Sandy Bridge-E and X79 – The ASUS P9X79 PRO Review
by Ian Cutress on November 14, 2011 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- X79
3D Movement Algorithm Test
The algorithms in 3DPM employ both 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.
As expected, due to the 3960X, we have a clear lead on 3DPM. In single thread mode, we have a 3.9 GHz core taking top place, and the power of 12 threads at 3.6 GHz in multithreaded mode shows in the 914.76 score.
WinRAR x64 3.93 - link
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.
The more cores and threads for WinRar also play a role in providing some excellent times in comparison to other chipsets.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.2 - link
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.
In this single threaded workload, no real difference is seen compared to P67, showing that for FastStone, memory is not a limiting factor, and the move to SB-E doesn't make much of a difference.
Sorenson Squeeze 6.0 - link
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.
With Squeeze being a fully multithreaded test, we're comparing a 4 thread i5-2500K to a 12 thread 3960X, so it's no wonder that the 3960X comes out on top.
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OblivionLord - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Better question... why use a dual 5850 setup to test a dual 16x pci-e 2.0 when you could have done a dual 5990 or better yet dual 590 or 6990? The main benefit with this release is to answer the lack of pci-e lanes which if you had highend cards, your only option was x58 until this release since dual 8x just wouldn't cut it on a dual 590 or dual 6990 solution.Also when running those cards in sli/crossfire, lets see how stressed the 4 core sb is vs the new 6 core or even nehalem or westmere.
Beenthere - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
No disrespect to Asus but there's no way in Hell I'd pay $300 for any desktop mobo no matter how many "features" it has.In addition the X79 chipset with more RAM channels is a waste for anything but server use, which is not what this mobo/platform is being hyped for. As other website reviewers have noted, the X79 mobos are basically hacked server mobos being hyped as an enthusiast desktop upgrade, which it really is not.
With the price of the mobo and CPUs, Sandy Bridge-E and X79 are a fail as far as many if not most enthusiasts are concerned. Basically this is a rushed-to-market product that doesn't fit well in either the enthusiast or server segments. That's why many folks are saying: PASS just as they are with "Ultrabooks" that ain't Ultra at all except in price - just like this deal.
This deal looks like an opportunistic cash cow that may die quickly?
Mikuni - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Why anand never mentions in ASUS reviews about the long standing memory leak present in their AI suite? atkexComSvc grows up to a few GB after just a few days, this is totally unacceptable and should be made aware in every post and review about ASUS until they fix it.ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Feel free to send me information i continually use this application and have not seen this issue. It is a possibility an attached driver or system could be causing the issue. Regardless we are interested into looking into it if there is an issue.
vol7ron - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Ian,I'm curious how this would fair for computational games like Starcraft II, which relies less on video rendering in FPS and more on model layouts.
Thx
mdzcpa1 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I'm concerned to see the review says there is no long crossfire cable included. Obviously anyone wanting to run crossfire on this board and have the X16 X16 slots is going to need a long CF cable. Is it possible the reviewer is incorrect and the long ribbon cable is for CF?ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
The extended cable is SLI. As AMD cards include crosshair cables it is up to the vendor you purchase from to opt in those cables. On our triple slot cards we do offer a extended length cable. Regardless this is good feeback i will pass along to HQ but it is also another cost aspect to consider. As most of the dual GPU market uses SLI it was a decision made on that factor.On a secondary note we do have availible for pruchase extended crossfire bridges from our estore.
bradcollins - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Do your X79 boards support Xeon E5 series cpu's? I have a pair of E5-2670's here and I am trying to choose between the Gigabyte X79-UD5 and your P9X79 Deluxe. Because you have taken fan speed control seriously, I will most likely get the P9X79 Deluxe, but would like to know if it will support my cpu.Beenthere - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
No disrespect but what's the big deal with fan control? I've been building high end PCs for 20 years and never had any issues with fan speed control.bradcollins - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
There has never been a board that has automatically done what I want it todo, until now by the looks of that picture in this article. I want my pc to be silent during normal operation and don't care too much about the noise when I'm playing games. At the moment the loudest thing in my PC which is an i7 975EE at 3.73ghz is the hard drives, and I want my SB-E system to be just as quiet. With an E5-2670 at (hopefully) around 4.2ghz or so I am worried about how loud it will be.Ohh and by the way Asustechmkt, I did read this from an earlier post, but you don't specifically say if the other boards will boot or what will happen: "Our P9X79 WS is qualified to support Xeon series CPUs. Other baords may potentially offer microcode support but will not be officially validated for use with Xeon CPUs. "