Chaintech 5TDM2

by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 18, 1997 2:01 PM EST
The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

How I Tested

  • Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again.  All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.

  • Business Winstone 97 / Business Graphics Winmark 97 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed.  If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed

  • Business Winstone 98 / Business Graphics Winmark 98 was run on the Pentium MMX at 233MHz, and the AMD K6 at 233MHz, the averaging rules for these tests are the same as those used for the 97 test suites. 

  • After each motherboard was tested a complete format of the test hard drive was initiated and the OS/benchmarking software was re-installed afterwards a defragment was initiated using Windows 95's Disk Defragmentation Utility

  • No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability

  • All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results

  • All tests were conducted at 800 x 600 x 256 colors

Test Configuration

Processor(s): AMD K6/233 ANR & Intel Pentium MMX 233 & Cyrix 6x86MX-PR2/200
Board Revision: 1.01
RAM: 2 x 32MB Advanced Megatrends SDRAM DIMMs
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital Caviar AC21600H
Video Card: Matrox Millennium (2MB WRAM)
Busmaster EIDE Drivers: Intel 3.01
Video Card Drivers: MGA Millennium 4.03.00.3410
OS: Windows 95 Service Release 2

 

Windows 95 Performance of the Chaintech 5TDM2
CPU Business Winstone 97 Business Graphics Winmark 97
AMD K6/208 56.1 112
AMD K6/225 56.3 113
AMD K6/233 55.4 111
Cyrix 6x86MX-PR2/200 (150/75) 54.1 109
Cyrix 6x86MX-PR2/200 (166/66) 56.9 117
Cyrix 6x86MX-PR2/200 (166/83) 57.6 116
Intel Pentium MMX 208 53.7 108
Intel Pentium MMX 225 54.0 110
Intel Pentium MMX 233 52.6 107
Intel Pentium MMX 250 56.8 122
Intel Pentium MMX 262.5 56.2 120

 

Windows 95 Performance of the Chaintech 5TDM2
CPU Business Winstone 98 Business Graphics Winmark 98
AMD K6/233 17.4 113
Intel Pentium MMX 233 16.6 106

 


The Final Decision

A "healthy" change from ABIT's TX5 motherboard, although the 5TDM2 can't possibly compete with the performance of the ABIT TX5N, it gives the TX5 a run for its money, especially since it provides a working option for System Monitoring...provided you request it =)

Not a bad contribution by Chaintech, a motherboard that doesn't have to balance itself out for a lack in any one particular area, rather an overall decent motherboard from an overall decent manufacturer. 

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