Chaintech ZNF3-250 Motherboard Review - Overclocking and Benchmarks

Overclocking

After scaling down the memory speed and HyperTransport (HT) bus multiplier, we were able to max out the HT bus at around 233MHz (which is used similarly to the FSB in a normal system). Since there is no multiplier adjustment for the CPU in the BIOS, we were unable to determine whether this was CPU limitation or a limitation imposed on by the motherboard itself. Since this board is the first we've tested with a PCI/AGP lock, we'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say the bottleneck is most likely the early sample Athlon64 we used to test this with. The BIOS does allow for the adjustment of CPU vcore (to 1.75V), vdimm (to 2.9V), chipset (to 1.9V) and AGP (to a ridiculous 2V). This means none of these voltages – save for the notable AGP exception – are chip-killing voltages. Previous Chaintech boards have allowed for volt modifications with simple soldering, for those who knew where to look for the information.

Benchmarks

Here are our test system specifications:

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+
• Motherboards: Albatron K8X800 Pro II / Soyo CK8 Dragon / Chaintech ZNF3-250
• RAM: Kingston Hyper X 3000
• Storage: 2x60GB IBM 120GXP HD's in 64k stripe RAID 0 (Silicon Image Controller)
• Video Card: Radeon 8500 LE

Disclaimer: No matter what we tried, we could not get this board to function using two sticks of KHX 3000 at DDR 400 with any sort of stability. Even at slower timings, it simply refused to remain stable through all the tests. Adding in another 512MB stick of PC3200 of slower timings didn't seem to help matters any. Since the memory controller is on the processor, this might have been caused by a conflict between this particular board and processor combination. A BIOS update might help solve the problem. This has not been a problem with other socket 754 motherboards we’ve tested. Older A64 steppings, like those used here don't seem to function that well with two 512MB sticks, and simply by having a newer chip might correct this. If you are looking at this board, follow the manufacturer's memory compatibility list.

We tested the motherboard using the following software packages:

• Adobe After Effects
• POV-Ray
• STARS CDF Solver
• Super Pi
• SPECViewPerf 7.1.1
• 3DMark 2001 SE
• Comanche4 
• Unreal Tournament 2003
• WinRAR
• LAME MP3 Encoding

Next: Testing 1 >>
 

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Comments On: Chaintech ZNF3-250 Motherboard Review

· Im looking into buying one of these, price doesnt matter, its all quality, and im...    · Whatever it is, just make sure it's AGP and not PCI-E.    · Any AGP card will work fine. The board makes no selection on "I've got an nVidia...   >>> Post your comment now!