X-bit labs

VIA PT880 Preview: Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL Mainboard in Our Lab (page 6)

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 09/09/2003 | 12:14 PM ]

Testbed and Methods

The goal of this test is to check the performance level of a mainboard that uses the VIA PT880 chipset. Besides Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL, we include several other mainboards that feature different chipsets – immediate competitors of PT880 in the market. Overall, this test may be viewed as a comparison of current chipsets that support processors with the 800MHz FSB and Hyper-Threading technology. The testbed configuration was as follows:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz CPU;
• ABIT IC7-MAX3 (Intel 875P), ASUS P4P800 (Intel 865PE), ASUS P4P800S (Intel 848P), ASUS P4PE (Intel 845PE), SiS648FX-based reference board, a reference board on VIA PT800 and Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL (VIA PT880);
• 2x256MB DDR400 SDRAM from Corsair with 2-2-2-5 timings. The mainboards with dual-channel chipsets were tested in the dual-channel mode;
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 graphics card with Detonator 45.23;
• Seagate Barracuda ATA IV HDD, 80GB.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have an opportunity to benchmark the Soltek mainboard with QBM533 memory. Such modules are yet unavailable.

The testbed ran under control of Microsoft Windows XP SP1. The BIOSes of the mainboards were set to maximum performance.

Performance

Before going over to real-life applications, let’s try Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL in synthetic benchmarks. Our traditional tool for measuring the memory subsystem performance is Cachemem.

As you see, Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL shows quite acceptable results. The PT880-based mainboard seems to be at ease in the company of i865PE and i875P.

Let’s see what we have in other synthetic benchmarks.

Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL runs faster than i875P and i865-based mainboards in SiSoft Sandra 2003! This is good news for VIA – the company’s first dual-channel chipset is a highly competitive product.

The memory test from PCMark2002 is not as favorable to the PT880-based mainboard as Sandra 2003. Anyway, Soltek SL-86SPV2-RL is closely following the mainboards based on Intel’s dual-channel chipsets.