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The nForce2-based ASUS A7N8X offers a variety of different memory and chipset latencies and frequency settings. In particular, unlike the A7V8X (VIA KT400), the board offers the possibility to run the memory bus asynchronous, that is as PC3200 at the 333 MHz FSB. We showed recently that on the KT400 platform running at 266 MHz FSB using the DDR400 setting instead of DDR333 only resulted in a minor performance hit, despite the fact that in both cases the memory bus was running in asynchronous mode. For the KT400 chipset, the 333 MHz situation is rather simple in that only synchronous memory operation is supported. Likewise, in the case of the nForce, a PC 2700 module can run synchronous with the new FSB and thus will not need any fifos that are required for temporary data buffering when two different bus frequencies have to be matched. However, as mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, the nForce2 chipset also offers to run the memory in a variety of predefined asynchronous frequencies, among which is DDR400 or PC3200.

To make a long story short, synchronous mode is heaven for system performance. Since each chain is only as strong as its weakest link, there is preciously little gained from running DDR400 with a 333 MHz FSB and that little is more than negated by the need for intermediate buffers and synchronizers.

SiSoft Sandra memory bandwidth (buffering enabled) photomontage at one glance. The highest scores were achieved running thesystem overclocked at 175 with the memory bus synchronous to the FSB. The second highest scores are at the same settings with the bus speed back to spec, that is 166 MHz. Increasing the memory bus to 200 MHz causes a performance hit and further sacrifices stability at the "Expert and Aggressive" settings. This made it necessary to run change the CPU interface mode to "Optimal" which, in turn, caused another performance hit.

This background excursion was somewhat necessary to pave the way to the real story here. Is the XP2800 + capable of ripping the crown of the fastest x-86 processor away from Intel? Again, as a refresher, we are going to mix and match the different mainboards / chipsets to bring out the best performance of the CPU regardless of chipset and board limitations.

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