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Battle of the platforms: socket 939!

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Reply 120 of 129, by nd22

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Until I retest Unreal tournament on KV8 PRO we continue with some CPU benchmarks!
46. Super pi is a single thread application that care about IPC and clock frequency above all else! Let's see if dual channel makes a difference:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

Reply 121 of 129, by nd22

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And it does! 10% just like the PR difference between the socket 939 Athlon 64 3500 and socket 754 Athlon 64 3200!! For the first time we get what AMD told everyone: dual channel leads to ~10% better performance!

Reply 122 of 129, by nd22

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47. CINEBENCH 2003 is an old version that is perfect for period correct single core systems and dual cores/hyper threaded ones. We are interested in the CPU score:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

Reply 123 of 129, by nd22

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And just where you thought dual channel justifies the PR rating we got this! Absolutely no scaling at all! Cinebench cares about the frequency and only frequency!

Reply 124 of 129, by nd22

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48. Tom2D is the only GUI test in the entire suite; it is highly controversial with nforce2 wiping the floor with VIA on socket A and K8T800 wiping the floor with nforce3 on socket 754.
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

Reply 125 of 129, by nd22

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All 4 platforms have serious problems with GUI acceleration. And socket 939 perform worse than their socket 754 counterparts! Unless a miracle happens the PR of socket 939 Athlon's is vastly overestimated!

Reply 126 of 129, by nd22

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And we reach the last test: Unreal tournament 2004. One of the last DirectX8 games, UT 2k4 is a really good arena shooter. Umark benchmark utility refuses to run with UT 2k4 GOG edition that I have so I used fraps 3.4.7 to test the Death match Antalus map in spectate mode. After loading the map I waited 1 min before pressing F11 for benchmark. After 1 minute of testing I changed the resolution and waited again 1 minute before benchmarking and so on. I repeated 3 times and kept the final 3 runs at 1024*768, 1280*1024 and 1600*1200. Please note that I used maximum details and also sound!
37. UT 2K4 - 1024*768:
Abit KU8 - socket 754
2026-02-15 05:33:38 - UT2004
Frames: 7644 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 127.400 - Min: 85 - Max: 183

Abit KV8 PRO - socket 754
2026-04-05 07:36:57 - UT2004
Frames: 7739 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 128.983 - Min: 81 - Max: 202

Abit UL8 - socket 939
2026-02-21 06:05:17 - UT2004
Frames: 7686 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 128.100 - Min: 73 - Max: 179

Abit AV8 - socket 939
2026-03-03 03:49:51 - UT2004
Frames: 7653 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 127.550 - Min: 67 - Max: 190

There is nothing to separate the Athlon 64 3500 from the Athlon 64 3200 here! All 4 systems perform so close that we can not see any advantage from the dual channel platform!
Both sockets perform the same! Please note that I used the exact same stepping on both CPU's: E6 - socket 754 has only the part number ADA3200AIO4BX available which is E6 while on socket 939 you have 2 options: E3 with part number ADA3500DAA4BP and E6 with part number ADA3500DAA4BW. I used the latter.

Reply 127 of 129, by nd22

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38. Next resolution is 1280*1024:
Abit KU8 - socket 754
2026-02-15 05:37:21 - UT2004
Frames: 7560 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 124.000 - Min: 71 - Max: 180

Abit KV8 PRO
2026-04-05 07:39:50 - UT2004
Frames: 7234 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 122.567 - Min: 82 - Max: 195

Abit UL8 - socket 939
2026-02-21 06:08:16 - UT2004
Frames: 7401 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 123.350 - Min: 60 - Max: 179

Abit AV8
2026-03-03 03:46:08 - UT2004
Frames: 7476 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 124.600 - Min: 68 - Max: 175

Again socket 939 and dual channel have no advantage over the older brother!

Reply 128 of 129, by nd22

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39. UT 2K4 at the last resolution - 1600*1200:
Abit KU8 - socket 754
2026-02-15 05:35:22 - UT2004
Frames: 6493 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 108.217 - Min: 68 - Max: 171

Abit KV8 PRO - socket 754
2026-04-05 07:35:26 - UT2004
Frames: 6902 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 115.033 - Min: 81 - Max: 169

Abit UL8 - socket 939
2026-02-21 06:06:57 - UT2004
Frames: 6739 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 112.317 - Min: 67 - Max: 161

Abit AV8 - socket 939
2026-03-03 03:47:52 - UT2004
Frames: 7249 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 120.817 - Min: 83 - Max: 195

Even at the most demanding settings there is less than 5% difference between the dual channel platforms and single channel ones! Please note again the weakness of both ULI systems at 1600*1200 resolution!

Reply 129 of 129, by AlexZ

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5-6% boost is nothing significant for AGP (as all games until 2004 will run fine) and the extra memory capacity isn't useful for dual boot Win98/XP. Games suitable for AGP don't need 3GB RAM. It's more about local availability.

s939 will matter more with PCIe and games from 2005 which can benefit from 3GB RAM sometimes and the slight single core boost.

I have looked at local s754 offerings and it is much more numerous, there are even 3 full size PCIe boards on sale (Asus K8N4-E Deluxe being one of them). There are very few s939 boards on sale, only very expensive ones from people who know what they are selling. There are a few cheap complete PCs with Athlon 64 3700+ (s939, 2.2Ghz), but with MSI boards (average BIOS options, they were cheap boards).

Pentium III 900E,ECS P6BXT-A+,384MB,GeForce FX 5600, Voodoo 2,Yamaha SM718
Athlon 64 3400+,Gigabyte GA-K8NE,2GB,GeForce GTX 275,Audigy 2 ZS
Phenom II X4 955,Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3,8GB,GeForce GTX 780
Vishera FX-8370,Asus 990FX,32GB,GeForce GTX 980 Ti