3DMark2001 SE	Source: MadOnion

3DMark2001 SE is the latest installment in the 3DMark series by MadOnion. By combining DirectX8 support with completely new graphics, it continues to provide good overall system benchmarks. 3DMark2001 SE has been created in cooperation with the major 3D accelerator and processor manufacturers to provide a reliable set of diagnostic tools. The suite demonstrates 3D gaming performance by using real-world gaming technology to test a system's true performance abilities. Tests include: DirectX8 Vertex Shaders, Pixel Shaders and Point Sprites, DOT3 and Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, support for Full Scene Anti-aliasing and Texture Compression and two game tests using Ipion real-time physics. Higher 3DMark scores denote better performance.

3DMark 2001 SE Benchmark Results
	Motherboards	3DMarks	Ranking
1.	P4PA - 100 MHz FSB	7791
2.	P4PA - 111 MHz FSB	8370
3.	P4XB-RA - 100 MHz FSB	7578
4.	4D845A - 100 MHz FSB	7723

The P4PA does very well in 3DMark2001. In fact, at stock speeds it's 200 points higher then VIA's own VIA P4XB-RA which had a 3DMark score of 7578! It should be obvious that the P4PA and the P4XB-RA have different manufacturers. It's not to often that a VIA chipet based motherboard can beat a Intel based one, but that's happening here!

Quake III Arena	Source: ID Software

Quake III Arena is a First Person Shooter (FPS) that revolutionized gaming as we know it. Using multiple light sources and having graphics textures that can fill videocards, even after 3 years it's still able to bring a cutting edge system to its knees.

Quake III Arena Fastest demo001
	Motherboard	FPS	Ranking
1.	P4PA - 100 MHz	282.8
2.	P4PA - 111 MHz	308.9
3.	P4XB-RA - 100 MHz	257.4
4.	4D845A - 100 MHz	261.1

Quake III Arena Fastest nv15demo
	Motherboard	FPS	Ranking
1.	P4PA - 100 MHz	76.3
2.	P4PA - 111 MHz	83.9
3.	P4XB-RA - 100 MHz	69.7
4.	4D845A - 100 MHz	73

With QIII Arena at the Fastest Settings, the difference between the stock P4PA and its closest competitor the ACorp 4D845A (i845-D) is about 20 fps in demo001 and that's a huge difference! I'm not really sure how to explain this, other then the P4PA's manufacturer is probably a top end mainboard maker! The P4PA also seems to be able to take control of the Pentium 4 2 GHz best, judging by the nv15demo's numbers since that demo is all CPU limited.

Quake III Arena MAX 1024x768 demo001
	Motherboard	FPS	Ranking
1.	P4PA - 100 MHz	187.3
2.	P4PA - 111 MHz	194.6
3.	P4XB-RA - 100 MHz	183.1
4.	4D845A - 100 MHz	186.3

Quake III Arena MAX 1024x768 nv15demo
	Motherboard	FPS	Ranking
1.	P4PA - 100 MHz	52.2
2.	P4PA - 111 MHz	57.9
3.	P4XB-RA - 100 MHz	47.9
4.	4D845A - 100 MHz	49.6

The trend we saw at the lower resolutions is also happening at higher ones such as 1024x768 however the videocard is becoming the bottleneck since the frame rate is much closer together then before.

Conclusions:

The VIA P4PA is a very fast motherboard for sure. In fact, it's faster then most of the other Pentium 4 motherboards I've tested recently, and that's quite a feat!

During our testing of the VIA P4PA, we did experience a few BSOD's however stability was much better then the P4XB-RA. VIA has done very well with the P4PA and the performance is top notch to show for it.

With onboard USB 2.0 and 10/100 ethernet (and yes even AC'97 sound) there isn't much you need to add to this motherboard to complete the system. I personally am not much of a fan of the AC'97 audio codec because it is not an actual hardware soundcard. The AC'97 just isn't really good for gaming, MP3's or DVD's.

About the only fault I can find with the P4PA is more of point of lacking, as the inclusion of onboard IDE RAID would have meant that this motherboard was packed to the gills, and fast.

As for "fun factor" the P4PA scores a perfect 10! With the many different memory tweaks/overclocking options, the VIA P4PA allows a enthusiast to fully take control of their system and tune it into top-notch performance. Heck, even our Pentium 4 2 GHz Williamette seemed to like the P4PA quite a bit, it ran faster on this board then any before. All in all, we were very impressed with this socket 478 offering from VIA, and hope it is a sign of more things to come!