ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte & MSI: Four Flagship X58 Motherboards Reviewed
by Rajinder Gill on July 15, 2010 10:00 PM ESTFar Cry 2
Featuring fantastic visuals courtesy of the Dunia Engine, this game also features one of the most impressive benchmark tools we have seen in a PC game. For single GPU results we set the performance feature set to Very High, graphics to High, and enable DX10 with 2xAA. Multi card results are generated using Ultra High settings with 4XAA.
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II
We are big fans of the Warhammer franchise, especially Dawn of War II. One of the latest RTS games in our library is also one of the more demanding titles on both the CPU and GPU. We crank all options to Ultra, enable AA, and then run the built-in performance benchmark for our result.
Futuremark 3D Mark Vantage
We utilize the performance preset of Futuremark's 3D Mark Vanatge to compare 3-way SLI performance .
ASUS's R3E scores high consistently in all benchmarking tests thus far. The MSI turns in decent scores but comes in below the NF200 supporting boards when loaded with three GPUs. We're not sure on the exact cause though will conject that it's possibly down to PCIe bandwidth. Either way, the loss is not significant enough to warrant alarm at this point. The Gigabyte and EVGA boards are hampered slightly by the latency penalty of the NF200, and give up 3~5% of performance to the ASUS R3E under normal operating conditions.
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rustycurse - Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - link
1. I wish ask an important question for me - Why I should purchase a new PC (a component), when development engineers of programs (or of games) do not wish to "see" (completely to use) those resources the PC which one are already presented? An instance - during a play "Dragon Age Origin" (and not only it) and if is more exact - during conversations when the static picture with several alternatives of answers is presented - I see, that only nearby 1GB (this game, and almost same for Windows resources ) memory uses and CPU fan turns as the craziest! What is it - limitation INTEL for the chipsets with embed video (like mine 945G), or it's inexperience of software(games) developers?In other words - that I wish see it - low CPU and HDD (page file.sys) loadings at a high memory loading!
I doubt, that Intel, Microsoft or software makers will give me any reasonable answer in this matter, so i've a request to Anandtech team «to give me a light» on this problem. And, of course, to show the public the solution(s) in your further tests!
I'm planning to purchase a new PC (preferentially a notebook) in the near future, as alternative my present - (MB: P5LD2VM-dh/c; CPU - Pentium D945; Memory: 3x1GB 'all planks are - patriot'; Video: ASUS 7600GS; Win 7 ultimate), but I am "restrained" by above indicated problem, and here appears one more question (as I'm not wish create a superfluous topic):
2. Why almost on all notebooks use D-Sub connectors, instead of DVI? (I use CAD programs in double-screen mode - one person watching a movie through HDMI and second person doing a CAD job through DVI with high screen resolution )
O yeah, nearly has not forgotten! I had a similar situation during a play "Gothic 3" earlier - the memory loading on the screen monitor "Windows Task Manager" attained a breaking point nearby 2 GB and after a while the game hung (or was BSOD).
I'm waiting for reasonable thoughts and Thanks to Anandtech team for your guides and please forgive my English!
rustycurse - Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - link
Woops! I looked through these MBs and remembered another "a little issue" to mention.THE one of the reasons of the buying P5LD2-VM-DH/C was - Try to guess? - the location of the floppy connector!!!!!!!!
I don't know why all (almost) MB makers locate this connector at the bottom of a MB!!!, but i'm getting MAD when i see that, especially if it (GARBAGE) is MOST expensive and has ATX form factor!!!
So, MB makers - PLEASE F*** OFF with your expensive S*** and try to remember that some software require to be activated by using floppy drive, especially if it is located at THE TOP of the case ( like mine IN-Win Q500) !!!! sorry for"language" but i won't have other words for such matters!