Intel DX79SI Review: The Default X79?
by Ian Cutress on November 18, 2011 1:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- X79
Aliens vs. Predator Benchmark
Aliens vs. Predator is a DirectX 11 science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments. Available as a standalone benchmark, on default settings the benchmark uses 1920x1080 with high AF settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across 4 runs.
Using 5850s shows almost no difference for AVP in single GPU mode. In dual GPU mode, the X79 boards have a slight advantage, presumably due to the CPU or the extra GPU bandwidth compared to the A75 platforms.
With GTX580s, we're less limited by the GPU here - bottlenecks more in the PCIe bandwidth and CPU start to show, hence we see the X79s pulling ahead.
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Using the in game benchmark, Dirt 3 is run at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across 4 runs.
With 5850s in Dirt3, the dual GPU scenario shows difference between other platforms - up to 10 FPS difference. Despite the difference between the DX79SI and P9X79 Pro results, both are reasonably within statistical variance.
With more powerful GPUs, we again see the X79 pulling ahead slightly in single GPU mode. We see again that the DX79SI falls slightly behind in dual GPU mode.
Metro2033
Metro 2033 is a challenging DX11 benchmark that challenges every system that tries to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from 10 runs.
The extra bandwidth for the second GPU really shows here, with the X79s having x16/x16, and the P67/Z68s having x8/x8 (except the P8P67 Pro, which had x16/x4).
However, with more powerful GPUs, there isn't much of a difference between the X79 boards 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.