What to watch for in the test results
We're going to cut to the chase here and get down to the benchmark results, because these are the most interesting thing about the BD7-RAID. If it performed just like an Intel D845BG, all of the BD7's overclocking goodness would be seriously diluted by relatively poor performance. However...

Well, you'll see.

The thing is, we're testing against a range of Pentium 4 motherboards that represent the different P4 chipsets out there, including Intel's D845BG. We're interested to see not just how the BD7-RAID stacks up against the competition but also how this 845 chipset board compares to the other DDR chipsets for the Pentium 4. Because of that, our testing is going to be quite a bit more thorough than your average motherboard review. Do not let the big graphs and numbers frighten you, though; we'll talk more about the BD7-RAID board later.

Also, because we've done all of this before, I'm going to skip the introductions for our various benchmark tests. Please go read our original Pentium 4 chipset roundup if you need to get your bearings.

Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least twice, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

Intel 845 (PC133) Intel 845 (DDR) Intel 850 Intel 845 (DDR) VIA P4X266A SiS 645
Processor Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz
Front-side bus 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) 100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped)
Motherboard Intel D845WN Intel D845BG Intel D850GB Abit BD7-RAID VIA P4XB-S SiS 645 reference
Chipset Intel 845 Intel 845 Intel 850 Intel 845 VIA P4X266A SiS 645
North bridge 82845 MCH 82845 MCH 82850 MCH 82845 MCH P4X266A north bridge SiS 645 north bridge
South bridge 82801BA ICH2 82801BA ICH2 82801BA ICH2 82801BA ICH2 VT8233 south bridge SiS 961 south bridge
Memory size 256MB (1 DIMM) 256MB (1 DIMM) 256MB (2 RIMMs) 256MB (1 DIMM) 256MB (1 DIMM) 256MB (1 DIMM)
Memory type Infineon PC133 SDRAM Micron PC2100 DDR SDRAM Samsung PC800 Rambus DRAM Micron PC2100 DDR SDRAM Micron PC2100 DDR SDRAM Micron PC2100 DDR SDRAM
Micron PC2700 DDR SDRAM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 64MB (Detonator XP 21.83 video drivers)
Sound Creative SoundBlaster Live!
Storage IBM 75GXP 30.5GB 7200RPM ATA/100 hard drive
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS updates None

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.