Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on July 19, 2006 6:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
High-Resolution Gaming Performance
We are using the same game benchmarks in our standard gaming performance section that consists of Serious Sam 2, Half Life 2: Lost Coast, F.E.A.R, Quake 4, and Battlefield 2. All boards were tested with the EVGA 7900GTX using NVIDIA 91.31 WHQL drivers. The Intel 975X boards were also tested with a single ATI X1900XTX card with the Catalyst 6.6 driver. The SLI results on the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE utilized two EVGA 7900GTX cards and the 91.31 drivers with profiles enabled for each game. The CrossFire results on the Intel 975X boards utilized our ATI X1900XTX and X1900 CrossFire Edition cards with the 6.6 Catalyst driver.
The single card 1600x1200 results with the EVGA 7900GTX card shows the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE taking a clean sweep of the benchmarks. The performance of the 7900GTX and nForce4 Intel Edition chipset made a small but measurable difference at the higher resolutions as the boards started to become GPU bound. Due to the strength of the NVIDIA SLI setup along with obvious ATI issues in the Half Life 2: Lost Coast and Quake 4 benchmarks this same board sweeps our multi-GPU tests.
However, we also noticed where the ATI cards made a very strong showing in our standard benchmarks in F.E.A.R. and Serious Sam 2 by finishing first, they fell behind the SLI setup when running CrossFire indicating a lack of optimizations or possible driver issues in our tests. The performance percentage drop of the ASRock board compared to the other boards when moving to 1600x1200 was even greater than at 1280x1024 indicating that X4 PCIe operation is certainly hampering its performance.
We are using the same game benchmarks in our standard gaming performance section that consists of Serious Sam 2, Half Life 2: Lost Coast, F.E.A.R, Quake 4, and Battlefield 2. All boards were tested with the EVGA 7900GTX using NVIDIA 91.31 WHQL drivers. The Intel 975X boards were also tested with a single ATI X1900XTX card with the Catalyst 6.6 driver. The SLI results on the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE utilized two EVGA 7900GTX cards and the 91.31 drivers with profiles enabled for each game. The CrossFire results on the Intel 975X boards utilized our ATI X1900XTX and X1900 CrossFire Edition cards with the 6.6 Catalyst driver.
The single card 1600x1200 results with the EVGA 7900GTX card shows the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE taking a clean sweep of the benchmarks. The performance of the 7900GTX and nForce4 Intel Edition chipset made a small but measurable difference at the higher resolutions as the boards started to become GPU bound. Due to the strength of the NVIDIA SLI setup along with obvious ATI issues in the Half Life 2: Lost Coast and Quake 4 benchmarks this same board sweeps our multi-GPU tests.
However, we also noticed where the ATI cards made a very strong showing in our standard benchmarks in F.E.A.R. and Serious Sam 2 by finishing first, they fell behind the SLI setup when running CrossFire indicating a lack of optimizations or possible driver issues in our tests. The performance percentage drop of the ASRock board compared to the other boards when moving to 1600x1200 was even greater than at 1280x1024 indicating that X4 PCIe operation is certainly hampering its performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
123 Comments
View All Comments
Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I did not see any tpoys... :)R3MF - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
"The 965 has an X8 PCIe slot and an X4 PCIe slot and does not support CrossFire"the tech-diagram on the same page clearly says:
16x PCIe on the northbridge
6x1 PCIe on the southbridge
which is it?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I've edited the wording slightly. You are correct that the NB only supports an X16, and there is at most an X4 from the SB. It should read correctly now.yacoub - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
How about a pagedetailing who actually has them in stock and hasn't price-gouged them? ;)It could link to the RTPE.
Hopefully by the time Part2 comes out, C2Ds will actually be available.
Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
We are disappointed in the intial pricing structures but when demand exceeds supply you know what you get.... :)zsdersw - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
No GA-965P-DS3? Is there a reason it wasn't included in the roundup?Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
We have one on its way for review in the near future for review. In fact, over the course of the next four weeks we will probably receive 20 or more Conroe boards so expect a lot of motherboard coverage in August. ;-)zsdersw - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Thanks. Looking forward to it.yacoub - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Thank you, guys! This is a huge help.danidentity - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
GREAT article!I wonder if the 965 chipset over time will become faster than 975 with BIOS revisions.