Foxconn Black Ops - Raw, Unadulterated Power
by Rajinder Gill on July 30, 2008 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
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
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.
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.
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.
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Etern205 - Saturday, August 2, 2008 - link
For those who wonder who is this Shamino person check out VR-Zoneand for those with those Asus ROG boards in the motherboard disc there is a overclocking video with him in it.
at80eighty - Saturday, August 2, 2008 - link
threadjack a hardware thread about Linux?get some sunlight! :p
sprockkets - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
Every foxconn board I've had either dies or is poorly made in software. My AMD nForce4 board could not shut down properly every so often, couldn't keep the correct time, and other things.Doesn't mean this board is bad hardware wise. But, if so many of their boards cannot keep the right time or report the right settings, that shows poor BIOS programming. Not wasting my money on the big generic OEM maker.
BPB - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
Only 6 SATA and 2 eSATA is not enough. I want at least 8 SATA for a board like this, then start talking eSATA.strikeback03 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
ICH10R only supports 6 SATA, so not like you could have more than 6 drives in a RAID array anyway. If you really need more drives than that, why not a card?NicePants42 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
[quote]The water-cooling top plate is anodized aluminum. Contrary to "popular belief", the chances of galvanic corrosion with this setup are miniscule and there should be no cause for concern. Galvanic corrosion can take years to manifest, and a suitable additive in some distilled de-ionized water should provide ample protection.[/quote]I appreciate that the author was astute enough to include specific information about the material of the top plate, however, the reader is left to his/her own assumptions regarding the material of the water block itself - sure, it looks like copper, but so did the cooling solution on the popular ABIT IP35-Pro.
I also find the author's defense of anodized aluminum out of place; if we are to assume (as the article seems to suggest) that only the top plate is made from aluminum, while the rest of the block is made from copper, it seems that the use of aluminum is indefensible, regardless of how technically correct the author's assertions on galvanic corrosion may be. Why, after spending all the money on high quality components, gobs of included 'extreme benchmarking' extras, and a large copper cooling solution, would the designers decide that they couldn't afford the extra dollar for a copper top plate, but would rather introduce the possibility (however remote) of slowly destroying any attached liquid cooling solution?
Galvanic corrosion can take years to manifest? For how many years have people been paying over $120 for PA120.3s? Or $40 for MCW60s? Or $75 for a D5 Vario, etc? I, for one, would think that the author would better serve his readers by questioning the use of potentially harmful materials, (especially when the use of such materials appears to be unjustified) rather than presuming to dictate the reader's priorities concerning such.
iop3u2 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
I was waiting for a foxconn ad the last few days and you sure as hell didn't disappoint me.tayhimself - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
Who needs a $500 Mobo? I am really confused as to the people buying this stuff.NicePants42 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
It generally helps to check Newegg before posting about price.Considering that many current X48 motherboards are selling between $250 and $300, $330 after MIR is hardly unreasonable for this board.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link
"extreme benchmarking"ROFLMAO! What a bunch of losers