Athlon64 Motherboards: First Look at Chaintech, FIC, and MSI

Final Words

It has appeared that AMD was worried about the Athlon64 launch. In the last month, there have numerous changes in direction and a repositioning of the Athlon64FX as the new top chip. After running benchmarks with a few Athlon64 boards, we wonder why AMD was concerned.

Certainly, in all the important benchmarks, we have to consider AMD’s Athlon64 3200+ and Intel 3.2GHz to be roughly equivalent in performance. If there is an edge, then it goes to AMD for the knockout gaming performance that Athlon64 is able to deliver with the on-CPU memory controller. Also, keep in mind that two faster AMD chips were introduced today: the Athlon64 3400+ and the Athlon64FX51.

Perhaps it is AMD’s on-CPU memory controller that is making the difference, or rather lack of difference, in the performance of the VIA and nForce3 chipsets on our Athlon64 motherboards. Unlike the wide differences seen in the AthlonXP/Barton motherboards using VIA and nVidia chipsets, we find performance of the VIA and nForce3 a virtual dead heat. This may change with refinements in both chipsets, but for now, you can select an Athlon64 motherboard based on the features it provides.

We do, however, have a word of caution. For now, you cannot adjust Athlon64 CPU speed with multipliers, as AthlonXP users have been accustomed to doing for a very long time. This makes the ability to Fix or Lock the AGP/PCI bus absolutely critical to getting the best performance from your chip. All of the nForce3-150 boards that we have seen offer a PCI/AGP lock, but we have yet to see a VIA board with a working PCI/AGP lock. All the manufacturers tell us that it is here, it will definitely be in BIOS, but we still have not seen a working lock. Until we see for ourselves that manufacturers can provide a working PCI/AGP lock, we suggest that you check carefully before buying a VIA board you intend to overclock.

We hope this concern will be resolved very soon, since in every other respect, VIA is at least as good in performance as nVidia. Call us skeptical, but VIA has never had a working PCI/AGP lock on any recent chipset, so until we see one work, we would have a hard time recommending a VIA K8T800 board to an overclocker.

As for the 3 Athlon64 boards that we tested, all performed very well and exceeded our expectations. The FIC is currently handicapped because of its pre-release BIOS, but it should perform at the same level as the Chaintech and MSI boards with the release BIOS version. The MSI and Chaintech are both incredibly full-featured boards, and they are neck-and-neck in our tests. It is hard to recommend one over the other, as both will serve your needs very well. However, MSI at present does not implement any AGP/PCI lock that we can find in their BIOS. MSI tells us a PCI/AGP lock should be added in 2 or 3 weeks with a BIOS update. However, we want to see a working PCI/AGP lock on any VIA board before accepting that it will appear "soon". We did test the Core Cell overclocking, which starts at default FSB and dynamically overclocks as applications run. While we find the names for performance levels a little much for our tastes (Disabled, Private, Sergeant, Captain, Colonel, General, Commander), we did find that the General level of about a 7% overclock worked fine. We could not get the Commander 10% level to work, regardless of timings on our DDR433 memory. This is further evidence that lack of an AGP/PCI lock may be holding back board performance.

The first round goes to the Chaintech ZNF3-150, but this is just the first round and we will be looking at many other Athlon64 boards. AGP/PCI lock is in the Chaintech BIOS, and its overclocking abilities are excellent. The ZNF3-150 performance was always #1 or #2 among the boards, and the feature list goes on for pages. If you are looking for a top Computer Enthusiast motherboard, you will be hard pressed to find a better Athlon64 board on the market than the Chaintech ZNF3-150. That is at least until round 2 of our Athlon64 motherboard roundup, and until manufacturers can confirm working AGP/PCI locks really do exist on VIA chipset Athlon64 boards.