Performance

In this section of our review we will discuss the performance of VIA KT400A chipset in MSI KT4A Ultra and SiS746FX in the reference mainboard from SiS. Our testbeds were configured as follows:

Now a few words about the testing methodology. At first I was going to compare the chipsets performance with PC2700 and PC3200. However, I had to give up the latter idea, for the reasons mentioned above, so with the PC3200 we will only have SiS746FX.

Anyway, the tests of SiS746FX reference mainboard also didn’t go that smoothly. The thing is that its BIOS contained a vast amount of memory timings settings. Moreover, the system didn’t always start when I set some timings from the available list, even if they looked pretty safe. That is why I gave up the idea to fine-tune the memory subsystem and set the fastest Ultra mode for PC2700 and one step slower Turbo mode for PC3200. As for the memory subsystem settings of the VIA KT400A based system, the timings were set to the minimum there. We also enabled 4-way interleaving and SDRAM 1T Command. Fast Command was set to Fast and Fast R-2 Turnaround – disabled.

Before we start discussing the actual results, have a look at two really cool screenshots below, which were taken when we set the bus frequency of the tested systems to 166MHz:

VIA KT400A

SiS746FX

As you see, both testing participants have slightly exaggerated the bus frequency and hence the processor frequency. To be fair, we have to say that MSI increased the frequency by only 1/3 MHz, while SiS raised it by almost 1.5MHz. These are the extraordinary ways of proving the superiority of the product.