Voodoo Envy M:855 Part 1 - Athlon 64 DTR and Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro

The Test

Our test configuration for our Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, and Intel Pentium 4 scores are the same as previously mention our Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX – It’s Judgement Day and Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz – The Real Slim Shady articles.

It is important to note that the PowerNow (AMD’s equivalent of Intel’s SpeedStep) drivers that came with our Voodoo Envy M:855 are premature. They are full version (non-betas), but never the less are early. Voodoo will qualify the new PowerNow drivers next week, and this will concurrently affect performance. AMD has a general footprint of PowerNow that is sent to OEMs/ODMs/SIs/etc… However, system vendors have the choice of modifying the footprint to a degree. The modification of the PowerNow drivers is dependent on how much a system vendor is willing to take on thermal emissions for performance, and vice versa.

The new drivers from Voodoo should increase performance, as they are readily willing to increase their thermal budget. Additionally, we should note that in many timing benchmarks, PowerNow will create a conflict, as the timing between intervals is often times derived from the CPU. Because CPU frequency dynamically changes in response to the operating environment, the timing is derived incorrectly, and therefore the benchmark reports incorrectly.