ASRock ConRoe945G-DVI: Core 2 Duo goes mATX
by Gary Key on September 1, 2006 5:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Application Performance
We decided to test a few real world applications that typically stress the CPU, memory, and storage systems to see if the results from our synthetic memory tests carry over to the desktop.
Our tasks include three activities that are common on the desktop. Our first test was to measure the time it takes to shrink the entire Office Space DVD that was extracted with AnyDVD into a single 4.5GB DVD image utilizing Nero Recode 2. Our second test utilizes WinRAR 3.6 and measures the time it takes to compress our test folder that contains 444 files, 10 folders, and has 602MB of data.
Our third test uses Exact Audio Copy as the front end for our version 3.98a3 of LAME. We set up EAC for variable bit rate encoding, burst mode for extraction, use external program for compression, and to start the external compressor upon extraction. (EAC will read the next track while LAME is working on the previous track, thus removing a potential bottleneck with the optical drive.) Our test CD is INXS Greatest Hits, which contains 16 tracks totaling 606MB of songs. The results of our tests are presented in minutes/seconds with lower numbers being better.
Our application test results mirror those of the synthetic results where the ASRock 945G scored well in both the buffered and unbuffered Sandra benchmarks along with the SuperPI 2M test. This chipset scored at the top of the DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 tests. You will want to run this board at either memory setting with low latency memory for best performance, but it will cost less to find DDR2-533 memory that can run at these settings with the memory voltage limitation. We believe the BIOS on this board is tuned better than the ASRock 945P board as in past testing we found the 945P to be a better performing chipset.
We decided to test a few real world applications that typically stress the CPU, memory, and storage systems to see if the results from our synthetic memory tests carry over to the desktop.
Our tasks include three activities that are common on the desktop. Our first test was to measure the time it takes to shrink the entire Office Space DVD that was extracted with AnyDVD into a single 4.5GB DVD image utilizing Nero Recode 2. Our second test utilizes WinRAR 3.6 and measures the time it takes to compress our test folder that contains 444 files, 10 folders, and has 602MB of data.
Our third test uses Exact Audio Copy as the front end for our version 3.98a3 of LAME. We set up EAC for variable bit rate encoding, burst mode for extraction, use external program for compression, and to start the external compressor upon extraction. (EAC will read the next track while LAME is working on the previous track, thus removing a potential bottleneck with the optical drive.) Our test CD is INXS Greatest Hits, which contains 16 tracks totaling 606MB of songs. The results of our tests are presented in minutes/seconds with lower numbers being better.
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| Click to enlarge |
Our application test results mirror those of the synthetic results where the ASRock 945G scored well in both the buffered and unbuffered Sandra benchmarks along with the SuperPI 2M test. This chipset scored at the top of the DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 tests. You will want to run this board at either memory setting with low latency memory for best performance, but it will cost less to find DDR2-533 memory that can run at these settings with the memory voltage limitation. We believe the BIOS on this board is tuned better than the ASRock 945P board as in past testing we found the 945P to be a better performing chipset.
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Gary Key - Friday, September 1, 2006 - link
We will go in-depth with power consumption and cooling opportunities in the upcoming mATX review that will include AM2 boards as well.esterhasz - Saturday, September 2, 2006 - link
great! can't wait!mino - Friday, September 1, 2006 - link
LOL, just posted a request for that down under, must learn to read :)Please try to include that K9AGM I asked for, or at least other RS485/SB600 combo board.
Consider the fact K9AGM is a part of the AMD CSIP program so this board is gonna bea round at least until Q4'07. It's not your average seasonal thing like most are.