I selected a series of benchmarks to test overall system performance with gaming primarily in mind. EVGA is readily associated with video cards and this motherboard needs to exhibit the basic motherboard performance requirements with gamers in mind.
I have always used Sandra to identify components and to run various tests on my systems and it has proven to be dependable for most applications.
PCMark'05 is a new benchmark provided by Futuremark replacing the tried and true PCMark'04. It, like PCMark'04 provides a full array of stress tests of components and provides a weighted score. Although the entire benchmark was run with both single and SLI I just included portions of the results.
HD Tach3 result was posted just to show the Raptor drive's performance with this motherboard.
The synthetic benchmarks included both 3DMark'03 and '05 as both stress the CPU, GPU, graphic memory, and system memory. Both provide good indicators for graphical performance as well as overall system stability at various system and video card settings. Aquamark3 was included as it is still an excellent video card stress test.
I could not omit the game tests so the three highly popular games of the last two years were included. You will see that they still can stress the video cards and extremely tax the capabilities of the AMD 3700+.
All test and in-game settings were set to high or better. Vsync was turned off in the NVIDIA control panel and other settings were left at the default settings. Any exception is specifically noted.
Results from this benchmark set the tone with some very good performance marks.
PCMARK 2005
PCMark05, version 1.0.1, was used to test the
overall performance characteristics of the EVGA 133-K8-NF41-AX. This benchmark
employs a number of tests that give weighted results. These results provide
indications of performance for specific components and how these components
contribute to the overall performance of a system. The comparative overall score
is identified in PCMarks while the scores of various system components are
listed relative to the application.
The only component change between the excerpts of
the full detailed test results listed below was swapping out the single 7800GTX
for (2) 6800 GTs and activating SLI.
All tests were performed using default settings of
the test system and associated system components. Resolution setting for this
benchmark was set at 1600x1200, high quality, with all other NVIDIA control
panel settings at default. The motherboard does run the Patriot PC3200-XBL ram
at 200.9 MHz with the Bios set at 200 MHz for the PC3200, DDR400, ram in this
particular system.
As anticipated the scores stayed consistent for the most part. Of course a
gap is evident between the graphic cards with the 7800GTX putting up
consistently higher numbers in the graphic and video tests. Again, not much
negative can be said about the motherboard as it performed with consistency and
stability through all tests.
