator drivers. This is the first time I decided to use the Detonator XP drivers, version 22.40. In doing, so I had to retest the equipment that I was going to compare the nForce board to, and I chose the Shuttle AK31 Rev3 board to be the competition. The numbers that the 22.40 Detonator drivers gave were just so much higher than my previous version, I couldn’t see displaying the power of both the nForce and KT266A chipsets any other way.
And again, I am using the new Windows XP operating system, officially released on October 25th, for the test operating system.
Also note that I decided to test both the integrated GeForce2 graphics on the nForce board as well as using the GeForce 3 card that has been consistent here at Amdmb.com for a while. Here is the final setup:
| CPU | 1 x 1.53 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+ Processor |
| Motherboards |
NVIDIA nForce Reference Board Shuttle AK31 Rev3 |
| Memory |
1 x 256MB TwinMOS PC2100 DDR DRAM 2 x 128 MB Corsair XMS2400 DDR DRAM |
| Hard Drive | 20.5GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE |
| Video Card |
GeForce 3 Integrated GeForce2 (on nForce board) |
| Video Drivers | Detonator XP 22.40 |
| Operating System | Windows XP |
Tests:
Quake III: Arena
3DMark 2001
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench
SiSoft Sandra CPU Bench
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Business Winstone 2001
4 different SPEC view perf tests
Cachemem
ScienceMark
Sysmark 2001
DronezMark
Wolfenstein MP
