Soyo CK8 Dragon Plus Review - 3DMark2001SE, Comanche4, WinRAR, Divx and LAME
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3DMark2001SE
As most of you are no doubt aware, FutureMark's previous generation synthetic graphics benchmark is good for testing more than just video cards. Differences in system performance can affect the scores as well. In this case, we see the CK8 taking a backseat to the other A64 motherboard. One possible reason is that the slower HT bus is choking the AGP subsystem. While I highly doubt that's the reason, I don't have the ability make sure by putting in a VIA based board and slowing down the HT bus to the same speed to make sure. Needless to say, if you are looking for the highest 3DMark score, this board probably isn't for you.
Comanche4
In a real world gaming environment however, the slower HT bus does not seem to affect this board one bit. Not that one frame per second is anything to write home about, but it does show the CK8 isn't going to affect your actual gameplay compared to other solutions. That's for this test at least. I have taken more real gaming tests with this board, but without any reference scores, there is no point in posting them. Look to future mobo reviews to see how it does up against other competition.
WinRAR
Data compression is something I do on a daily basis to keep my school work organized, secure, and transportable. For this test, I archived an 82 MB photo collection to a .rar folder, and timed how long it took. As you can see, the P4 simply gets smoked by both Athlon 64 setups, with the CK8 coming in with the lowest time. I'm actually quite impressed with this result.
Divx
This is one test where the multimedia performance of the P4 is still ahead. Without multi-threading support, I expected the A64's to be much further behind. However, they are actually quite competitive here. The rip is of Game 8 from the '72 hockey "Summit Series" between Canada and Russia. This is using XMPEG 5.03 and Divx 5.1.1
LAME
Last of the media-oriented tests is an MP3 conversion of The Tragically Hip - Phantom Power album using the DBPoweramp frontend. The disc was first ripped to WAV format on the HD, so that the CD drive wouldn't be the limiting factor. As well, more error correction from beat up discs is possible with this method. The CK8 came out tops here, by a consistent 9 seconds.
Next: Conclusion, Highs and Lows >>
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