Chaintech CT-6CTA2 i820 mainboard
Monday, June 19, 2000
The performance tests results
All tests were all performed under Windows98.
The system setup was as following:
Motherboard: Chaintech CT-6CTA2
Motherboard revision: Ver: 1.0
BIOS vesion: 01/25/2000
CPU: Intel Pentium III 450mhz
Memory: 128MB PC800 DRDRAM
IDE Primary port master: Quantum Fireball KA 9.1gig UDMA66
IDE Primary port slave: none
IDE secondary port master: none
IDE secondary port slave: Kenwood 52X True X
AGP Port: GeForce 256
Graphics card drivers: Nvidia 4.11.01.0368
OS: Win98 built 4.10
DirectX 7.0a
Note: The Turbo frequency of 105Mhz was used for all tests.
Ziff Davis Winstone99 - Winbench99
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Benchmark
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CPUmark99
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36.5
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Business Winstone99
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23.8
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Video sub-system tests
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Quake2 version 3.20
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Pentium III @ 473Mhz
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800 X 600 X 75Hz
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120.35 FPS
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Disk sub-system tests
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.
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Chaintech CT-6CTA2 i820 mainboard
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Feature
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Evaluation
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Design Originality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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4
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Circuit Board Quality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Component Layout
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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3
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Capacitiors
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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CPU Retention Mechanism
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Amounts of Expansion Slots
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Amount of Memory sockets
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Ease of installation
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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BIOS Setup Design
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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3
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Performance
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Overclockability
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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1
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Stability
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Bundled Software
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Bundled Hardware
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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3
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Users Manual Quality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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4
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Packing Quality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Features supported
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ATA66
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PC133
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Wake On LAN
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Modem ring
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Pwr Fail Res
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4
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Features supported (suite)
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SB-Link
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AMR
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Mouse Pwr On
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Susp. to RAM
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Susp. to Disk
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3
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Features supported (suite)
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IRDA
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SCSI
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Keyb. Pwr On
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Hardw. mon.
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Vcore adj.
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3
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Features supported (suite)
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RAID
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Alarm
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Soft Menu
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L2 latency adj.
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IRQ assign.
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3.5
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Total Score obtainned for this motherboard
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81.5 point out of 100
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Features color codes: Blue = supported, Red = optional, Black = not supported
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The weak points
The CT-6CTA2 has few bad points. One concerns Overclocking. In our experience, it was not possible to set our Pentium III 450MHz to operate on a bus speed higher than 105MHz, even though the specs state that frequencies of upto 150MHz were available. As well, the lack of a Vcore adjustment option, the badly considered placement of the ATX connector, and the exclusive support for DRDRAM are points that count against the CT-6CTA2.
The strong points
The CT-6CTA2's strong points are: its excellent performance, an interesting feature set, its integrated Creative Labs CT5880 sound-card, and the ability to manually assign IRQs.
Conclusions
Chaintech's CT-6CTA2 motherboard doesn't seem to have been conceived with Overclockers in mind, but rather for the Office market. With characteristic care, Chaintech seems to have made the CT-6CTA2 into a product for users with serious work to do, but whom nevertheless demand the best. By opting to use the i820 chipset, Chaintech deliberately set itself to adopt the most advanced technology on the market today.
One proof of that point is the optional RAID IDE controller. In short, the CT-6CTA2 could easily become the core of a server at the center of a small-office, or medium-sized enterprise network.
For additional information, visit Chaintech.
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