MSI X79A-GD45 Plus Review: Building Up
by Ian Cutress on February 14, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- X79
Scientific and Synthetic Benchmarks
2D to 3D Rendering –Agisoft PhotoScan v1.0: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
Console Emulation –Dolphin Benchmark: link
At the start of 2014 I was emailed with a link to a new emulation benchmark based on the Dolphin Emulator. The issue with emulators tends to be two-fold: game licensing and raw CPU power required for the emulation. As a result, many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant post to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53; meaning that anything above this is faster than an actual Wii for processing Wii code, albeit emulated.
Emulation was reported to have a significant boost when Haswell was launched, and due to the single threaded nature of the benchmark, the Ivy Bridge-E is behind.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
Encryption –TrueCrypt v0.7.1a: link
TrueCrypt is an off the shelf open source encoding tool for files and folders. For our test we run the benchmark mode using a 1GB buffer and take the mean result from AES encryption.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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chuonglb - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
goodkizi: http://www.kizi10games.net
friv: http://www.friv200jogos.org
yepi: http://www.yepi10games.org
The PC Apologist - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link
1) How many times have you seen me in the comments?2) Is complaining about poor English or bad grammar inherently bad?
3) Are my complaints illegitimate/inappropriate (calling good grammar bad)?
4) Do you come to this site expecting a pep talk or a well-written article?
5) Does you loathing me count towards the calculus of anything?
Thank you.
Ian Cutress - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
Commonly people like to point out that I refer to companies using plural terms, as is the standard in the UK and persistent throughout my UK upbringing. No matter how hard I try and convert into singular style common in the US, it requires a complete reworking of my brain which I cannot do on the fly. So any attempt to try and patch the difference ends up half-baked, as it were.If you have specific suggestions, feel free to email by clicking on my name at the top of the article.
Ian
The PC Apologist - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
No worries Ian.I appreciate the candor and sincerity. It’s nice to know that you’re open enough for constructive criticism and room for improvement, which can’t be said for everybody. But as far as writing goes, I suspect that the problem lies beyond just the confusion of singular vs. plural. Such can just be attributed to carelessness and be called honest mistakes. Rather, sometimes, there seems to be a lack of deeper substance and coherent flow. Other times, the language is simply not “beautiful,” but rather mundane and unenthused.
But like I said, for the time being, no worries. What’s important is that you’re open to suggestion and change. Writing is, among other things, an art, and it’s rather difficult to codify the formula for success. But with the correct attitude, one will eventually evolve and improve with practice, lots of reading (of good writers), and rigorous analytical thinking.
- The PC Apologist
Nfarce - Sunday, February 16, 2014 - link
PCA - just go start your own blog and STFU. We don't need your distractions, pompous jerkwad.khanov - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
I think you are used to reading 'Americanese'. There is nothing wrong with Ian's English.The PC Apologist - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
I think you are used to being "nice." There is nothing wrong with being honest from time to time.DMCalloway - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
Unfortunately, the i7 2600k wasn't included in the benchmarks. This would have given the reader a clear overview of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation i7 performance for comparison.Ian Cutress - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link
Most of the results from other processors were derived from the retest required for the 2014 benchmark suite, initiated by the AMD Kaveri review. In time I will be going back and testing older CPUs when the backlog of review hardware falls to a reasonable level.The_Assimilator - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link
Can you guys please start deducting points for motherboards that still include COM headers?