One more thing
Although it arrived at our labs too late for testing, Asus sent over its take on the GeForce 9300: the P5N7A-VM.
The P5N7A-VM certainly has a smart layout, with its 12V power connector sitting next to the top edge of the board and its Serial ATA ports far enough from the PCI Express x16 slot to avoid graphics cooler clearance problems. Bravo, Asus.
Even more impressive is the board's port cluster, which packs just about everything that matters, including eSATA, HDMI, and DisplayPort connectivity alongside an S/PDIF audio output.
Our testing methods
We try to test products on an even playing field here at TR, but the GeForce 9300's refusal to work with a CAS 4 memory timing threw us for a loop. All of our other integrated graphics boards have no problem running our Corsair DIMMs at 4-4-4-12, but the best the GeForce 9300 could muster was 5-4-4-12.
Rather than artificially handicapping the rest of the field, we elected to run the GeForce 9300 at 5-4-4-12 timings while the pack stayed at 4-4-4-12. This puts the 9300 at a bit of a disadvantage, but we see little reason to cut Nvidia any slack here.
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged.
| Processor | AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz | Intel Pentium E2180 2.0GHz | |||
| System bus | 1GHz HyperTransport | 800MHz (200MHz quad-pumped) | 800MHz (200MHz quad-pumped) | ||
| Motherboard | Asus M3N78 PRO | Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-DS2H | Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H | MSI G45M-FIDR | MSI P7NGM-Digital |
| Bios revision | 0403 | F1 | F1 | 1.1 | 1.0 |
| North bridge | Nvidia GeForce 8300 | AMD 780G | AMD 790GX | Intel G45 Express | Nvidia GeForce 9300 |
| South bridge | AMD SB700 | AMD SB750 | Intel ICH10R | ||
| Chipset drivers | ForceWare 15.24 | Catalyst 8.9 | Catalyst 8.9 |
Chipset: 9.0.0.1011 Graphics: 15.2 |
Chipset: ForceWare 20.07 Graphics: ForceWare 178.13 |
| Memory size | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) |
| Memory type | Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 SDRAM at ~800MHz | ||||
| CAS latency (CL) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| RAS precharge (tRP) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Cycle time (tRAS) | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Audio codec | Realtek ALC1200 with 2.04 drivers | Realtek ALC889A with 2.04 drivers | Realtek ALC889A with 2.04 drivers | Realtek ALC888 with 2.04 drivers | Realtek ALC888 with 2.04 drivers |
| Hard drive | Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB SATA | ||||
| O | Windows Vista Ultimate x86 with Service Pack 1 | ||||
Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing.
All of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.
Finally, we'd like to thank Western Digital for sending Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives for our test rigs.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- SiSoft Sandra Standard 2008 13.12
- WorldBench 6.0 Beta 2
- TCD Labs HD Tach 3.01
- Call of Duty 4 1.4
- RightMark Audio Analyzer 6.06
- NTttcp
- CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
- Intel IOMeter v2004.07.30
- Crysis 1.21
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars 1.4
- Half-Life 2: Episode 2
- CPU-Z 1.41
- CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra 8 build 2021a
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
