3DMark2001 SE is the latest installment in
the 3DMark series by MadOnion. By combining DirectX8 support with completely new
graphics, it continues to provide good overall system benchmarks. 3DMark2001 SE
has been created in cooperation with the major 3D accelerator and processor
manufacturers to provide a reliable set of diagnostic tools. The suite
demonstrates 3D gaming performance by using real-world gaming technology to test
a system's true performance abilities. Tests include: DirectX8 Vertex Shaders,
Pixel Shaders and Point Sprites, DOT3 and Environment Mapped Bump Mapping,
support for Full Scene Anti-aliasing and Texture Compression and two game tests
using Ipion real-time physics. Higher 3DMark scores denote better
performance.
| 3DMark2001 SE Benchmark Results |
|
Motherboard |
3DMarks |
Ranking |
| 1. |
845Pro2 |
6608 |
|
| 2 |
845Pro2 (oc'ed) |
7195 |
 |
The
limiting factor here is the SDRAM. With a theoretical total bandwidth
of 1 GB/s, it just can't keep a Pentium 4 processor which needs 3.2GB/s
worth of bandwidth happy. Overclocking the system seems
to bring a big performance boost. Stability was unreliable at best, several times even at
stock speeds the benchmark would lock up during the Dragothic or Nature demo's
- I'm thinking this may have been the OCZ memory though.
Quake III Arena is a First Person Shooter (FPS)
that revolutionized gaming as we know it. Using multiple light sources and
having graphics textures that can fill videocards, even after 3 years it's still
able to bring a cutting edge system to its knees.
| Quake III Arena Fastest demo001 |
|
Motherboard |
FPS |
Ranking |
| 1. |
845Pro2 |
167.8 |
|
| 2. |
845Pro2 (oc'ed) |
171.5 |
|
| Quake III Arena Fastest nv15demo |
|
Motherboard |
FPS |
Ranking |
| 1. |
845Pro2 |
51.5 |
|
| 2. |
845Pro2 (oc'ed) |
52.3 |
|
Again we
can see the SDRAM severely limits. These are among the worst Quake III
scores we've seen since the P3 days! Stability here like 3DMark2001SE was bad.
The benchmark would crash back to the Quake III console while running the timed demos.
Conclusion:
The MSI 845Pro2 did not behave like a typical
MSI board. It had many stability problems and could not complete
a number of benchmarks fully. We did try updating drivers or changing them
around, but to no avail. To make matters worse, the 845Pro2 didn't perform very
well either. If it's not immediately obvious, a Pentium4 + SDRAM is bad news if
you're talking about performance!
With a retail price of $140 CDN, it's one of the cheapest Pentium 4
motherboards around however since it's using the older Socket 423
and SDRAM it's pretty much assured that this will be a shelf
warmer. Still it's nice to see that the board has five PCI slots, one AGP albeit
with the 1.5V lock, three DIMM slots and onboard audio, it is one of the better
equipped i845 motherboards out there.
Overall, if you're considering purchasing a Pentium 4
system, a few things to keep in mind. Number 1, make sure it's not using the Socket 423 form factor since it's a
dead end. And number 2, don't team up your P4 with SDRAM! As you could
see the performance is abysmal. SDRAM just can't feed a Pentium 4 with enough data bandwidth. Bottom
line, stick to the MSI boards that are good performers and avoid ones doomed
to obsolete formfactors.
Related Articles:
Here are a few other articles that you might enjoy as well...
1. Epox 4B2A
2. VIA P4PA
3. Acorp 4D845A
4. 256MB OCZ ICE PC150 SDRAM
5. Pentium 4 2.0 GHz
3DMark2001 SE
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