Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Special > Miscellaneous > Quick and Quiet: Pentium M Desktop Boards by AOpen and DFI

Test Setup

06:00 - Friday 24 December 2004 by Patrick Schmid

Processor
Socket 479	Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0 GHz, 2 MB Cache, FSB400)
Socket 939	AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0 GHz, 128/512 kB Cache) 90 nm Winchester Core
Motherboards
Motherboard I	DFI 855GME-MGF
Motherboard II	AOpen i855GMEm-LFS
Motherboard III	MSI K8N Neo2
System Components
DDR-SDRAM	2x 512 MB PC3200 Crucial Ballistix Timings: CL 2.0-2-2-5
Graphics Card I	ATI Radeon X800 PRO
Graphics Card II	Onboard, 32 MB
HDD	Western Digital WD800JB 7,200 rpm, 8 MB Cache
Controller	ICH4M
Software
Intel Chipset	Intel Chipset Installation Utility 5.1.1.1002
NVIDIA Chipset	ForceWare 5.10
ATI Graphics	Catalyst Ver. 8-071-041026a
Intel Grapics	Intel Graphics Driver Ver. 14.9
DirectX	9.0c
OS	Windows XP Professional, Build 2600, Service Pack 1

We did not bother to do benchmarks using the integrated graphics twice, since there are no technical differences here, and not much 3D performance to be expected in any event. We ran both platforms using an ATI Radeon X800 Pro AGP, which also powered our AMD reference system with the Athlon64 Winchester 3200+. We decided to use this particular processor since it works at the same clock speed as our Pentium M 755 (2.0 GHz). Thanks to the 90 nm process, AMD managed to reduce the thermal loss considerably.

Benchmarks And Settings

Benchmarks and Settings OpenGL
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory	Version: 2.55 1024x768 - 32 bit timedemo 1 / demo demo4 Graphics detail = Normal
3D Studio Max 6.0 Discreet	Characters "Dragon_Charater_rig" Pixel: 1280 x 1024 Rendering Single
Doom 3	Version 1.0.1262 1024x768 - 32 bit medium quality timedemo demo1
SPECopc Viewperf	Version 8.01 1280x1024 - 32 Bit SPEC Benchmark Mode
DirectX 8
Unreal Tournament 2004	Version: 3204 1024x768 - 32 bit, Audio off thg9 assault botmatch
DirectX 9a
3DMark 2003	Version 3.4.0 Graphics and CPU Default Benchmark 1024x768 - 32 bit
3DMark 2005	1024x768 - 32 bit Graphics and CPU Default Benchmark
PCMark 2004 Pro	Version: 1.2.0 CPU and Memory Tests
SiSoftware Sandra 2004	Version 2004.10.9.89 CPU Test = MultiMedia, CPU Arithmetic Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark
Audio
Lame MP3	Version 3.96 Wave 17:14 minutes (182 MB) to mp3 32 - 320 kbit VBR = level 3
Video
Auto Gordian Knot DivX 5.21 XviD 1.0.2	Version: 1.72 Beta Audio = AC3 6ch Custom size = 100 MB Resulution settings = 640x256 Codec = XviD and DivX 5 Audio = CBR MP3, kbps 192
Applications
Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004	Version 1.0 5 runs