Overclocking, RAID 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.

Overclocking on the Epox 8K3A+ motherboard was as easy as it gets. The bios of the motherboard offers options for nearly everything you can think of from the multiplier adjustments on processors to the various timings on your DDR memory. It was so successful at overclocking, that I chose to use this board in our PC3000 memory comparison, reaching FSB speeds of 200 MHz. But, that was with a special setup and unlocked processor. Using the same processor that we have used on the KT333 motherboards thus far, we were able to reach a FSB speed of 182 MHz, well above anything we have seen before! With the ability to tweak the memory settings to fit anyone’s style (be it higher FSB or faster memory settings), the Epox 8K3A series is a top choice.

The IDE RAID on the Epox 8K3A+ motherboard is powered by the HighPoint HPT 372 chipset, as I mentioned earlier. The bios that Epox has used on this version allows for RAID 0, 1 or 0+1 and even better, lets you use it for just a standard IDE channel for additional hard drives. This gives the user the best value for the extra cost of the plus version of the motherboard.

The system setup for the Epox 8K3A test was the same as the previous KT333 motherboard tests. Here it is:

Test System Setup
CPU 1 x 1.67 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Processor
Motherboards Epox 8K3A+
Soltek 75DRV5
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU
Abit KR7A-133R
Memory 2 x 256MB Corsair Micro PC2700 DDR DRAM
2 x 256MB Crucial PC2700 DDR DRAM
Hard Drive 20.5GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE
Video Card GeForce 3
Video Drivers Detonator 22.40
Operating System Windows XP

Tests:

Quake III: Arena
3DMark 2001
3DMark 2001: SE
Wolfenstein MP
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench 2001
SiSoft Sandra CPU Bench 2001
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench 2002
SiSoft Sandra CPU Bench 2002
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Content Creation Winstone 2002
Business Winstone 2001
4 different SPEC view perf tests
Cachemem
ScienceMark
Sysmark 2001

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