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.
The system setup for this test is identical to the setups we have been using on our nForce2 motherboard reviews. This way, we can get a good comparison on the numbers and see if VIA’s newest chipset can stand up to the test.While we didn’t use the Barton core Athlon XP 3000+ in this test, that is merely because we needed to get testing done on these KT400A boards very quickly, and so used multiple simultaneous testing stations. Having only a single 3000+ but many 2700+ processors, we used these.
Another note here is that we are testing a reference board from VIA, the first six off the production line to be correct! These boards are still in their beta phases and haven’t really had the time to be tweaked to there fullest or reach their potential yet. Just as with the release of the nForce2 chipset months ago, the retail boards that are released on a chipset almost always show marked gains over the initial reference design. Keeping that in mind, note that we are comparing the top of the nForce2 retail boards against the bottom (reference) board from the KT400A. While I can’t guarantee it, I’d bet on seeing even better results from KT400A motherboards from manufacturers like Abit and Asus.
System Setup
The system setup hasn’t changed from the other nForce2 motherboard reviews, so here you have our general setup for reviews:
| CPU | 1 x 2.17 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Processor |
| Motherboards |
KT400A – VIA KT400A Reference board nForce2 – Asus A7N8X KT400 – Abit AT7-MAX2 |
| Memory |
1 x 512MB Corsair Micro XMS3200 DDR DRAM – KT400 and KT400A 2 x 256MB Corsair Micro XMS3200 DDR DRAM – nForce2 |
| Hard Drive | 80 GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE |
| Video Card | ATI Radeon 9700 Pro |
| Video Drivers | 61.66 |
| Operating System | Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1 |
Tests:
Quake III: Arena
Unreal Tournament 2K3
3DMark 2001
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench
SiSoft Sandra CPU Bench
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Content Creation Winstone 2002
Business Winstone 2001
SPECviewperf 7
ScienceMark
