Intel DX79SI Review: The Default X79?
by Ian Cutress on November 18, 2011 1:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- 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 we saw with the ASUS board, the 3960X with its higher multiplier in ST and 12 threads in MT dominates our 3DPM results. However, the DX79SI does come in lower than the P9X79 Pro on both accounts.
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.
Given the regularity within previous chipsets on our WinRaR test, it is perhaps surprising that the DX79SI performs a whole 11 seconds slower than the P9X79 Pro. Despite this, the results were repeatable, indicating that the boards detect differently how many CPUs are running and turbo core appropriately.
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.
As noted in previous X79 testing, FastStone seems not to benefit from the faster LGA2011 CPU, and nothing separates the X79 boards.
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.
As our Squeeze test uses all the threads all the time (unlike WinRar), we see a relatively small difference in the results here.
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acompsys - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Check this out ....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0uXWmlMOgg
mooninite - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
*eye squint*Not sure if troll...
Alurian - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
But does having a skull on a motherboard seem like a jinx to anyone else?DanNeely - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Intel used Skull Trail as it's ultra performance branding in the past; this I suppose is a hommage to it.halo37253 - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
I have the intel DX58SO board sadly, got it in a used combo deal so not complaining about the price. Though the bios's tend to be riddled with problems and have problems OCing. While I can overclock my I7 920 to 4.2ghz on this board (pretty good clock but most boards can do it) at only 1.38V. But doing so brings on some of the bios or maybe even the motherboard itself. Can't have S3 sleep turned on at all because when you wake it up it resets the v-core back to stock and system freezes. Or sometimes it will hang at boot and just restart and boot fine or just take long time to post. System is fully stable intel burn test and 24/7 prime. At newest bios but that may be the problem, just really haven't felt like trying out a bunch of different bios yet. And poor placement of sata ports are a big let down as well.The Boards also tend to be made up of lower quality parts and tend to have less power phases. They also tend to have the least performance. I would have to go with a gigabyte motherboard, had the ep45-ud3p and loved it. Gigabyte boards are also known to be the best overclocking motherboards, what is important to me cause I like to have the best performance I can get with the lest amount of money spent.
Viceroy_Fizzlebottom - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Interesting, I've have the exact same motherboard paired with a core i7 920 and never have had a single issue with it.Samus - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
I have an Intel X58 board with my i7-920 and its been solid as a rock for 3 full years. Of course it cost $300 back in 2008, but, honestly it was worth it. Even today my PC is faster than 95% of the market.Clorex - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Mentioned in the original i7 3960x review:"Users running dual-GPU setups can enjoy the fact that both GPUs will have a full x16 interface to SNB-E (vs x8 in SNB). If you're looking for this to deliver a tangible performance increase, you'll be disappointed:
Modern GPUs don't lose much performance in games, even at high quality settings, when going from a x16 to a x8 slot."
But here we see that the extra bandwidth for the second GPU really shows, with the X79s pulling ahead of the P67/Z68 in Dirt 3 and Metro 2033. Does this mean that X79 might make sense for multi-GPU setups?
halo37253 - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
I think you would start to notice with 3-4 gpu setups.I would love to see a 3way for 4way sli on this board. like 3/4 580s in sli. Compare it to the old lga1366 in same 3-4 way sli setup. If you can try to get the old i7 and new i7 at the same clock so we can see how much performance per clock increases.
Denithor - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
This would be an interesting test, to see how efficient these chips/chipsets are at managing the overhead from 3-4 GPUs.