Gigabyte GA-A55M-S2V Review
by Brendan van Varik on March 21, 2012 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Llano
- A55
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.
While single threaded performance is average, the performance in a multithreaded environment leaves this motherboard standing in last place in the Llano section. Nevertheless, the board is within statistical variations.
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.
WinRAR attempts to use multithreading as much as possible and as demonstrated in our previous tests with the 3D Movement benchmark, multithreaded applications are not the strong point of this motherboard and it has given us a much slower result.
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.
The S2V is not the slowest of the bunch but it is by no means the quickest either.
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.
Our Squeeze test is heavily multithreaded and this result proves yet again that the multithreaded aspect of this motherboard is not strong enough to compete.
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seanleeforever - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
why not just purchase some DC power supply and take the read out directly? what the system will suck out of the socket can be computed by the efficiency of your PSU at that particular load. (say the system uses 100W, and you know your PSU has 80% efficiency at 100W, then you can compute that you system will suck out 120W from the wall)speaking of which, when will anandtech actually buy some product for testing instead of taking what manufacture 'supplied' parts? because we all know there is absolutely no any conflict of interest when a manufacture 'send' you their 'regular' product for 'free' for this website to write an great review to 'speak truth' about their product.
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
Actually a 5850 is a smart choice. Maybe not this particular version, but a generic 5850. One might find such a beast for under $100 on ebay at some point in the next 6 months. That would be a great deal for a value gamer.Ratman6161 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
I'm in the process of decision making for a low cost, small form factor system for my wife to use. I'm comparing Intel i3 Vs Llano and finding I can get an i3 2125 or a AMD A8 38xx for about the same price and to me it comes down to graphics performance. My take:1. If you want to get the best processing power, go with i3
2. If you want the best graphics you can get without the need for a pci-e card, and processing power is not that important to you get llano.
3. If you want processing power and better graphics too, get i3 with a pci-e card
4. If you want better graphics than Llano offers, once again its i3 with pci-e card
So the only scenario (at least for me) where AMD makes sense is #2 which actually happens to be what we are looking for. Testing it with an add on card doesn't help me. And if you wanted to use AMD with an add on card, you could just go with a cheap Athlon X4 - as you wouldn't need the graphics on the Llano cpu anyway.
loimlo - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
Yes, I'd like to see power consumption figures without a discrete VGA. I'm fine with 5850 given it's a requirement of formula across motherboard reviews, but something like integrated VGA would be welcomed.Btw, does Anandtech consider using smaller PSU in the future review? It seems ridiculous to use 1250W for such an entry-level product. It's unrealistic for mass deployment and inefficient at such low load.
ssj3gohan - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
It's good to see other people complaining about this, too. Power consumption is, especially compared to the high quality of their other reviews and articles, an underdeveloped appendage at Anandtech.ssj3gohan - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
A lot of sentences and general flow of this article are in my opinion sub-par for a site like AnandTech. It seems like this article was first written in Dutch and then translated straight up sentence-by-sentence into English. It would really help readability if the article were edited by a native speaker.silverblue - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
You may wish to provide examples as I don't see what you're referring to. In my eyes, it's a very comprehensible article and I haven't had to read something twice to decipher what the author is trying to get across.Taft12 - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
I felt the same way as ssj3gohan when I read the article, here's 3 awkward sentences in a row:"The blue PCB which the GA-A55M-S2V is built on is a typical sighting from the current Gigabyte budget segment. Keen eyes will notice the lack of VRM heatsinks, despite this board being certified to run 100W processors. This will undoubtledly lead to little room in terms of pushing the platform."
Don't get me wrong however, this is a good review and bravo to Anandtech for reviewing more entry-level components. Just peer-review them before putting it live.
ggathagan - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those sentences.The closest to "awkward" one could get would be the use of "a typical sighting".
Even that, however, is a somewhat common turn of phrase.
If I wrote tech reviews for a popular website, I would get very tired of writing essentially the same thing over and over again.
In that circumstance, I would certainly try to inject a little variety by doing exactly what Brendan appears to have done.
silverblue - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
The only thing I could recommend here is adding a small amount of punctuation, but that's it. For example:"The blue PCB - which the GA-A55M-S2V is built on - is a typical sighting from the current Gigabyte budget segment."