ASRock Core 2 Duo: AGP/PCI Express Graphics Performance, Part Tres
by Gary Key on August 15, 2006 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Game Performance, Continued
In our two games that tend to be GPU limited we see the i865 AGP/DDR solution continuing the trend of offering the best graphics performance regardless of video card choice. On the VIA platform the AGP slot still provides better overall results than the PCI Express slot. The 6800 Ultra continues to offer a better gaming experience than the 7600GS at our settings mainly due to the memory speed running 300MHz higher on the 6800 Ultra. The sweet spot for gaming with the 7600 GS seems to be at 1280x1024 with the older games and at 1024x768 with the newer releases. The introduction of low antialiasing or antistrophic filtering settings at these two resolutions should still provide a decent gaming experience.
Final Words
Our results confirm that there is not a throughput performance penalty for using AGP over PCI Express on the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA. In fact, just the opposite is true in this case as our AGP graphics cards consistently scored better than their PCI-E counterparts. This is attributable to the PCI Express Graphics slot being limited to X4 operation at the upper resolutions and the slight overhead penalty incurred due to the VIA chipset design. However, the performance of the PCI Express slot is not that bad with the worst penalty being around 5% with our video cards. (Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that can be up to 10% slower in certain applications than competing motherboards.) If you have either an AGP or midrange PCI Express card then this board will handle both in a more than acceptable manner with today's applications.
The overall performance of the ASRock 775i65G board still surprised us, even though we already knew it was just as competitive with the other chipsets from our previous testing. It proved itself once again to be extremely stable with every benchmark or application we threw at it. If you still have a high performance AGP 8X video card and DDR memory then this board would make an incredible "budget" system with the addition of an E6300 or E6400 Core 2 Duo processor. The same holds true for the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board which also allows you to use a current PCI Express video card at a small performance penalty and DDR2 memory which improves performance slightly over DDR-400.
If gaming is your priority then we still suggest upgrading your entire platform at this time as the top games being introduced over the next six months are just going to put additional demands on even the latest hardware. There are quite a few attractive midrange GPU offerings now available. If you happen to need a good second computer or utilize your system mainly for media encoding or general applications then either board allows you to extend your current component investment while realizing a CPU performance increase, especially when compared with older Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 systems. In the end, this might just be the most important reason to consider either board.
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In our two games that tend to be GPU limited we see the i865 AGP/DDR solution continuing the trend of offering the best graphics performance regardless of video card choice. On the VIA platform the AGP slot still provides better overall results than the PCI Express slot. The 6800 Ultra continues to offer a better gaming experience than the 7600GS at our settings mainly due to the memory speed running 300MHz higher on the 6800 Ultra. The sweet spot for gaming with the 7600 GS seems to be at 1280x1024 with the older games and at 1024x768 with the newer releases. The introduction of low antialiasing or antistrophic filtering settings at these two resolutions should still provide a decent gaming experience.
Final Words
Our results confirm that there is not a throughput performance penalty for using AGP over PCI Express on the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA. In fact, just the opposite is true in this case as our AGP graphics cards consistently scored better than their PCI-E counterparts. This is attributable to the PCI Express Graphics slot being limited to X4 operation at the upper resolutions and the slight overhead penalty incurred due to the VIA chipset design. However, the performance of the PCI Express slot is not that bad with the worst penalty being around 5% with our video cards. (Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that can be up to 10% slower in certain applications than competing motherboards.) If you have either an AGP or midrange PCI Express card then this board will handle both in a more than acceptable manner with today's applications.
The overall performance of the ASRock 775i65G board still surprised us, even though we already knew it was just as competitive with the other chipsets from our previous testing. It proved itself once again to be extremely stable with every benchmark or application we threw at it. If you still have a high performance AGP 8X video card and DDR memory then this board would make an incredible "budget" system with the addition of an E6300 or E6400 Core 2 Duo processor. The same holds true for the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board which also allows you to use a current PCI Express video card at a small performance penalty and DDR2 memory which improves performance slightly over DDR-400.
If gaming is your priority then we still suggest upgrading your entire platform at this time as the top games being introduced over the next six months are just going to put additional demands on even the latest hardware. There are quite a few attractive midrange GPU offerings now available. If you happen to need a good second computer or utilize your system mainly for media encoding or general applications then either board allows you to extend your current component investment while realizing a CPU performance increase, especially when compared with older Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 systems. In the end, this might just be the most important reason to consider either board.
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hibachirat - Saturday, August 19, 2006 - link
I agree that the AGP vs. PCIE would better be compared on another board, but I think Gary's point with these articles was more that those of us with decent AGP cards don't need to dash out and buy a $200 MB, $300 of DDR2 RAM, and a $300 PCIE GPU, just to upgrade to a Core 2 CPU. I'm sure it will run great for more than a year, but by that time it will probably be working as test PC somewhere in the office after I splurge for those other new parts.Yeah, some of those Newegg "junk" people make me yell. Just saw one yesterday where somebody ordered a case and then returned it because the power supply wattage rating was too low for them. Of course the power supply rating was stated clearly in the specs on the same page...doh!
joex444 - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
did you really just write a review and do benchmarks to show that AGP is faster than PCI-E x4? I thought this was a given. Next, why don't you see if x16 has more performance than x4, use a real slot and just tape the pins to cripple the card. Gosh, I'd love to hear how that turns out. Next up: Do you really need L1 cache?Paradox999 - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
I have to congradulate AT for this great series.Chalk me up as another person who is looking at either the ASRock 775i65G or ASRock 775Dual-VSTA for a quick upgrade with one of the lower cost Conroes and recycled 2gigs Mushkin DDR500 and AGP Ati x850XTPE.
What I really want to know is does the ASRock 775i65G have any cpu voltage adjustment at all, or is it stable with mild overclocking on the Conroe? With it's superior performance I prefer the ASRock 775i65G. I'd leave the DDR2/PCI-E to a later bigger upgrade that would at that time include a better motherboard.
Cheers!
Gary Key - Thursday, August 17, 2006 - link
It does not have any voltage options. The FSB is limited to 300 which is no issue for a E6300/6400 to hit without a volt increase. The board is extremely stable at 300FSB.
Paradox999 - Thursday, August 17, 2006 - link
Gary,thanks. If i understand you correctly, I *shoud* get a 300fsb with both low end Conroes but with the higher multiplyer of the E6400 that might be the sweet spot for this 'budget' system.
Thanks again for the reviews!!!!!
teraus - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
i am about to buy this board along with a e6600 conroe with my gainward 7800gs+ and ddr pc3200 memory. this is a fill in until next year. found the article very interesting.there are people who always buy the latest thing and some of us look for performance on a budget and buy later and smarteri dont intend to use a pcie card with this board
zemane - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
I would like to know the performance of a system with my video card, ATI A-I-W X800 XT AGP on this motherboard using a Core 2 Duo E6300 or E6600 CPU and 2GB memory, since I am planning to upgrade to something like that soon. And how it would later perform if I upgrade that with a mid-range PCI-E card. Thanks!lemonadesoda - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
I would like to have seen the comparison of this mainboard PCI-4x against a PCI-8x or 16x with similar CPU so we can see how much of a bottleneck (or performance loss) there is with this system. Plase consider a PART 4.kmmatney - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
Like the lack of Socket 939 Semprons, I think the lack of a low cost Conroe (Core Solo>) is a major bummer. I guess you can always get a Pentium D for cheap, but then your back to a hot, power hungry processor. When are "Celeron" Core processors die out?mendocinosummit - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
I am getting tired of this motherboard. Anandtech has not done a real interesting review that I have actually read for almost two weeks. When are there going to be some different reviews.