MSI KT3 Ultra2-BR
Stephen Cooper, August 26th, 2002
..:: Benchmarks ::..
Test System One: Asus A7V266-E (KT266A), AMD AthlonXP 1800+, 512Mb Corsair XMS3000, Gainward GeForce3 w/ 29.42 Drivers, 20GB IBM Deskstar 60GXP, VIA 4.40 4-in-1’s.
Test System Two: ECS K7VTA3 v3.1 (KT333), AMD AthlonXP 1800+, 512Mb Corsair XMS3000, Gainward GeForce3 w/ 29.42 Drivers, 20GB IBM Deskstar 60GXP, VIA 4.40 4-in-1’s.
Test System Three: MSI KT3 Ultra2-BR (KT333), AMD AthlonXP 1800+, 512Mb Corsair XMS3000, Gainward GeForce3 w/ 29.42 Drivers, 20GB IBM Deskstar 60GXP, VIA 4.40 4-in-1’s.
..:: SiSoft SANDRA ::..
Well, we’ll start off today’s tests with SiSoft’s SANDRA benchmarking utility. In the Arithmetic tests, the KT3 Ultra2 falls just barely shy of the A7V266-E for ALU performance, however comes out on top for the FPU performance. The Multimedia tests show the KT3 Ultra2 falling just short of the A7V266-E in performance levels, however it does succeed in beating out the K7VTA3. The Drive Index shows nothing new with the A7V266-E pulling ahead by a margin of 327 points over the K7VTA3, and 167 points ahead of the KT3 Ultra2. Lastly, we have the memory tests. Here we can see the real benefit of DDR333 memory versus the DDR266 that powers the A7V266-E. The K7VTA3 did post numbers slightly better than that of the A7V266-E, however here we can clearly see the performance difference between DDR266 and DDR333.
..:: SuperPI ::..
In the SuperPI tests, we run the program three times, once at 512,000, once at one million, and once at two million. The numbers in the graph above show the time in seconds that it took the system to calculate pi to the set number of digits. Here we see that the KT3 Ultra2 holds a nice lead over the competition in all of our tests. Here again we can see the performance benefit of a faster memory subsystem.
..:: SPECviewperf 6.1.2 ::..
Things are very close when it comes to the SPECviewperf 6.1.2 test. In all of the tests the margin is only fair or there very little difference between boards. I was rather surprised to see the KT3 Ultra2 fall behind in two of the tests, as can be seen with the MedMCAD and Awadvs_04 scores. The ProCDRS test shows all three boards coming in at 15.49, while the remaining tests show the KT3 Ultra2 on top where it should be. In the Light_04 test, the KT3 Ultra2 manages to break the 10.00 barrier and achieves a score of 10.21, our first AMD based motherboard to achieve this. Overall, SPECviewperf 6.1.2 brings a mixed bag of results.
..:: Cinebench 2000 ::..
Cinebench is another area where the KT3 Ultra2 shows its strength over the K7VTA3 and A7V266-E. Here the KT3 Ultra2 comes out on top in each test. It holds a 2.1% lead in the Cinema 4D test, a 2.5% lead in the OpenGL test, and a .6% lead in the Raytracing test. These aren’t sizeable differences in the least, but in a benchmark such as Cinebench 2000, even the smallest margin can mean a sizeable difference in overall system speed.
..:: MadOnion 3DMark2001 SE ::..
MadOnion’s 3DMark2001 SE is all in favor of the KT3 Ultra2. There is not one test that we ran in which the KT3 Ultra2 did not come out on top. Once again, we can really see the difference between the DDR266 and DDR333 performance. Our KT333 powered K7VTA3 could barely surpass the KT266A powered A7V266-E, however the KT3 Ultra2 holds a nice lead over both boards in each and every resolution. Overall the KT3 Ultra2 holds between a 5% to 7% performance lead over the nearest competition.
..:: Quake III Arena ::..
Our last test, Quake III Arena Demo 001 shows the KT3 Ultra2 once again giving a good pummeling to the competition, especially the K7VTA3 which is also powered by DDR333. This was one area where we were greatly disappointed with the K7VTA3’s performance, however with the KT3 Ultra2 there is not much left to desire. We ran these tests three times a piece to make sure performance levels were correct, and the above graph show who’s the Quake III boss between the boards. The KT3 Ultra2 holds an overall performance lead over the competition of 12.2% to 16.9% in the lower resolutions, and 2.8% to 7.8% in the higher resolutions.
Overall, the KT3 Ultra2 performs very nicely as far as benchmarks go. It can almost always maintain a lead over our KT266A based A7V266-E and KT333 based K7VTA3, however every now and again there will be one test where it will fall a little behind. I was not disappointed at all with the performance of the board, as it shows the difference between boards that use DDR333, and boards that actually use DDR333. If you don’t get what I mean by that statement, compare the K7VTA3 results to the KT3 Ultra2 results, and I think you’ll pick up on what I’m saying. Well, we’ve seen the board, the features, the BIOS, and the benchmarks, now it’s time to wrap it all up into a nice conclusion.
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