System setup and notes
| Motherboard | Intel DX48BT2 (Intel X48 + ICH9R) | DFI LANPARTY LT X48-TR2 (Intel X48 + ICH9R) | EVGA 132 CK-NF79 (NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra) | MSI P7N Diamond (NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | £164 | £159 | £228 | £170 |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3.00GHz, 12MiB L2 cache, 1333MHz FSB, LGA775) | |||
| Actual CPU frequency | 2999.7MHz | 2999.7MHz | 3000.0MHz | 3000.0MHz |
| BIOS revision | 1554 (05/01/2008) | (03/20/2008) | P04 (04/18/2008) | 1.1B8 (04/16/2008) |
| Memory | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair Dominator PC14400 + 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) OCZ Platinum EB PC12800 | 4x1GB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5D | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair DOMINATOR PC14400 + 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) OCZ Platinum EB PC12800 | 4x1GB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5D |
| Memory timings and speed | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3-1333.2 | 4-4-4-12 2T @ DDR2-800 | 7-7-7-20 2T @ DDR3-1333.2 | 4-4-4-12 2T @ DDR2-800 |
| Graphics card (single GPU tests) | NVIDIA GeFrce 8800 GTX 768MiB | |||
| Graphics driver | Forceware 169.12 | |||
| Graphics cards (Multi GPU tests) |
1-3x
ATi Radeon 3870 512MiB (2 ATI samples, 1 Sapphire retail card) |
1-3
x Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX 512MiB (2 x BFG, 1 x Inno3D retail cards) |
||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 8.5 | Forceware 174.74 | ||
| Chipset driver | Intel Inf 8.4.0.1016 + Intel Matrix Storage Manager 7.8.0.1012 | NVIDIA driver pack 9.64 | ||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||
| Operating system | Windows
Vista Business x64 |
|||
Tests
| Benchmarks |
ScienceMark 2.0 memory latency
HD Tach 3.0.1.0 - SATA average read speed
Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces v2.103 DX9 -
1024x768, 1920x1200 4xAA, 2560x1600 4xAA |
|---|
Testing notes
All our systems were set up with the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 which,
whilst
not necessarily indicative of many real world systems built with these
boards, will help to highlight any performance differences in the
boards.
The systems were paired with 4GiB of RAM in the form of 4x 1GiB
modules.
We have two Intel and two NVIDIA chipsets, and each is represented by both DDR2 and DDR3 memories.
Our DDR2 boards were run at 800MHz with 4,4,4,12 timings due to the difficulty in getting them stable at 1,066MHz with 5,5,5,15 Timings.
On
the DDR3 side the DX48DT2 couldn't be run at the desired timings due to
the 'Intel knows best' overrides in place. As such we had to run the
tests at the SPD default timings which are notably slacker than
desired. Until Intel fixes this issue however, the results are
indicative of the performance an end user would achieve with our
specific components.
For our gaming tests we will be using a GeForce 8800 GTX for
single-card numbers
on both the Intel and NVIDIA platforms to get a cross-platform
comparison, whilst our multi-GPU tests will be using up to three HD
3870s in
CrossFire on the Intel platform, and up to three GeForce 9800 GTXs on
the NVIDIA
platform, in order to get an idea of the platform's scalability.
