![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Sunday , November 23, 2003
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Chaintech ZNF3-150
A feature packed solution based on the nForce3 chipset, the ZNF3-150 puts the power of an Athlon64 754-pin CPU in your box. See how this Chaintech mainboard stacks up when it comes to stability and speed.
Subsystem Testing
Audio – Subjective Listening
One of the easiest ways to determine the quality of the audio subsystem is through a qualitative sound test. An ideal sound test requires an audio source that covers the entire audio spectrum, from subtle melody to pulse pounding intensity. For this test, I chose the Megadeth album Risk. This album provides a good musical variety for an experience across the entire audio spectrum.
The VIA audio solution most definitely lives up to the hype surrounding it. The audio reproduction was perfect, with no crackling, hissing, skipping or any other type of distortion detectable whatsoever. (Editor's Note: No distortion other than what is a normal part of the the Megadeth audio experience.) I thoroughly enjoyed the provided audio experience.
Audio – Microphone Port Testing
The MIC_IN input was tested using a Labtec Desk Mic 524. Spoken word was recorded and played back using Microsoft Sound Recorder, with the Microphone Boost option disabled and enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the Advanced menu under the Microphone section within the Volume Control menu.
Like the audio tests, the microphone tests were very good. There was no detectable distortion heard in playback. However, recording seemed to pickup better with the Microphone Boost option enabled. This is definitely an acceptable solution for everyday use.
Audio – In Game Testing
In addition to CD or MP3 playback, users most often rely on the audio subsystem for gaming, whether it be for stand along first person shooter type or online death matching. To adequately test the quality of the audio subsystem during game type scenarios, we took benchmark measurements with sound enabled and disabled using the following benchmarks: Jedi Knight 2 and Comanche 4.
Following in the trend of the other audio tests, the VIA solution continues to shine. In both games, in game performance suffered a mere 10% with audio enabled during game demo playback. VIA definitely has a winner on their hands with this audio solution, especially in light of the fact that it supports the 7.1 sound standard in addition to its amazing performance.
USB 2.0/IEEE 1394
In order to adequately test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 connections, we chose to use an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected first to the USB port and after to the IEEE 1394 port in conjunction with TCD Labs’ HDTach program.
The performance seen in both tests was good, but nothing really stellar. As expected, the IEEE 1394 drive’s performance beat that of the USB 2.0 drive in RAT (Random Access Time) by almost 10 MB/s, in average write speed by 7 MB/s, and in CPU Utilization by more 15% which is more than double the IEEE 1394 drive’s measure utilization. For both drives, the average write speed was identical, also as expected. The CPU Utilization measure is the one sore point with these results, since in both cases it is unusually high. Otherwise, the performance is well within expectations for both connection types.
IDE/ATA Performance
System performance relies very heavily on three major subsystems: the CPU, the system memory, and the system IDE interfaces. In order to test the IDE performance of this board, I used TCD Labs’ HDTach program. My test bench currently uses Maxtor 40Gb ATA 133 model 6E040L0 hard drives on the IDE headers. On the SATA headers, I have Seagate 80 GB Barracuda SATA hard drives installed in the test bench. Multiple SATA drives were used for testing in RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1 configurations on the Silicon Image controller. Testing was also conducted using a stand alone SATA drive on the Silicon Image controller, and an IDE drive connected in a primary slave configuration on IDE1 and a primary master configuration on IDE3.
In line with expectations, the RAID 0 array with 16k block size was the array to beat. It almost doubled the read performance of both the RAID 0 128k block size and the RAID 1 arrays, with its write performance almost doubling that of the RAID 1 array while beating the 128k RAID 0 array by 5 MB/s. In RBS (Read Burst Speed), the 16k RAID 0 array only came in at a bit over 105 MB/s, a full 20 MB/s ahead of the competition. It’s RAT (Random Access Time) matches those of the competition, with the RAID 0 16k array being marginally less CPU intensive than the other configurations. The RAID 0 16k array performance was average, but really nothing special.
Because the Silicon Image controller supports a total of 4 SATA ports, it offers a RAID 0+1 array configuration. Out of the two tested arrays, the 16k array offers the better overall performance. In read speed, the 16k array not quite doubled the performance of the 128k array, while at the same time using less CPU resources. The 128k array managed to overcome the 16k array’s dominance in write speed through with a 3 MB/s lead. As seen with the straight RAID 0 array testing, the 16k array manages to beat out the 128k array by a meager 20 MB/s in its measure RBS (Read Burst Speed). The performance seen is not bad, but again not the best ever witnessed either.
Matching expectations, both IDE drive configurations performed much better than the standalone SATA drive. However, the SATA drive did manage to match average write speed with the IDE drives. Note that the performance between the two IDE drives was identical. Also note that the measured RBS (Read Burst Speed) on the IDE drives was a full 10 MB/s higher than even that of the SATA RAID 0 16k array.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used in conjunction with Windows Task Manager to measure the performance of the onboard Broadcom Gigabit NIC. DU meter was used to measure bandwidth, with Windows TaskMan to monitor the CPU utilization on the test system. For the test itself, a 750Mb archive file containing various sized .WMA audio files for the large file transfer test and a 750Mb worth of various sized .WMA audio files for the small files transfer test were used in conjunction with an Intel Gigabit NIC on the host system, and a crossover cable to connect the host system to the test system. A crossover cable was used to rule out any possible bandwidth losses due to hub or switch passage.
The Broadcom solution performed admirably in the small file download test, with its upload average besting the download average by 15 MB/s. The CPU Utilization had me a bit concerned though, with it approaching 40% during download and a whopping 60% during upload. You’ll definitely notice a performance slowdown with this NIC operating in full GigE mode.
The large file transfer results were consistent with those of the small file transfer results, with both the upload and download scores coming in a bit over 5 MB/s greater than those of the small transfer tests. The CPU utilization remained the same for upload, while it approached 50% during downloads. The Broadcom solution is not bad, but needs a bit of help with the runaway CPU Utilization measured.
Test Systems
The following system configurations were used for the Sandra memory benchmark graph, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmark sections:
Chaintech ZNF3-150 (NVIDIA nForce3-150) – Athlon64 3200+ (2.0 GHz), (2X512MB) 1GB Corsair CAS 2.0 DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI Radeon 9800XT w/ ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers, 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.
ABIT KV8-MAX3 (VIA K8T800) – Athlon64 3200+ (2.0 GHz), (2X512MB) 1GB Corsair CAS 2.0 DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI Radeon 9800XT w/ ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers, 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.
AOpen AK79D-400MAX (NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400) – AthlonXP 3200+ CPU(clocked at 11 x 200) and AthlonXP 2500+ CPU (clocked at 11 x 166), (2X512MB) 1GB Corsair CAS 2.0 DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI Radeon 9800XT w/ ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers, 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.
Intel D875PBZ (Intel i875P) – Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU(clocked at 16 x 200) and Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz CPU (clocked at 12 x 200), (2X512MB) 1GB Corsair CAS 2.0 DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI Radeon 9800XT w/ ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers, 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.
Graphs are labeled as follows: Motherboard - CPU Clock - FSB Clock - Memory Clock
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
Note that all results above, with the exception of the AOpen AK79D-400MAX and Intel D875PBZ boards, were obtained running the installed memory in Single Channel mode. The AOpen AK79D-400MAX and Intel D875PBZ results were obtained with the installed memory running in Dual Channel mode.
The ZNF3-150 makes a strong showing against both the VIA and nForce2 boards, matching performance of both at an FSB of 200 MHz. Of course, the Intel board runs away with the crown.