EpoX 8KHA+ DDR Athlon Motherboard Benchmarks
Dux Computer Digest
by Larry F. Byard
Last updated: 12/22/2001

The three computers built while this review was written were for business users.  They did not have the highest-end display adapters (the ones used were no slouches) or the fastest processors (a moving target) available at the time they were purchased (the AMD XP 1800+).  The Athlon XP 1600+ was chosen for these computers because it provided the best performance vs. cost.  Furthermore, we do not overclock processors and do not recommend the practice.  We leave these areas of testing and comment to others, of which the Internet abounds.  The benchmarks do, however, show that the EpoX 8KHA+ motherboard is indeed probably the fastest one of its class and are consistent with other benchmarks we have seen using faster Athlon XP processors when a simple CPU clock frequency ratio is used to adjust the results.

Business Winstone 2001, Content Creation Winstone 2002, and Winbench 99.

Business Winston Version 1.0.2, Content Creation Winstone 2002, and WinBench 99 v. 2.0.  All three of these benchmarks were run five times and the scores were averaged.

Test Computer:  1.4 GHz AMD XP 1600+ Athlon processor:  EpoX 8KHA+  motherboard: Crucial 256 MByte, PC2100 DDR memory: Termaltake Volcano 5  CPU Heatsink-fan: Western Digital WD300BB 30 GByte, 7200 RPM, ATA/100 Hard Disk hard disk drvie; AOpen 52 X CD-ROM Drive; Panasonic 1.44 MB Floppy Drive; Abit Siluro GeForce1 MX200 32MB AGP Display Adapter; Acerview 79G 17" Monitor; Focus 2001W keyboard; AOpen S48 PS/2 Mouse; and Antec KS 282 Mid-tower case with one optional Antec chassis fan, Windows XP Professional with NTFS file system (partitioned into 8 GByte C: drive, defragged).

Wintune 98.  Let's make an Apples and Oranges comparison with five simple Wintune 98 benchmark tests.  This time such a comparison may actually be relevant to our times/economy and provide some insight into what the average PC buyer/upgrader could expect from this motherboard as compared to those over the past couple of years.

*Benchmarked with the normal ATA/66 IDE interface.  The RAID IDE interfaces are ATA/100.

**The first number in the Abit KT7 memory read test is comparable to those that went before it.  The second number is comparable to the tests with DDR memory that followed it. When the tests were run with DDR memory, Wintune could not run read speed tests for 4 KBytes through 64 KByte block transfers.  So, it assigned 0 MBytes/sec. to the scores for those tests an averaged those values into the totals.  The six runs for 128 KByte through 2048 KByte blocks ran OK.  The second number removes the tests on the smaller block sizes from the read scores and is comparable to the tests that were adjusted likewise for the DDR memory tests.

These benchmarks provide a rough comparison of computer technology based on five AMD processors, four motherboard chipsets, the evolution and increasing amounts of memory from 64 MBytes of 100 MHz PC100 to 256 MBytes of PC2100 DDR memory with and effective bus of 266 MHz, changes in hard disk drives, and the current migration of the average PC from Windows 9x to Windows NT/2000/XP.   Maybe it's time for that new computer or a major upgrade?

8KHA+/Win 98 Wintune 98 Details
Memory Read Speed (MB/s): 933 (recalculated to 1821 by averaging-out 0 values for read speeds on blocks smaller than 128 KB)
Memory Write Speed (MB/s): 3514
Memory Copy Speed (MB/s): 2100
Installed RAM (MB): 256
Free RAM (MB): 200
Memory used (%): 15
Page File Driver: 32-bit
Total Page File (MB): 1793
Free Page File (MB): 1758
Read speed, 4 KB blocks, MB/s: 0
Read speed, 8 KB blocks, MB/s: 0
Read speed, 16 KB blocks, MB/s: 0
Read speed, 32 KB blocks, MB/s: 0
Read speed, 64 KB blocks, MB/s: 0
Read speed, 128 KB blocks, MB/s: 3639
Read speed, 256 KB blocks, MB/s: 2880
Read speed, 512 KB blocks, MB/s: 864
Read speed, 1024 KB blocks, MB/s: 864
Read speed, 2048 KB blocks, MB/s: 860
Write speed, 4 KB blocks, MB/s: 5253
Write speed, 32 KB blocks, MB/s: 5338
Write speed, 256 KB blocks, MB/s: 2974
Write speed, 2048 KB blocks, MB/s: 501
Copy speed, 4 KB blocks, MB/s: 3889
Copy speed, 32 KB blocks, MB/s: 3950
Copy speed, 256 KB blocks, MB/s: 293
Copy speed, 2048 KB blocks, MB/s: 303

KT7-RAID/Win 98 Wintune 98 Details
Memory Read Speed (MB/s): 4176 (recalculated to 1724 by averaging-out read speeds on blocks smaller than 128 KB)
Memory Write Speed (MB/s): 2824
Memory Copy Speed (MB/s): 1602
Installed RAM (MB): 256
Free RAM (MB): 180
Memory used (%): 18
Page File Driver: 32-bit
Total Page File (MB): 1793
Free Page File (MB): 1762
Read speed, 4 KB blocks, MB/s: 6560
Read speed, 8 KB blocks, MB/s: 6637
Read speed, 16 KB blocks, MB/s: 6675
Read speed, 32 KB blocks, MB/s: 6689
Read speed, 64 KB blocks, MB/s: 6651
Read speed, 128 KB blocks, MB/s: 3351
Read speed, 256 KB blocks, MB/s: 3339
Read speed, 512 KB blocks, MB/s: 650
Read speed, 1024 KB blocks, MB/s: 646
Read speed, 2048 KB blocks, MB/s: 636
Write speed, 4 KB blocks, MB/s: 4117
Write speed, 32 KB blocks, MB/s: 4186
Write speed, 256 KB blocks, MB/s: 2743
Write speed, 2048 KB blocks, MB/s: 245
Copy speed, 4 KB blocks, MB/s: 3049
Copy speed, 32 KB blocks, MB/s: 3097
Copy speed, 256 KB blocks, MB/s: 130
Copy speed, 2048 KB blocks, MB/s: 131

WinStone and WinBench are registered trademarks or trademarks of Ziff-Davis Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.

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