Benchmarks III
Let's now turn our attention to gaming to see how the ABIT IT7 holds up. We'll first benchmark MadOnion's 3DMark 2000 at its default resolution of 1024x768x16. I still feel that this benchmark is relevant today as many games still run under DX7 or earlier versions of DirectX.
The results are again close at 100FSB, the difference between the competing platforms and memory subsystems is limited to less than 3%. The increased clock speed that 133FSB allows shows its worth here. Remember, the I845D and IT7 I845E are running at 2133MHz / 133FSB / 177MHz memory for the top two scores, it's just an indication of how the NW B may perform.
Let's move onto the newer 3DMark 2001SE and see if things change significantly. We'll be running it at its default resolution of 1024x768x32.
More of the same here. This benchmark also shows just how CPU / memory limited the test becomes if we use a Geforce4 Ti4600, we see a 21% increase in the IT7's score for a 33% increase in CPU and memory speed, impressive.
Next up is Serious Sam 2, the lovely FPS from Croteam. We've benchmarked the Valley of the Jaguar demo, one that has proven to be extremely sensitive to memory subsystem changes at 1024x768x32 Normal settings. The demo is almost wholly CPU / memory limited, hence the relatively high resolution settings.
The IT7 trails the faster PC2700-equipped SiS645 at default speeds by around 3%. In hindsight we had hoped that the I845E would be equipped with the option of using PC2700 memory at 100FSB, unfortunately this has not been the case. The linear increase in scores when going from 100 to 133FSB shows that this demo is indeed wholly CPU / memory limited.
