Dirt 2

Dirt 2 came to the PC in December 2009, developed by Codemasters with the EGO Engine.  Resulting in favorable reviews, we use Dirt 2’s inbuilt benchmark under DirectX 11 to test the hardware.  We test two different resolutions at two different quality settings using a discrete GPU, and an appropriate integrated GPU setting.

Dirt II Single GPU

During the testing, I found out that the board performs slightly below average and comes nearer to the bottom of our graph when a 1920x1080 resolution was used. However, whilst testing the lower resolutions where games are more CPU dependent, the board does much better and it averages roughly in the middle.

Dirt II Dual GPU

Dual GPU testing reveals that the board is more or less bang in the middle.

Dirt II Single GPU w/ Virtu

A poor show from Gigabyte. With almost a 20% difference between the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro and the UD3H in the 1680x1050 tests, and a 17% difference in the 1920x1080 tests, this is certainly a weak spot.

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is the Crysis of the DirectX 11 world (or at least until Crysis 2 is released), challenging 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.

Metro 2033 Single GPU

In both of the 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 tests, the Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H did very well with hardly any difference in scores.

Metro 2033 Dual GPU

Just like in the DiRT2 tests, the dual GPU tests are some of the best we have seen thus far.

Metro 2033 - Single GPU w/Virtu

Just like in the DiRT2 tests, the UD3H is unable to produce results which compete against the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro.

iGPU tests

Dirt II - 1024x768 iGPU

Metro 2033 - 1024x768 iGPU

Top spot in both iGPU tests with an i5-2500K for the Gigabyte here, which is always good to see, but the strength of the Llano APU shines through.

Computational Benchmarks Final Words
Comments Locked

70 Comments

View All Comments

  • versesuvius - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    Use of plurals for a single entity derives from not knowing which part of that entity the speaker is talking about. It is very curious. I may be wrong but I cannot remember, "IBM have", "Apple have", "Asus have". They are all upstanding members of their trade and craft. But, while Gigabyte is good enough, there is something about it that prevents people from looking at it as a solid entity that deserves a singular reference. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the message is that the unpredictable collection known as Gigabyte has given us this, this time at this price. Gigabyte could as well have priced it $420. As if the pipeline is just cut off at random by a random part of that collection and a product shipped to the market. Not the case with Asus or IBM. Hence, IBM "has", Asus "has".

    Of course, with regards to the British the plural is a sign of respect. Remember, they are a monarchy, with hereditary parliament membership, and apparently very happy and proud of it. It is absurd to refer to a member of the house of lords in singular terms. Each is a well known clan. Oh, and well respected!!
  • Andypro - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles to be consistent.

    The problem is that American English has a different rule than European English. The American English rule is the correct one. A well-edited scientific site like ArsTechnica recognizes this and edits all of its articles (notice that I used the singular possessive pronoun "its" there) to that end. Anand himself does a nice job with this since he's an American.

    Some of the other American writers are being influenced by Wikipedia, British writers, and other sources of confusion. The fact is that number must agree throughout the entire sentence. Logically, the British rule can never accomplish this harmony of number because the corporate entity is always singular. Writers can easily avoid ambiguous constructs by making the subject more specific which helps convey meaning, eg., "Apple's engineers have" or "nVidia's marketing gurus are," etc.
  • byr - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    Grammar can be an observance of and more than, rules. Style may be approached. Cautiously.

    "I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles to be consistent."

    I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles for consistency.

    English writers have and are not considered a source of confusion with the English language any more than writers of other nationality's, Americans included.

    Corporations and other entities can be personified perfectly well.

    'Apple has pursued it's singular goal' is acceptable as the intention of one entity, further distinctions are made with relevant reference.

    'Jobs has a plan for apple"

    Two comments above

    "Of course, with regards to the British the plural is a sign of respect. Remember, they are a monarchy, with hereditary parliament membership, and apparently very happy and proud of it. It is absurd to refer to a member of the house of lords in singular terms. Each is a well known clan. Oh, and well respected!!"

    'The right honorable' is considered the appropriate honorific (they rarely are), it is singular and they, depending on who you ask, are sometimes respected.

    British English is adequate until you reach then end of it, then you can use American English if you must. ;)
  • irreverence - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link

    Byr,

    I have literally no idea what you were trying to say there. Reading your post made me feel like I had been drugged.
  • cjs150 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link

    "The problem is that American English has a different rule than European English. The American English rule is the correct one. "

    Look buddy, American English is not correct. Americans cannot spell and if, like me, you have ever had to read a document drafted by an American lawyer, punctuation is not an American strong point but verbal diarrhoea is.

    I would say that the only correct form of English is what you call British English, but fact is that English is very flexible. As long as Anandtech are consistent that is fine.

    Anyway back to the board. Fan control. Do Gigabyte own shares in one of those companies who make separate fan controller? Because that is the only excuse for such a pitiful on board control
  • MadMinstrel - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - link

    It's funny how you can determine with such certainty that one rule is correct and another is not. Language is not based in math, it is an arbitrary set of rules driven by speaker inertia. If both variants of the rule set are equivalent in functionality, neither can be considered correct or even superior. In "Gigabyte has/have released a new motherboard", "Gigabyte" could mean either "the Gigabyte corporation" or "the people at Gigabyte". I could argue that the singular variant is illogical because a corporation, an abstract entity, cannot perform any action other than perhaps come into existence. Or I could argue that the plural variant is wrong because fewer people use it. This, of course, would be pointless.
  • marc1000 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    nice board, but without speed control on the sys fans, it is less interesting than other options... also very few sata ports for a new product. Gyigabyte is really keeping it "safe and cheap".
  • EnzoFX - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    One of the great things about UEFI is the faster boot times. Does this hybrid BIOS allow the same? If it's merely a question of cosmetics, then the classic BIOS look would not bother me.
  • paul878 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    How was the cpu temperature measured?
  • cyberguyz - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link

    ... and most motherboard manufacturers are guilty of this, is the fact that they stick the PCIe-1x slots directly below the PCIe-16x slot and leave the outdated PCI slots wide open down at the bottom of the board. It really burns me that these guys don't think of the fact that most new add-in cards are being produced to use in the more modern PCIe-1x and PCIe-4x slots. An example is that I have a PCIe sound card, a high speed network card and a raid controller. Because I also have an Asus GTX 570 Cu II video card (eats 3 slots), I can't use any more than two of these (If I don't mind losing 8x lanes to by x16 card and don't mind snuggling up the shortest one of these PCIe cards really close to the backside of that really HOT video card). Yet I have 2 ncie cool PCI slots sitting out there in the open airstream with no hot components anywhere near them. Video cards are challenging enough to cool without crowding cards within a couple millimeters of them.

    In order to use all my PCI devices I have to find one of the very few and more expensive motherboards that provide nothing but PCIe slots (No PCI bridge = more expensive - where is the logic in that?)

    Grrrr! I have no gripe in mobo makers including a couple PCI slots. There are users out there that will still use them for a few years to come yet. They just need to think that as we progress in technology that these older slots are being abandoned by users in favor of the more modern PCIe versions of their add in cards.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now