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EpoX MVP3G2, MVP3G5, and
MVP3C2 Motherboard
ATA/66 Hard disk Performance
Last updated: 4/14/00
4/14/00 So far the new BIOS is holding-up well. It
is not available on EpoX's web site, but is available from their FTP site
at:
ftp://ftp.epox.com/support/motherboard/bios/beta/vp3c0412.exe
4/13/00 In the Dux computer Digest reviews of the EpoX
MVP3G2 and MVP3C2 Super7
motherboards I expressed disappointment with the ATA/66 performance of
these otherwise superb motherboards. There were some questions
as to whether the poor ATA/66 performance was being caused by the VIA
VT82C596B South Bridge chip, the BIOS, or the 5,400 RPM ATA/66 hard disk
used in the benchmark tests. This morning I received an E-Mail
from a reader stating that 'EpoX has finally got a handle on their UDMA66
problem' and that a Beta release of the BIOS would be available on EpoX's
web site. I searched the site and could not find the BIOS. I
fired off a message to EpoX tech support. Before the ink was dry
on my message, EpoX responded with the BIOS attached. Well, folks,
the problem was the BIOS and it looks like it has been fixed. I
ran a quick set of benchmarks with the G2 board and a 500 Mhz K6-2, below. In
particular the HDTach HD Read Burst speed has jumped from 22 to 57 MBPS! The
WinTune 98 benchmarks also show a noticeable improvement in memory performance. The
new BIOS version is vp3c0412.bin. Before proclaiming that
the problem is indeed solved, I want to run the BIOS for a few more days
to check for stability and run some more benchmarks. I will revise
both reviews when additional testing has been completed. It looks
like EpoX is finally the winner in the Super7 realm, and that the Super7
is far from dead. Larry
BENCHMARK |
NEW
BIOS
(vp3c0412.bin Beta)
|
OLD
BIOS
(vp3c0309.bin) |
WinTune
98 |
| CPU Integer |
1072 MIPS |
1072 MIPS |
| CPU Floating Point |
598 MFLOPS |
597 MFLOPS |
| Memory |
724 MB/S |
652 MB/S |
| Cached Disk |
81 MB/S |
80 MB/S |
| Uncached Disk |
3.4 MB/S |
3.2 MB/S |
HD
Tach Read |
| Random Access |
15.5 ms |
15.1 ms |
| Read Speed Max. |
20,0052 KPS |
19,979 KPS |
| Read Speed Min. |
10,726 KPS |
12,624 KPS |
| Read Speed Avg. |
17,105 KPS |
17,180 KPS |
| Read Burst |
56.9 MBPS |
21.8 MBPS |
Test Computer:
AMD 500 Mhz K6-2 processor, EpoX MVP3G2 motherboard, 1 MB MB cache', 64
MB, 8 ns PC100 memory, Western Digital 64AA, 6.4 GB, 9.5 ms, 5,400 RPM
ATA/66 hard disk (set to ATA/66 with ATA/66 cable) 2 GB partition with
FAT32 file system (defragged before each test), Windows 98 OEM, Diamond
V770 AGP display adapter with 32 MBytes.
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