Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

Processor Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz
System busHT 16-bit/1GHz downstream
HT 16-bit/1GHz upstream
Motherboard Foxconn NF4UK8AA DFI LANParty NF4 Ultra-D
BIOS revision1.1NF4LD209
North bridgeNVIDIA nForce4 Ultra
South bridge
Chipset driversForceWare 6.39
Memory size1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev 2 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
CAS latency (CL)2
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)2
RAS precharge (tRP)2
Cycle time (tRAS)5
Hard drives Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 37GB SATA
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 40GB ATA/133
AudionForce4/ALC850
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT with ForceWare 66.93 drivers
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS updatesService Pack 2, DirectX 9.0c

Today we'll be comparing the NF4UK8AA's performance to that of DFI's LANParty NF4 Ultra-D, which also uses the nForce4 Ultra chipset. For a more in-depth look at how the nForce4's performance compares with other Athlon 64 chipsets, see our nForce4 Ultra chipset review.

Thanks to OCZ for providing us with memory for our testing. If you're looking to tweak out your system to the max and maybe overclock it a little, OCZ's RAM is definitely worth considering.

Also, our test system was powered by OCZ PowerStream power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor's Choice winners in our latest PSU round-up.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. Most of the 3D gaming tests used the Medium detail image quality settings, with the exception that the resolution was set to 640x480 in 32-bit color.

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.