The DFI AK70
AMD Athlon mainboard
Wednesday, May 31, 2000
The performance test results
All tests were all performed under Windows98.
The system setup was as following:
Motherboard: DFI AK70
Motherboard revision: A
CPU: AMD Athlon 800Mhz
Memory: 128Mbb Transcend PC133 SDram
Primary IDE Port Controller Master: Quantum Fireball KA 9.1gig ATA66
Secondary IDE port Controller Master: Quantum Fireball 3.2 Gig ATA33
Secondary IDE port Controller Slave: Kenwood 52X True X CD-ROM
AGP Port: GeForce 256
Graphics card driver revision: Nvidia 4.11.01.0368
OS: Win98 built 4.10
DirectX 7.0a
GlSetup 1.0.0.110 Beta
Winstone99 - Winbench99
|
Ziff Davis Winstone99 - Winbench99
|
|
Winbench CPUmark99
|
70.23
|
|
Business Winstone99
|
30.4
|
Video sub-system tests
|
Quake2 version 3.20 @800Mhz
|
|
800 X 600 X 75Hz
|
177.6 FPS
|
|
Quake2 version 3.20 @900Mhz
|
|
800 X 600 X 75Hz
|
179.8 FPS
|
Disk sub-system tests
Comparatif
Overall Quality Evaluation
The evaluation table below shows both the strong and weak points of the tested motherboard. No need to remind you that performance is not the sole purchasing criteria in a motherboard. Most of today's motherboards exhibit performance very close to each other, so we need additional information in order to help us distinguish the real advantages of a motherboard compared to its competitors. This is exactly where this evaluation table comes in handy.
|
DFI AK70 AMD Athlon mainboard
|
|
|
Feature
|
Evaluation
|
|
Design Originality
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
3
|
|
Circuit Board Quality
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
5
|
Component Layout
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
5
|
Capacitiors
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
4
|
|
CPU Retention Mechanism
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
5
|
|
Amounts of Expansion Slots
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
4
|
|
Amount of Memory sockets
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
4
|
|
Ease of installation
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
5
|
|
BIOS Setup Design
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
3
|
|
Performance
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
5
|
|
Overclockability
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
1
|
|
Stability
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
5
|
|
Bundled Software
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
1
|
|
Bundled Hardware
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
3
|
|
Users Manual Quality
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
3
|
|
Packing Quality
|
Poor
|
Good
|
Average
|
Excellent
|
Top Grade
|
4
|
|
Features supported
|
ATA66
|
PC133
|
Wake On LAN
|
Modem ring
|
Pwr Fail Res
|
3
|
|
Features supported (suite)
|
SB-Link
|
AMR
|
Mouse Pwr On
|
Susp. to RAM
|
Susp. to Disk
|
0
|
|
Features supported (suite)
|
IRDA
|
SCSI
|
Keyb. Pwr On
|
Hardw. mon.
|
Vcore adj.
|
2
|
|
Features supported (suite)
|
RAID
|
Alarm
|
Jumperless
|
L2 lat. adj.
|
IRQ assign.
|
2
|
|
Total Score obtainned for this motherboard
|
67 point out of 100
|
|
Features color codes: Blue = supported, Red = optional, Black = not supported
|
The weak points
The AK70's weak points are fairly few, and can be listed thusly: the absence of such functions as Suspend to Disk, Suspend to RAM, and Power Failure Recovery, no AMR slot, a bare-bones software pack, no Overclocking ability, a condensed user's manual, no ability to adjust the CPU's core voltage, and AGP support that includes only 2X mode...
The strong points
The AK70's strong points are: its great simplicity of installation and use, excellent performance, and great stability.
Conclusions
Unfortunately, the DFI AK70 has very little to offer, at least in the way of features. On the other hand, its stability and performance are above reproach. As a first generation Athlon-board, it's clear that the AK70 suffers from a sparsity of functions that is fairly common among other first-gen boards. If, however, these functions are of little use, or interest to you, the user, and performance is your primary purchasing motivation, the AK70 has alot to offer. The fact is, the DFI AK70 is the most performing Athlon motherboard that we've yet reviewed here, bar none.
For more information, visit DFI.
You can discuss this article in the Forum
|
