The Battle of the P67 Boards - ASUS vs. Gigabyte at $190
by Ian Cutress on January 20, 2011 4:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Asus
- P67
USB Speed
For this benchmark, we run CrystalDiskMark to determine the ideal sequential read and write speeds for the USB port using our 64GB Patriot SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drive. Then we transfer a set size of files from the SSD to the USB drive, and monitor the time taken to transfer. The files transferred are a 1.52 GB set of 2867 files across 320 folders – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are the videos used in the Sorenson Squeeze test.
The Gigabyte board overall has the better USB performance, especially in USB 3.0 read speeds. This is accurately translated by the difference in copy time difference between the ASUS and Gigabyte boards in both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.
3D Movement Algorithm Test
The first benchmark ran is actually one I have written. My full time job involves computational chemistry, so this first benchmark uses various algorithms for three-dimensional simulation and movement of independent particles. The algorithms both employ uniform random number generation or normal distribution random number generation, and vary in various amounts of trigonometric operations, conditional statements, generation and rejection, fused operations, etc. The benchmark runs through six algorithms for a specified number of particles and steps, and calculates the speed of each algorithm, then sums them all for a final score. This is an example of a real world situation that a computational scientist may find themselves in, rather than a pure synthetic benchmark. The benchmark is also parallel between particles simulated, and we test the single thread performance as well as the multi-threaded performance.
There's barely anything between the boards. The Core i7-920 pulls ahead at stock as it has 8 threads to tackle the workload, whereas the i5-2500K used in the P67 motherboards only has four.
WinRAR x64 3.93
With 64-bit WinRAR, we compress the set of files used in the USB speed tests. WinRAR x64 3.93 attempts to use multithreading when possible.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.2
FastStone Image Viewer is a free piece of software I have been using for quite a few years now. It allows quick viewing of flat images, as well as resizing, changing color depth, adding simple text or simple filters. It also has a bulk image conversion tool, which we use here. The software currently operates only in single-thread mode, which should change in later versions of the software. For this test, we convert a series of 170 files, of various resolutions, dimensions and types (of a total size of 163MB), all to the .gif format of 640x480 dimensions.
Sorenson Squeeze 6.0
Sorenson Squeeze is a professional video encoder, complete with a vast array of options. For this test, we convert 32 HD videos, each a minute long and approximately 42 MB in size, to WMV 512KBps format. Squeeze can encode multiple videos at once, one for each thread.
Conclusions
There is not much in it, but the ASUS board performs better in most benchmarks with one exception - the USB speed (especially the USB 3.0 read) is a step behind the Gigabyte.
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IanCutress - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
Edited; simple copy/paste error. Glad you liked the review, we should have some H67 on the way next.Ian
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
May as well go down to detroit and buy a big fat rock. I would like to see you guys put together two $600 systems. One based on these outrageous $200 motherboards and a $200 cpu, and $200 for everything else. And put that up against a $70 motherboard and $200 cpu and put the extra $130 into a video card. Who in their right mind would choose this new crap? Dont even talk about encoding because encoding is something you start and then walk away. You dont need to be there to watch it encode so it dont matter how long it takes. (For 95% of users. Dont play these 5 percent mindgames.)vol7ron - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
I never walk away from my boxmarc1000 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
this is off-topic, but i think you should walk away from your box a little more. =DHrel - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
I agree anything over 150 for a motherboard is stupid. But these new Sandy Bridge CPU's are great! It's called progress, and when you do a lot of encoding speed does matter even if you do walk away and/or use another computer in the mean time. Not to mention how intensive encoding full 1080p content is, what about 3D and in the future 4K HD and 8K HD. It's called progress and it's a good thing!Shadowmaster625 - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
If you do a LOT of encoding, then you will have 2, 3, or 4 machines stacked up next to each other. And those machines would have Athlon X4's and cost $200 apiece to build. Only a fool spends $200, $300, or more, on a cpu just to encode something a little bit faster. You can get much better overall throughput using cheap AMD processors from the last generation. That fact holds true whether you encode one hour a week of video, or 1000. Intel is simply hoping that people are dumber than they may or may not really be.Fatchap - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
I used to type the command to load up a game or an application, press play on the tape player and walk away. I guess you still do the same as you would not want any of this new crap.Shadowmaster625 - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
You are quite delusional and propagandized if you think comparing a 2600K to something like a Q6600 or X2-250 is like going from "tape players" whatever you might use now. If you want a proper comparison, try VHS vs SuperVHS. Remember that? Oh yes, you must go out and spend $300 on that shiny new super-vhs player. All your old tapes will still look the same. But that's ok because anything new you record will look pretty good. (Of course if you ever stopped and thought about it, back in the day things always looked pretty good when you first recorded them. It's not until you tried playing it back in a different vcr that it started looking bad.)When someone can build a $500 gaming system that runs faster than something with a previous generation cpu and motherboard for less money then I might begin to be interested. But when you have to go with half the stream processors just to pay for a bunch of new crap that doesnt even get you anything, it makes no sense. These chips are supposed to result in cheaper motherboards. More integration, lesss complexity, bla bla bla. Well I dont see it. I just see a money grab.
seamusmc - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Shadow, some of us are still a generation or two behind. We'll definitely see more then a 5 percent boost. Personally I've been waiting for this 'perfect storm' of price and performance for quite some time, though I may wait for the 22nm refresh.Sure if you have an X58 platform with a 950 it probably doesn't make sense to upgrade, certainly not for gaming. Though many of the folks that frequent this site are enthusiasts and just want to play with the new hardware regardless of cost.
seamusmc - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Shadow, just realized the 5 percent gain you were talking about may have been between a $70 P67 board and $200 P67 board.I'd agree on that front. Though the more expensive boards do come with more features, USB hubs, and some better quality components.