Again no winner and again the larger cache of the Sempron 3000 has no influence on performance! Things are looking bad for the Barton. The final revision of the K7 architecture can not distance itself from the previous Thoroughbred core!

42 & 43 & 44. The first game tested is Farcry 1 from 2004. One of my favorites that I recently finished on realistic difficulty it is very CPU dependent.
Sempron 2800
Sempron 3000

As the screenshot for the system with Sempron 2800 is saved incorrectly here are the complete results including those at 1600*1200:
Far Cry Benchmark

The benchmark started at 07.04.2025 05:18:24

System Information
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
System memory: 2,0 GB
CPU: AMD Sempron(tm) 2800+
CPU speed: 2000 MHz
Sound system: : NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
VGA Information
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS
Memory: 256.0 MB
Current GPU speed: 375 MHz
Current memory speed: 1200 MHz
Driver version: 6.14.0010.9371 (English)

Resolution: 1024×768
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Volcano, demo: hocvolcano.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: 8×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 55,70 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 54,44 FPS (Run 2)
Score = 55,35 FPS (Run 3)
Average score = 55,16 FPS

Resolution: 1280×1024
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Volcano, demo: hocvolcano.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: 8×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 55,96 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 54,70 FPS (Run 2)
Score = 55,57 FPS (Run 3)
Average score = 55,40 FPS

Resolution: 1600×1200
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Volcano, demo: hocvolcano.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: 8×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 51,52 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 49,63 FPS (Run 2)
Score = 51,49 FPS (Run 3)
Average score = 50,88 FPS

Copyright 2002 - 2006 Zoltan Nemeth - Roadside

Finally the 512kb of L2 cache makes a difference! 10% better at 1024*768 and 1280*1024 is enough to get an average of 60 FPS with a Barton CPU!

45 & 46 & 47. The masterpiece Half life 2 is next to be tested. The game is very optimized and requires a good balance between the CPU, RAM and GPU along with a motherboard that makes them all sing in tune! Obviously we are limited by the processors here as the geforce 7800gs is more than capable at running this game at max settings.
Original version from 2004. I used Fraps 3.4.7, therefore the results are in Excel files.

Sempron 2800

1024*768
Min: 39
Max: 70
Avg: 50.25

1280*1024
Min: 30
Max: 60
Avg: 45.5

1600*1200
Min: 32
Max: 56
Avg: 40.267

Sempron 3000

1024*768
Min: 43
Max: 78
Avg: 58.417

1280*1024
Min: 42
Max: 78
Avg: 57.017

1600*1200
Min: 37
Max: 63
Avg: 49.933

Finally the double amount of cache enables the Barton to score decisively! 16% better at 1024*768 is a big advantage; 25% at 1280*1024 and 24% at 1600*1200 is a colossal advantage!
Very late, but better late than never! Sempron 3000 should have won at a greater difference far more more tests to have a significant influence on the final result.

48 & 49 & 50. The last game is Doom 3. Very atmospheric, I play it again with an X-fi audio card and a 5.1 setup and it feels really creepy! The game is exceptional GPU bound so in order to give the geforce 7800gs some breathing room I disabled AA. All settings set at ultra, all advanced settings turned on!

1024*768:
Sempron 2800
Sempron 3000

1280*1024
Sempron 2800
Sempron 3000

1600*1200
Sempron 2800
Sempron 3000

Sempron 3000 scores again! 8.5% better at 1600*1200 is a very good advantage over its little brother, Sempron 2800. Doom 3 loves cache so Barton has the upper hand in this game.

51. SuperPi is next, a purely CPU test. Again no winner as the difference between the 2 CPU's is only 3.5%!
Sempron 2800
Sempron 3000

52. We reached the final test: Cinebench 2003! All that matters is the frequency so, again, the extra cache does not help at all!
Sempron 2800
Sempron 3000

All tests are finished! While it is obvious that a processor with more cache is faster than one with less the question is by how much?
The dust has settled and the Sempron 3000 based on the Barton revision is faster than Sepron 2800 based on the Thoroughbred revision by 5.07%!
That is far less than the PR of these 2 processors implies and barely above the limit of error! The PR of the Sempron 3000 should be 2900 and not 3000! So AMD did inflate the ratings!
There are 2 more processors with the same FSB, multiplier and frequency: Athlon XP 2700 and Athlon XP 3000. I do not think that the higher frequency would change anything. The difference should still be very close to 5% and the PR of the 3000 would still be exaggerated - maybe Athlon XP 2800 would be more fitting.

To answer your initial question "nvidia vs VIA" - back in the day I preferred nvidia. I owned a few VIA boards witch were fine, then got an Albatron nforce 2 board witch I stuck with for a while and was very happy with. There is one caveat I noticed back in the day and it's still relevant now - nForce 2 motherboards do NOT like win9x. WinXP is perfectly fine, but I've run into stability issues with Windows 98 SE and all the nforce 2 boards I've tested so far (Abit AN7, NF7, Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Asrock K7NF2, Biostar M7NCD, Gigabyte 7NNXP). The closest to being usable is the Asrock board, but only with very early nfoce drivers and limiting the GPU to 128MB of vram (tested with an FX5600 XT). My 6800GT causes bluescreen when loading the nvidia drivers and X1950 Pro has stability issues.

VIA boards on the other hand work perfectly well in both XP and 9x. My current favorite is the Asus A7V880 - it comes very close to an nforce board in performace (slightly lower memory performace but better agp performance) but it's perfectly stable in both OS's with any video card / ram configuration.

Socket3 wrote on 2025-05-27, 16:47:

The closest to being usable is the Asrock board, but only with very early nfoce drivers and limiting the GPU to 128MB of vram (tested with an FX5600 XT). My 6800GT causes bluescreen when loading the nvidia drivers and X1950 Pro has stability issues.

The X1950 doesn't have Win9x drivers, so it definitely has "stability issues". 😁
In my experience, the GeForce 6800 GT only works OK-ish with driver version 77.72 in Win98, anything else either results in BSODs or other problems (though I have never tried to run it on an nForce 2 board, I have one running on my nForce 3 Ultra build).
Personally, I only have just one nForce 3 board, the Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939, and it works extremely well in Windows 98, ultra-fast & perfectly stable as long as I use a normal IDE PATA HDD. If I go the SSD route, the whole Win98 situation is a complete mess - random freezes, BSODs and general instability (tried to use both the onboard SATA controller and a SATA to IDE adapter for the SSD, same issue). It's unclear if this is a general nForce 3 issue, or if it's just my particular board that is fussy when it comes to Win98 storage (I only have one nForce board because I hate the fact that they are unusable in DOS, and for me this is a major deal-breaker).

Socket3 wrote on 2025-05-27, 16:47:

VIA boards on the other hand work perfectly well in both XP and 9x. My current favorite is the Asus A7V880 - it comes very close to an nforce board in performace (slightly lower memory performace but better agp performance) but it's perfectly stable in both OS's with any video card / ram configuration.

I agree, VIA is just better in every way when it comes to having a perfect retro DOS/Win98/early WinXP build, and the A7V880 is an awesome board, one of the best. It would've been absolutely perfect if it had an ISA slot. 😁

bloodem wrote on 2025-05-27, 17:29:

I agree, VIA is just better in every way when it comes to having a perfect retro DOS/Win98/early WinXP build, and the A7V880 is an awesome board, one of the best. It would've been absolutely perfect if it had an ISA slot. 😁

yeah, unfortunatly the kt133 is the latest chipset to support ISA

Socket3 wrote on 2025-05-27, 16:47:

To answer your initial question "nvidia vs VIA" - back in the day I preferred nvidia. I owned a few VIA boards witch were fine, then got an Albatron nforce 2 board witch I stuck with for a while and was very happy with. There is one caveat I noticed back in the day and it's still relevant now - nForce 2 motherboards do NOT like win9x. WinXP is perfectly fine, but I've run into stability issues with Windows 98 SE and all the nforce 2 boards I've tested so far (Abit AN7, NF7, Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Asrock K7NF2, Biostar M7NCD, Gigabyte 7NNXP). The closest to being usable is the Asrock board, but only with very early nfoce drivers and limiting the GPU to 128MB of vram (tested with an FX5600 XT). My 6800GT causes bluescreen when loading the nvidia drivers and X1950 Pro has stability issues.

VIA boards on the other hand work perfectly well in both XP and 9x. My current favorite is the Asus A7V880 - it comes very close to an nforce board in performace (slightly lower memory performace but better agp performance) but it's perfectly stable in both OS's with any video card / ram configuration.

My dream PC in 2002 was an Athlon XP 2400 + Abit AT7-MAX 2 with 512mb of ram and a radeon 9700. Of course, being a student, I did not have the money so all I could afford was a Duron 1300 on an Abit KR7A with 256mb and the same geforce2 mx because DDRAM was crazy expensive! In 2003 all I could afford is to put another 256mb of ram while I was building with my friends all kinds of hypothetical systems with Barton, Abit NF7-S and geforce 5900 to buy when we have the money - which by the way I never had until much, much later.
Related to the topic I tested the winner - Barton 3200 + AN7 - after downgrading the RAM to 2*256mb on Windows ME - yes, I know, I committed a cardinal sin! - in tests that are compatible with Windows 9X. Every single score is lower under ME! Every single one. I also had a few stability issues. so I think that nforce2 is better suited for Windows XP.

Regarding VIA chipsets I installed ME on 3 boards: KT7-raid with VIA KT133 , the first chipset for socket 462; KV7 with VIA KT600, the best performing VIA chipset for the socket; KW7 with VIA KT880, the last VIA chipset for socket A.
On KT133 results improved a lot under Windows ME; on the other 2 boards I got worse results under ME.Somewhere in between them, VIA stopped optimizing chipsets for Windows 9X.
Stability was excellent on all 3 boards, no BSOD under ME!

nd22 wrote on 2025-05-28, 07:26:

Socket3 wrote on 2025-05-27, 16:47:

To answer your initial question "nvidia vs VIA" - back in the day I preferred nvidia. I owned a few VIA boards witch were fine, then got an Albatron nforce 2 board witch I stuck with for a while and was very happy with. There is one caveat I noticed back in the day and it's still relevant now - nForce 2 motherboards do NOT like win9x. WinXP is perfectly fine, but I've run into stability issues with Windows 98 SE and all the nforce 2 boards I've tested so far (Abit AN7, NF7, Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Asrock K7NF2, Biostar M7NCD, Gigabyte 7NNXP). The closest to being usable is the Asrock board, but only with very early nfoce drivers and limiting the GPU to 128MB of vram (tested with an FX5600 XT). My 6800GT causes bluescreen when loading the nvidia drivers and X1950 Pro has stability issues.

VIA boards on the other hand work perfectly well in both XP and 9x. My current favorite is the Asus A7V880 - it comes very close to an nforce board in performace (slightly lower memory performace but better agp performance) but it's perfectly stable in both OS's with any video card / ram configuration.

My dream PC in 2002 was an Athlon XP 2400 + Abit AT7-MAX 2 with 512mb of ram and a radeon 9700. Of course, being a student, I did not have the money so all I could afford was a Duron 1300 on an Abit KR7A with 256mb and the same geforce2 mx because DDRAM was crazy expensive!

In 2002 I had an athlon 1900+, 256MB of DDR266 and a radeon 7500. Oddly enough I don't remember DDR being expensive, I remember video cards being out of reach.

nd22 wrote on 2025-05-28, 07:26:

In 2003 all I could afford is to put another 256mb of ram while I was building with my friends all kinds of hypothetical systems with Barton, Abit NF7-S and geforce 5900 to buy when we have the money - which by the way I never had until much, much later.
Related to the topic I tested the winner - Barton 3200 + AN7 - after downgrading the RAM to 2*256mb on Windows ME - yes, I know, I committed a cardinal sin! - in tests that are compatible with Windows 9X. Every single score is lower under ME! Every single one. I also had a few stability issues. so I think that nforce2 is better suited for Windows XP.

I couldn't touch a 5900 in 2003 - I had a 128 bit FX5200 with 256mb of 4ns ram witch I ran at 320 core / 500mhz vram and was fairly content with...

Does the AB-AT7-MAX2 have softmenu? Abit happens to be my favorite mainboard manufacturer, but apart from a KT600 (AB-KV7 - witch needs repairs) and a KT133A (AB-KT7-RAID) I don't own any VIA chipset Abit boards. I'm asking because the KV7 lacks the Softmenu BIOS tab.