Intel Motherboards: Something Wicked This Way Comes...
by Gary Key on October 12, 2005 2:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Firewire and USB Performance
After looking at many options for Firewire and USB testing, we finally determined that an external USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 hard disk might be a sensible way to look at USB and Firewire throughput.
Our first efforts at testing with an IDE or SATA drive as the "server" yielded very inconsistent results, since Windows XP sets up cache schemes to improve performance. Finally, we decided to try a RAM disk as our "server", since memory removed almost all overhead from the serving end. We also managed to turn off disk caching on the USB and Firewire side by setting up the drives for "quick disconnect" and our results were then consistent over many test runs.
We used 2GB of fast 3-2-2-4 system memory set up as a 450MB RAM disk and 1550MB of system memory. Our standard file is the SPECviewPerf install file, which is 432,533,504 bytes (412.4961MB). After copying this file to our RAM disk, we measured the time for writing from the RAM disk to our external USB 2.0, Firewire 400, or Firewire 800 drive using a Windows timing program written for AnandTech by our own Jason Clark. The copy times in seconds were then converted into Megabits per second (Mb) to provide a convenient means of comparing throughput. Higher Rates, therefore, mean better performance.
Our test is just one of many throughput tests, but in this benchmark, it is clear that the VIA Firewire 400 chip is faster than TI's 1394a chip. The NVIDIA nForce4 USB 2.0 controller is slightly faster than Intel's solution. Unlike the other Royal member boards, the Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal does not offer a Firewire 800 option. This is a mistake in our opinion and hopefully, Gigabyte will address this before mass production begins.
After looking at many options for Firewire and USB testing, we finally determined that an external USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 hard disk might be a sensible way to look at USB and Firewire throughput.
Our first efforts at testing with an IDE or SATA drive as the "server" yielded very inconsistent results, since Windows XP sets up cache schemes to improve performance. Finally, we decided to try a RAM disk as our "server", since memory removed almost all overhead from the serving end. We also managed to turn off disk caching on the USB and Firewire side by setting up the drives for "quick disconnect" and our results were then consistent over many test runs.
We used 2GB of fast 3-2-2-4 system memory set up as a 450MB RAM disk and 1550MB of system memory. Our standard file is the SPECviewPerf install file, which is 432,533,504 bytes (412.4961MB). After copying this file to our RAM disk, we measured the time for writing from the RAM disk to our external USB 2.0, Firewire 400, or Firewire 800 drive using a Windows timing program written for AnandTech by our own Jason Clark. The copy times in seconds were then converted into Megabits per second (Mb) to provide a convenient means of comparing throughput. Higher Rates, therefore, mean better performance.
Our test is just one of many throughput tests, but in this benchmark, it is clear that the VIA Firewire 400 chip is faster than TI's 1394a chip. The NVIDIA nForce4 USB 2.0 controller is slightly faster than Intel's solution. Unlike the other Royal member boards, the Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal does not offer a Firewire 800 option. This is a mistake in our opinion and hopefully, Gigabyte will address this before mass production begins.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
44 Comments
View All Comments
SpaceRanger - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
Yup.. Just compared the two, and they are IDENTICAL Pic's, just doctored to show THG and AT... VERY WEAK!!!!!THG:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a342/Arathon/ten...">THG 10 Monitor Image
AT:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a342/Arathon/ten...">AT 10 Monitor Image
johnsonx - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
I doubt one photo or the other was actually doctored, but it is pretty amazing that NOTHING is moved between the two shots... not even the mouse has moved so much as a butt-hair.This does lend credence to the theory that Gigabyte prepared the 10-monitor shots themselves.
at80eighty - Thursday, October 13, 2005 - link
You got issues with butt hair ? :-)
BigLan - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
It looks like this shot was taken at a gigabyte facility, probably in taiwan or china... the blue and red stickers on the monitors look to be chinese characters.vijay333 - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
My guess would be that Gigabyte did this for each one of the sites that it had sent samples to, assuming that they would not be able to set this up themselves (monitors, cards etc). Still, this should have been mentioned in the review itself...Gary Key - Thursday, October 13, 2005 - link
Good Day,I did not want to use the Gigabyte lab shot since THG had already published their version of it. However, since we could not get the revision 2 3D1 cards in time for testing I thought there would be more comments about lack of proof on 10 monitors than issues with the lab shots. I should have noted that in the article.
I was able to get 8 monitors to work with the video setup I had available. However, I found utilizing four monitors was an ideal situation with the two 7800 GTXs. :-)
Bitter - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
Seems a bit....odd, that THG has the exact same picture of the 10 display setup using the exact same displays with associated cables and hardware (and even boxes) in the exact same place...with the sole differance being the background color and logo. Yet THG had their review on 10/4. Yet both sites talk about setting up the system with 10 displays as if they had the gear in house...I smell something rotten here. When you look at the test setups they read almost in stereo. Did either one of these sites actually have the hardware "in the shop" to test any of this out on????johnsonx - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
yeah, as soon as I saw that shot I quickly clicked on "Comments" to see if anyone else had already pointed it out... early bird gets the worm I guess.If I had to guess, I would venture that both THG and AT reviewed the hardware at a common location hosted by Gigabyte.
phaxmohdem - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
Obviously this board is teh suxors since there is no uber AMD variant. What is this now THG?? Pfft.More seriously though, that is kinda cool in its own right. While I wouldn't mind having 4 monitors, 10 seems a bit overkill unless you are an uber l33t day trader or something. I mean wholy crap! Can you imagine the heat that bad boy will put out too? STRONG ass power supply + P4 Dual Core + 4 High End Graphics Cards??? + HDD's + RAM = Heat Stroke in the comfort of your office chair.
Chuckles - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
So...4x$500 for graphics+~$250 for the board+$1000 for the CPU+$200 for RAM.
$3500 for a system. Geez.