All tests were conducted at the 133MHz / 177MHz (3:4 setting). Originally I had the Soyo P4I845 included in these tests, but since it is only capable of a 4:5 ratio, it would be unrepresentative. All timings were at CAS 2, 5-2-2 with a CMD rate of 1. This is also true of the Granite Bay based P4G8X, but that board was naturally running at 266MHz Dual Channel. On to the tests!
Sandra
Every reviewers best friend, I have resisted making Sandra our staple benchmark. I think it's fair to say that the memory comparison is the only truly useful piece of information that can be had from this excellent software suite this time around.
As you can see, the 845 based boards have their asses thoroughly beaten by the Granite Bay's dual memory controller in this test, but you will notice that the BH7 is very slightly quicker than the other 845s on test.
3DMark
Since the 2003 version has annoyingly proved itself to be little more than a pure graphics card benchmark, we will continue to use 2001SE until Futuremark produces something more representative of real world gaming performance.
First thing you will notice is that the P4G8X's early theoretical improvement is carried over in this particular benchmark, although hardly to the degree you might envisage. The BH7 trails the more modern board by only 150 or so marks.
Quake III This aging benchmark keeps proving to be invaluable as a subsystem test and even though just about any modern graphics card will allow full detail at full resolution, it still looks remarkably fresh.
What is going on here is difficult to say, as Quake has always been a very bandwidth hungry benchmark. Nonetheless, the BH7 managed to humble all comers in this benchmark, even if the spread across all four boards is minimal.
Veritech
Time for a serious benchmark, and I have chosen to migrate from Sysmark to Veritech, not for any particular reason save a change of scene in my mundane reviewer's life ;)
Again we see that the P4G8X performs less well than expected. For sure it is not worth the extra cash - you can expect to pay at least $50 more for a Granite Bay compared to an equivalent 845PE.
Unreal Tournament 2003
By far the best looking commercial game available, UT2003 also plays a mean benchmark. I have chosen the pretty flyby test for comparing these 4 contenders.
We see the P4G8X start to flex its ample bandwidth muscle in this benchmark, but even then it only manages a paltry 6fps better than the BH7, which has shown itself to be faster in ALL benchmarks than its predecessor, the BE7, as well as the Asus equivalent.
