Benchmarking
Setup
Hardware
| CPU(s) |
Intel
Pentium III (B-step) @ 1200 MHz |
| Heatsink
& Fan |
Fortis |
| Motherboard(s) |
Tyan Tomcat
i815T |
| Memory |
128 MB PC133 |
| Hard
Drive(s) |
Quantum
40 GB ATA100
|
|
CD-ROM |
EPO
50x, 10x DVD |
| Sound
Card |
Creative
Soundblaster Live X-Gamer |
| Video
Card |
X-Micro
Impact 4 Pro (GeForce 2 Pro) |
Software
| Operating
System |
Windows
2000 SP2 |
| Video
/ VIA Drivers |
nVIdia 21.83 final release |
| |
Benchmarking
Applications |
| OpenGL |
Quake
III Arena |
| DirectX |
Microsoft
DirectX 8.1 |
| Other |
Madonion
3DMark 2000 v1.1, 3D Mark 2001, SiSoft Sandra 2K1 Pro |
Intel
was very nice to us and sent a Pentium III B-step CPU to the tune of 1200 MHz.
One new notable change is that I am now using Windows 2000 for my testing. This
means that my results won't be directly comparable although we shouldn't see tremendous
differences when comparing to WinME. Why the change? I was fed up with all the
lockups and problems I was having with WinME but I'm not quite ready for WinXP's
oppressive registration process. I may change my hardware configuration several
times in a week so I can't afford to have a license run out with WinXP.
The
Tualatin Pentium III processors run with a FSB of 133 MHz. At 0.13 micron architecture
we expect good overclocking results with this CPU as well as less heat production.
Temperature is the biggest factor in CPU reliability so we hope that over the
long term this is a good platform.
I
had originally thought I would compare the Tomcat to the Soltek SL-75DRV. The
Soltek board offers a VIA chipset, and more importantly, DDR memory. That would
certainly slant things towards the Soltek board. Instead I am comparing the Tomcat
with the Soltek SL-75KAV which is a PC133 based solution. With both systems running
CPUs clocked at 1200 MHz it should lead to an interesting comparison. 
