Without questions VIA owns 3dmark 2000! Onward to 3dmark 2001 another legacy benchmark based on DirectX8!
18. 3dmark 2001 - default settings:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

19. 3dmark 2001 -1280*1024 max details:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

20. 3dmark 2001 - 1600*1200 maxed out:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

VIA is the undisputed leader in "classical" benchmarks! For anyone building a high end Windows 9X AGP system with an Athlon 64, a VIA based motherboard is the way to go!

These results do not account for the broken VIA AGP aperture window on some new boards in Windows 98. So even though ULI underperforms in Windows XP, it may be winning in Windows 98. Same with nForce 3.

This requires using a newer NVidia driver with workaround (not sure one exists for ATI) to get acceptable performance in Windows 98 with a trade-off being worse game compatibility. One could argue that Windows XP era games being more demanding means performance in Windows XP takes priority and the workaround for VIA AGP aperture window may be good enough for Windows 98 games.

I believe I answered that question here:
Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 754!

nd22 wrote on 2026-03-24, 11:36:

I believe I answered that question here:
Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 754!

That is absolutely fine. I responded because the statement about "Windows 9X AGP system with an Athlon 64" is not supported by the data as we didn't test that configuration. You wrote you tried WinMe.

If someone else has patience for it they can create a separate thread to share their experience with Windows 98 and s754/939.

Is a Asrock 939A790GMH of any interest in this thread?
Just got one and willing to bench it if needed.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-03-24, 15:40:

nd22 wrote on 2026-03-24, 11:36:

I believe I answered that question here:
Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 754!

That is absolutely fine. I responded because the statement about "Windows 9X AGP system with an Athlon 64" is not supported by the data as we didn't test that configuration. You wrote you tried WinMe.

If someone else has patience for it they can create a separate thread to share their experience with Windows 98 and s754/939.

I did install Windows Me on all 3 socket 754 boards that I have - Abit KV8 PRO, NF8 PRO, KU8 - and it worked 100% stable on all of them for the whole week that I used them. I did not test them except for 3dmark 2001 because I believe that socket 754 & 939 are best suited for XP however, performance wise, I think they should be at the top of the food chain regarding 3d performance in Windows 9X. The main problem is that i used a radeon 9600xt that does not provide the best performance possible.

Nexxen wrote on 2026-03-27, 01:16:

Is a Asrock 939A790GMH of any interest in this thread?
Just got one and willing to bench it if needed.

Please go ahead and test it! The more results we got the better!

21. We continue with the tests and reach the last 3dmark version: 2003. I intentionally excluded the 2005 version because is too tough on any AGP card. We will get back to testing the last 2 3dmark versions made specifically for DirectX9 in part 2!
1024*768 default settings:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

And the difference between the weakest and the strongest is less than 2.5%?? Dual channel does not help?? Surely the difference between the 2 competing sockets must be greater!
Let's see the rest of the results first!

22. 3dmark 2003 - 1280*1024 max settings:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

23. 3dmark 2003 - 1600*1200 max details:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

24 & 25. At first glance dual channel makes no difference because, even with a radeon x1950 pro, with are GPU limited!
However.... if we take a look at the average FPS in the 2 sound tests that are compatible with the realtek alc658 codec we see a different picture: there is colossal difference between the single channel socket 754 and corresponding dual channel socket 939 - KU8/UL8 and KV8PRO/AV8 - of no less than 18%!
Because all sound is processed by the CPU that means that when you are actually playing any game a socket 939 system will ensure a far smother frame rate than a socket 754 one because dual channel will help a lot with that!
In practice this will matter a lot!

26 & 27 & 28. Synthetic 3d tests are over time to test overall system performance with PC mark and the first version is the 2002 one:
A. KU8
B. KV8 PRO
C. UL8
D. AV8

CPU scores are identical - we are talking about the same processor with an extra memory channel grafted on; so are the memory scores - the 3% advantage of both ULI systems over the VIA counterparts are well within the margin of error.
What is striking is the horrendous hard drive score of the AV8; I repeated all the tests on the second identical system after re-installing Windows XP and all the software again and it shows the same bad performance!

Could you give me exact OS and list of benchmarks to complete?

My config:

X2 4800+ I made a mistake, it's a 4200+ (I picked up the wrong one)
4GB PC3200 CL3
XP32 SP3
4650 DDR2

'99 fails
2000 works / 1280*1024 16bit 32 bit 24-bit z buffer triple frame D3D = 16979
2002 fails
'04 fails
'05 is slow / graphics = 6123

Thanks

Edit: I downgraded to a X300 and 2002 and 2004 work now.
Is the 4650 too new for these programs? Are there known issues?

Sure! Hardware environment for PCI-express platforms:
1. CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800 & 4400 part number ADV4400DAA6CD- I have both, I did not started testing pci-express platforms and I am considering whether to use the 89W TDP 4400 or the 110W TDP 4800.
2. cooler: whatever you got.
3. motherboards: Abit AX8 revision 1.0 and 2.0; KN8 regular/SLI/ultra; AN8 ultra/SLI, fatality AN8 ultra/SLI. Of course you have different boards!
4. RAM: 4gb of DDRAM at 400 MHz with 3-3-3-8 timings and CR 1T/2t - not sure about that.
5. video card: not decided yet, i want to include games and benchmarks from 2005 and 2006, at least a 8800GTX, or better still GTX 280/radeon 4890.
6. storage: SSD for nforce with a 150gb raptor as a secondary drive; raptor for the VIA boards.
7. any optical drive you got if you need one!
8. PSU: strong enough and with some "reserve"for SLI testing maybe.
9. case - whatever you like.

Nexxen wrote on Yesterday, 16:23:

Could you give me exact OS and list of benchmarks to complete?

My config:

X2 4800+ I made a mistake, it's a 4200+ (I picked up the wrong one)

Let's wait until we get to X2 benchmarks.

nd22 wrote on Today, 07:55:

Sure! Hardware environment for PCI-express platforms:
1. CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800 & 4400 part number ADV4400DAA6CD- I have both, I did not started testing pci-express platforms and I am considering whether to use the 89W TDP 4400 or the 110W TDP 4800.
5. video card: not decided yet, i want to include games and benchmarks from 2005 and 2006, at least a 8800GTX, or better still GTX 280/radeon 4890.

Including a GTX 280 would be great, it should be a good fit for X2 4800+. To help avoid killing itself with heat it's good to flash BIOS with a custom fan curve. 4800+ is great to see the best performance, 4400+ for comparison with single core s939 and s754 (how much one more core helps).

Well, I have only one AGP: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-K8NS-939-rev-1x/sp (btw, this one isn't listed on TRW)

When I'll get the occasion to take it out I'll bench it.
I have 3500+ and a ATI 3650 512MB (detected as a 2600XT - 🤣).
Chipset is given as NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra (I think it's another rebranded 2 series, IIRC).