Doom 3 is
the most advanced game to date. it takes advantage of the latest videocard
technology and pushes the processing power of the CPU to its absolute limit. At
its highest setting, Ultra quality, texture sizes pass the 500MB mark which
means even tomorrow's videocards will have a hard time running everything. The
frame rates in the game itself are locked at 60 fps so anything above that point
is wasted. Each test is run three times with the third run being
recorded.
| Doom3 |
| LQ 640x480: |
FPS |
Ranking |
| ASRock K8 Combo-Z/ASR (Ali M1689 200/400) |
102.7 |
   |
| Soltek SL-K8TPro-939 (K8T800 Pro 200/400) |
108.2 |
|
| Epox 9NDA3+ (NF3 Ultra 200/400) |
107.4 |
|
| Albatron K8X890 Pro II (K8T890 200/400) |
115 |
|
| MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (NF4 Ultra 200/400) |
108.5 |
|
| Chaintech Zenith VNF4 Ultra (NF4 Ultra 200/400) |
120.3 |
|
| MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI (NF4 SLI 200/400 X800
XT) |
117.5 |
|
| MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI (NF4 SLI 200/400 6600GT
SLI) |
111.4 |
|
| DFI LANPartyUT NF4 SLI-DR (NF4-SLI 200/400
X800XT) |
115.7 |
|
| DFI LANPartyUT NF4 SLI-DR (NF4-SLI 200/400 6600GT
SLI) |
108.8 |
|
| MSI RS480M2-IL (RS480 200/400 Onboard Video) |
14.2 |
   |
| MSI RS480M2-IL (RS480 200/400 X800 XT) |
108.4 |
|
Wrapping things up in Doom 3, the MSI RS480M2-IL
motherboard posts a decent score with that X800XT card in the slot. The onboard
video is up to the test, but only barely. You wouldn't want to actually play the game with it.
An Entry Level
Motherboard
PCSTATS has tested a few ATi based
motherboards, and considering these boards are targeted towards the entry level
market the general consensus has been positive. For some reason though, we get
the impression that ATi doesn't want to wait and let its core logic platforms
mature. Instead, the company goes back to the drawing board and tries again and
again. This certainly doesn't inspire much confidence in the consumer or the
vendor, and perhaps this is why we aren't seeing more ATi-based motherboards on
the market. Hopefully the fact that MSI has adopted the R480 chipset is a good
sign that things are beginning to settle down.
The MSI RS480M2-IL is a decent entry-level motherboard
with a retail price of $107 CDN ($85 US). The board is perfect
for HTPC use with its decent integrated video and built-in TV-out. It does not
come with much in the way of extras, only 10/100 LAN and 5.1 channel audio, but
considering its price we can't expect too much. The motherboard layout is very
good as MSI typically designs its motherboards with the end user in mind. We
would have liked to see the front panel I/O colour-coordinated.
What separates the RS480M2-IL from other motherboards
with integrated video is that the motherboard supports both TV and S-Video
output. You don't have to buy a standalone videocard to hook a system with this
board up to the TV. Its competition doesn't support this feature and this should
give ATi a slight advantage in the ever expanding digital home market.
The RS480 chipset generates quite a bit of heat, so if
you're planning to use this motherboard, make sure you have good case cooling! I
couldn't keep my finger on the heatsink for more than a second before getting
burnt. I'd hate to see how hot the little black heatsink gets in an enclosed
chassis.
From the benchmark results, we can see that the ATI RS480
chipset has potential but will ATI give it time to mature? In office benchmarks
the RS480M2-IL was able to keep up with the other motherboards but in 3D apps,
it started to sag behind. Hopefully new drivers will be able to extract more
performance from the chipset - but this isn't always a given.
The MSI RS480M2-IL motherboard would make a good starting
point for an inexpensive HTPC/office system/budget games machine. MSI has been
experimenting with several different chipsets for its entry-level motherboard
products, and this is an encouraging trend. Now let's see if a few other
manufacturers take up what ATI has to offer.
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