Standard Performance Results

Futuremark's PCMark Vantage is probably the single most diverse set of benchmarks that can be run on a system to mimic real world usage scenarios. The TV and Movies, Gaming, and Music Suites can be frighteningly difficult to pass when a system is overclocked. We've had boards in the labs that will pass hours of Prim95 torture test or OCCT that fail even the basic 30 minute run of PCMark Vantage let alone the full 1 hour and 30 minutes test run. We used similar components for both stock 9.5x333FSB and absolute maximum stable settings at 8x500FSB to see how the Black Ops compares to the ASUS P5E3 Premium.

PCMark Vantage scores

Foxconn Black Ops - PCMark Vantage - 3.16GHz

ASUS P5E3 Premium - PCMark Vantage - 3.16GHz

Foxconn Black Ops - PCMark Vantage -8X500FSB

ASUS P5E3 Premium - PCMark Vantage - 8X500FSB

Due to its tight setup, the Black Ops surges ahead in almost all areas, with the Communications suite showing an especially large gain over the P5E3 Premium. It's still unlikely that one would really notice the difference in real world applications, especially in those apps that spend most of their time waiting for user input.  We had some additional questions about our ASUS Striker II Extreme and MSI P45 Diamond results that should be cleared shortly.  We will update our benchmarks at that time to include these chipsets.

Crysis Benchmark

The Crysis graphics engine remains the standard by which all new games, 3D engines, and graphics cards are judged. Highly detailed environments present massive loads to the PCI-E lanes and saturate the MCH and memory banks with a flood of data. Any system weakness or instability is often uncovered within the first loop of the Assault Demo.

Crysis Benchmark - Harbor Demo - E8500 Processor

Crysis Benchmark - Harbor Demo - E8500 Processor

UT3 Benchmark

The highly addictive Unreal Tournament 3 remains a favorite lab game to unwind from the rigors of putting products through their paces. The UT3 engine is highly sensitive to memory access latency, often showing gains favoring a tighter performance level (tRD) setting over outright FSB speeds. A fun and frantic online playing experience demands smooth frame rates with no slowdown under load. We chose to run the Coret_Fly demo due to its back-to-back performance accuracy between runs.

UT3 Benchmark - E8500 Processor

UT3 Benchmark - E8500 Processor

Game Comments

It's the usual story at the end of the regular benchmark runs: all the boards are within a couple of percent of one another, with the DDR2 based DFI board trailing only by virtue of reduced memory performance on the older platform. The remaining factor is that both the Black Ops and ASUS P5E3 Premium are inherently more stable at 500FSB than any of the competitors in the graphs, making them a better choice if you can't live without reaching 500FSB.

Synthetic Memory Performance Maximum Fully Stable Overclocks
Comments Locked

32 Comments

View All Comments

  • ImmortalZ - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    You do realize these people are given QX9770s, GTX280s and assorted hardware for free, every generation?

    Do you know most of these people end up working for the very manufacturer's products they torture test?

    Do you know that you're a moron?
  • strikeback03 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    Personally, I'd rather grow a mullet, buy a Mustang, and head for the local drag strip.
  • Berger - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    'Digital Freak' what a freaking handle.

    No need to be discriminative you narrow minded moron.

  • Nyarlathotep - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    I used to really like linux but the more posts I´ve read by linux users, the more I hate it. Linux nerds probably get paid by Microsoft for ruining linux chances. They are everywhere whining and crying. For every decent linux user there seem to be 5 obnoxious nerds.

    Yesterday I uninstalled Ubuntu from my laptop because it made me feel like if I supported obnoxious linux nerds. If it wasn´t for them linux would probably be the most popular OS right now, not windows.
  • TA152H - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    One thing I have been saying for 25 years, and has been validated by the years is that Unix will never be a popular operating system. Linux often mentioned by people that don't really use it that much, they want to whine about Microsoft and such, or at a higher level, whine about the establishment in general. Don't get me wrong, I despise Microsoft too, but I'm not so pathetic as to act like Unix is the answer. It's a horrible operating system that's a pain in the backside to work with. They can sugar coat that dung all they want, but it will always smell and will only be a niche product. GUIs help some by insulated the user from the miserable underpinnings, but, really, anyone that likes the word "grep", and thinks upper and lower case parameters should have different meanings, is generally going to be a maladjusted dickhead.

    I still think OS/2 was better than Windows, but it's very much a niche product now (in its new incarnation as Ecomstation) and is used about as often as rotary telephones. I whined for a while about Windows too, but mainly because all my work experience had been with OS/2, and I didn't want to be jobless :-P.

    No one really listens to the whining dorks that cry to the sky about foul play. Linux isn't popular because, basically, it sucks like all Unix varieties do. They'll exist in niches, but you can't expect the mainstream market to embrace it. Apple did a good job of hiding the difficulty of the underlying operating system, but it's still a niche product as well. Even if there were a good operating system it would be extremely difficult to break the software monopoly of Microsoft, so saying a Unix variety would be the dominant operating system were it not for some oft-ignored dweebs, is as silly as the whiners are.

    We've already gone from MVS, to DOS, to Windows NT as the dominating operating systems during the lifetime of Unix. It's always been a niche product. Outside of the Microsoft haters, do many people really want it to be anything more than that? It's a pity IBM still won't make OS/2 open source. It would at least have a chance as an open source competitor. Unix? Never. But, as has been the case for 30 years, you'll still hear them saying it's just about to take off. It never changes, and kind of gives one a sense of security in a world that changes too fast. Unix will take over soon! Just wait! It's even money if it will happen before the Sun eats the Earth.
  • swaaye - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    :)
  • yyrkoon - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    Look. You should be using your OS of choice for YOU, not anyone else.

    The whole idea is HAVING the ability to make that choice.

    I use Windows on my main machines here at home, but I like the option of being able to use which over OS I please on them, and yes, I have a couple of Linux boxen too, as well as an openSolaris machine. Hell, I would not be adverse to putting OSX on my own hardware, IF Steve Jobs and Apple will ever pull its head out of their backsides . . . In a general purpose computer world, proprietary systems are the 'bad guys' not the OS.
  • yyrkoon - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    http://ubuntu-virginia.ubuntuforums.org/showthread...

    Companies need to learn that business tactics as such will put you into a world of hurt in a hurry. Behold the wonderful internet at its finest.
  • swaaye - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    Just how much of an audience in the real world do you think slashdot gets? lol.
  • swaaye - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    or any site, for that matter.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now