Case Studies
AMD ATHLON XP 2700+ & ABIT KV7
MD stirred excitement among PC enthusiasts by announcing the Athlon XP 2700+ and the Athlon XP 2800+ in October 2002. Both processors featured a new 333MHz FSB, meaning users could run the CPU and DDR 333MHz synchronously, greatly enhancing performance. The original XP 2800+, which had a Thoroughbred core and a 2.25GHz clock speed, is uncommon now, thanks to a new version with the same name. At 2.083GHz, the new XP 2800+ has a significantly slower clock speed, but it also has the slightly larger Barton core.
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra-based Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH (My Vivo Edition) with 256MB of RAM. We downloaded the latest NVIDIA driver (version 45.23) from NVIDIAs Web site. The motherboard (ABIT KV7) doesnt have dual-channel capability, but we used the same 1GB kit (two 512MB modules) of Kingston KHX3200AK/1G DDR 400 PC3200 RAM that we used in this issues other CPU overclocking articles. We used the GlacialTech Igloo 2510 because the Igloo 2510s copper base spreads heat well, and the fan is so quiet (26dBa).
AMD Athlon XP 2700+ (Thoroughbred) ABIT KV7
Stock Performance Overclocked Performance Clock Speed 2.19GHz 2.39GHz Frequency 166MHz 168MHz Multiplier VCore 1.65V 1.85V CPU 6382 6888

PCMark2002

Memory 4497 4662

HDD 1216 1219

3DMark 2001 SE 13404 13942
However, AMD never re-released the XP 2700+. Like the first XP 2800+, the XP 2700+ has a faster clock speed (2.167GHz) than the XP 2800+, but it also has the smaller 256KB L2 cache. As a result, the processor costs less than the XP 2800+ (at press time, the XP 2700+ costs $117 and the XP 2800+ costs $140 in 1,000-unit quantities). The XP 2700+ has a Thoroughbred core and a 128KB L1 cache. We avoided unnecessary items when we built our test rig, and we didnt connect noncritical components such as front panel USB ports. We housed our rigs components in an Antec PLUS1080AMG Performance Plus file server case. The case includes an Antec TruPower 430-watt PSU, which has SATA connectors for our Seagate ST380013AS Barracuda SATA 7200rpm hard drive. We used a Lite-On LTC-48161H 48X/24X/48X/ 16X DVD/CD-RW to load Windows XP Professional Edition and benchmark programs. We also installed an NVIDIA
Motherboard We chose ABITs KV7 motherboard, which features the VIA KT600 (northbridge) and VT8237 (southbridge) chipsets. The board is slimmer than standard ATX motherboards, but ABIT squeezed plenty of features on the board. Users who plan to put the motherboard in a tight space will like its size, but attaching and removing certain components isnt easy. We first noticed that ABIT placed the IDE connectors at the edge of the KV7. Generally, IDE connectors face out from a board, as do the floppy, PCI, and PSU connectors. Here, the connectors face to the side. If your case has room, you wont have any problem connecting the IDE cables, but if you have a tight case, youll run into the same space restrictions you tried to avoid by buying this board. The space problems dont end there. ABIT placed the floppy drive connector between the bottom of the KV7 and a PCI connector. If you use a floppy drive, youll
only be able to attach a thin PCI card to the nearby PCI connector. Were also concerned about the CPU socket. A capacitor stands close to the CPU socket. We didnt have trouble installing our Igloo 2510 because it has a thumb button that let us press the clip over the socket edge without using a screwdriver, but we had trouble removing the Igloo 2510 later. The capacitor blocked our fingers and the screwdriver. Users who swap CPUs frequently should probably look at a different motherboard. That said, we like several things about this board and CPU socket. Aside from the capacitor near the clip, the CPU socket has plenty of room. Our compact Igloo 2510 isnt a space hog, so we replaced it with a bulky heatsink: a ThermalRight SLK900A. The y-shaped heatsink, which holds a 92mm fan, didnt come close to the capacitors or the CNR. Also, ABIT drilled four holes near the CPU socket. Few new motherboards include the holes, eliminating 3DMark2001 SE Increase some cooling devices (such as certain water blocks), so were glad 538 that ABIT found room on this tight board. Another nice touch: a metal strip by one side of the CPU socket protects the motherboard from the heatsinks metal clip. The KV7 has three DDR DIMM slots that support up to 3GB of PC2700 RAM or up to 2GB of PC3200, but the board has only a single channel to the memory slots. The board has an AGP 8X slot, five PCI slots, and two SATA connectors. In back, the KV7 has the usual serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports, several audio jacks, and an RJ-45 jack. Although ABIT loaded the board with USB 2.0 ports, it didnt build a single FireWire port (or support for one) into the board. ABIT generally doesnt put free software in its motherboard packages, but it includes cables. Our KV7 included a black Skycable rounded floppy cable, an IDE ribbon cable, two black SATA cables, a dual SATA-toPSU adapter, and a PCI bay bracket containing two USB 2.0 ports. Youll probably want to put that bracket in the bay closest to the floppy connector.

ATX 12V PSU Connector Northbridge (VIA KT600) LAN controller
Southbridge (VIA VT8237) Audio Codec USB 2.0 Connectors SATA Connectors I/O Controller BIOS (Phoenix Award) Front Panel Connectors
We ran into trouble as soon as we loaded the OS. When we installed WinXP and rebooted, the system couldnt find the hard drive. After troubleshooting and perusing ABITs excellent Support section (www.abit-usa.com/support), we determined the motherboards Phoenix AwardBIOS BIOS version 6.00PG (ABIT version 11) was the likely culprit. The latest BIOS (version 12) had seven fixes, none of which mentioned hard drive problems. Flashing the BIOS is risky; you can damage the BIOS and the KV7 didnt include a program that would let you rescue a damaged BIOS. But our techs were certain that flashing the BIOS would solve the problem. To update the KV7s BIOS, we downloaded the new BIOS (version 12) from the Web site. When we decompressed the file, we loaded Awdflash.exe (version 8.24F) and four BIOS files on a floppy. We made a bootable floppy because we couldnt get into WinXP to use Internet Explorer. Before we put the floppy in the system, we turned on the PC, pressed DELETE at POST to enter Setup, and scrolled to the
Advanced tab. We scrolled to the First Boot Device field and selected Floppy. Chances are, your motherboard will default to the floppy drive as the First Boot Device, but check before you insert your disk. Next, we inserted the floppy and rebooted, which opened a DOS screen. We typed A:/runme.bat and pressed ENTER. The appropriate steps depend on your motherboard and BIOS version. Visit the motherboard manufacturers Web site support section and read the instructions before flashing your BIOS.
Once we successfully installed WinXP, we entered the BIOS. ABIT caters to overclockers. The first section, SoftMenu III Setup, contains the most important overclocking settings, including CPU and voltage settings. The CPU FSB Clock field lets you choose FSB speeds between 100 and 250, and you can change the FSB:AGP: PCI Ratio and the CPU multiplier. Before overclocking, we benchmarked the system at the XP 2700+s default settings: a 13X multiplier, 166MHz (333MHz FSB; 2.19GHz clock speed) frequency and a 1.65V VCore voltage. The XP 2700+ posted 13404 in 3DMark2001 and 6382 (CPU), 4497 (Memory), and 1216 (HDD) in PCMark2002. With those solid scores, we began overclocking right away. We raised the frequency to 169MHz (the system posted a 13623 3DMark2001 score). We couldnt run the benchmarks at 170MHz without freezing the system, so we raised the VCore voltage to 1.7V and ran it at 170MHz again. This time it posted 13660 in 3DMark2001, an increase of 37 points. The system froze when we raised the frequency above 170MHz, so we raised the multiplier and voltage again. After crashing several times with multipliers of 13.5X and 15X, we found the XP 2700+s sweet spot. With a multiplier of 14X, frequency of 168MHz (336MHz FSB; 2.39GHz clock speed), and voltage of 1.85V, our test rig posted 13,942 in 3DMark2001 and 6888 (CPU), 4662, (Memory), and 1219 (HDD) in PCMark2002. Final Word Surprisingly, the 2.19GHz XP 2700+ didnt outperform the XP 2600+ out of the box, but it took a 29-point 3DMark2001 lead during overclocking and rose to 2.39GHz, so were not complaining. Benchmarks aside, unless you have a tight motherboard area, youll want to choose a motherboard that has more options and a better layout.

by Joshua Gulick

Overclock Comparison 3DMark2001 SE
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Stock Performance Overclocked Performance 5 AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Stock Performance Overclocked Performance AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Stock Performance Overclocked Performance 14213 14727

13404 13942

13653 13913

Tested Motherboard Compatibility List Series (7000/8000/9500S series)
Updated: April, 2007 The 3ware card is installed with 4 attached drives in the first slot closest to the AGP port. Testing consists of installing both Linux and Windows operating systems, using RAID 0, 10, and 5 configurations, and executing a test suite to insure functional interoperability.

Manufacturer

Abit Abit Abit Abit Abit Abit Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Asus Compaq Dell Dell Dell Gigabyte Gigabyte Gigabyte Gigabyte Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Iwill Iwill Iwill Iwill MSI MSI MSI

900-0026-00 Rev J

AG8 KD7A KG-7 KV7 KX7 NF7-S A7M266 A7M266-D A7V600

Chipset

Intel 915P VIA KT400A

AMD761/VIA 686B

Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix AMI Asus Asus Asus Asus Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix Award AMI AMI

BIOS Version

6.00PG CT B6 2/27/2003 1004A 1009 1003A 1005

PCI Slot

PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 64-bit PCI-66 PCI-33 64-bit PCI-66 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 64-bit PCI-X133 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 64-bit PCI-X-133 PCI-X
P4 Athlon Athlon Athlon Athlon Athlon Athlon Dual Athlon Athlon Dual P3 P3 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 Xeon Dual Xeon Opteron Athlon P4 Dual Xeon Xeon
VIA KT600A VIA KT333 Nvidia nForce2 AMD 761 AMD 762 VIA KT600 ServerWorks ServerSet III CUR-DLS LE CUV4X-DLS VIA 694XDP NCLV-D Intel E7320 P4B533 Intel 845E P4C800-E Intel 875 P4G8X Intel E7205 P4S533 SiS 645DX P4S8X SiS 648 P4T Intel 850 P5AD2 Intel 925X P5GD1 Intel 915P PC-DL Intel 875P ServerWorks GCLE System PR-DLS Set SK8N Nvidia nForce3 Pro150 VIA K8T800 SK8V Presario 7000 Intel 850 PowerEdge 2600 Intel E7501 Precision 650 Intel Precision Intel E7525 Workstation 670 GA-7A8DW AMD 8111 GA-7DX AMD 761 GA-8ANXP-D Intel 925X chipset GA-8IRX Intel 845 D845HV D850EMV2 D850GB D865GBF SCB2 SE7210TP1-E SE7500CW2 SE7501CW2 SE7505VB2 SE7230NH1-LX 1 SE7520BDSE7221BKSE7525GPSE7520JR2 DCA200N DK8X KA266plus MPX2 KT6V-LSR 745 Ultra (MS6561) 915P COMBO-FR Intel 845 Intel 850E Intel 850 Intel 865G ServerWorks* Enterprise ServerSet* III HE SL Intel E7210 Intel E7500 Intel E7501 Intel E7505 Intel E7230 Intel E7520 Intel E7221 Intel E7525 Intel E7520 Intel 840 AMD 8151 Ali AliMAGiK1 AMD 760MPX VIA KT600 SiS 745 Intel 915P
PCI-X 66Mhz & PCI-E x8 Dual Xeon EM64T

1002 beta 5 P06

Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix AMI AMI AMI AMI AMI AMI Phoenix Phoenix AMI
F5 F6 HV84510A.86A.0045.P 14 MV85010A.86A.0061.P 23 GB85010A.86A.0076.P 17 BF86510A.86A.0033.P 06 SCB20.86B.0011.P01. 0109121047 1.25 86B.0022.P04
64-bit PCI-X-133 Dual Opteron PCI-33 Athlon PCI-33 P4 PCI-33 P4 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 64-bit PCI-66 64-bit PCI-X-66 64-bit PCI-X-133 64-bit PCI-X-133 64-bit PCI-X-133 P4 P4 P4 P4 Dual P3 P4 Dual Xeon Dual Xeon Dual Xeon Pentium 4 Dual Xeon P4 Dual Xeon Dual Xeon Dual P3
NH72310J.86B.1303.2006.1012.PCI-E x1 & PCI 32-bit/33Mhz
Phoenix AMI Award Phoenix AMI

PCI-X 64-bit/100Mhz

64-bit PCI-X-133 64-bit PCI-X-133

PCI-X 64-bit/133Mhz

PCI-X 133 MHz 64-bit PCI-X-133
Note: If you encounter problems with a certain motherboard, check the manufacturer for the latest BIOS. Contact 3ware's web site frequently for the latest updated list:
See KB 10848 regarding support of riser cards (http://www.3ware.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10848) See KB 10964 regarding support of Tyan S2880/S2885, Intel SE7501CW2 (Clearwater), and ASUS PP-DLW 1 See KB 12435 regarding Intel motherboard compatibility (http://www.3ware.com/kb/article.aspx?id=12435) 1 See KB 12435 regarding SE7520AF2 Intel motherboard compatibility (http://www.3ware.com/kb/article.aspx?id=12435). http://www.3ware.com/products/sys_compatibility.asp
900-0026-00 Rev J Page 2 of 2 Motherboard Compatibility List for the 3ware Web Site