Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 X58 Motherboard Review

Gaming Benchmarks

The Futuremark 3DMark series has been a part of the backbone in computer and hardware reviews since its conception. The trend continues today as 3DMark06 provides consumers with a solid synthetic benchmark geared for performance and comparison in the 3D gaming realm. This remains one of the most sought after statistics, as well as an excellent tool for accurate CPU comparison, and it will undoubtedly be used for years to come.


In 3DMark 06, the overclocked configurations boasts a mighty 22% lead over the stock clocked system. This is a very impressive result when you consider that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card has not been overclocked. Let's see if the gains are as prominent on Futuremark's latest gaming benchmarking...



You asked for it, so we have finally included 3DMark Vantage, Futuremark’s latest release in their renowned line of 3D benchmarking software. This latest DX10-only 3DMark comes with a variety of presets, but for our tests will be use the standard Performance preset which is suitable for a much greater range of system specifications than the other more demanding presets.


In 3DMark Vantage, despite a 22% gain in the CPU score, which coincides quite nicely with the 25% increase in CPU frequency, the overall score goes up a meager 4%. This suggests that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 may actually be the bottleneck in this case, which is quite an achievement!

Can we expect similar results in actual games? Let's find out.



Far Cry 2 is the hot new new first-person shooter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and the first game to utilize the new visually stunning Dunia Engine, which will undoubtedly be used by numerous future games. Using the included Benchmarking Tool, we ran the Long Ranch demo in DX10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings set to high.


Despite being a GPU-limited game with most configurations, the faster processor speed did in fact help boost frame rates across the board in Far Cry 2, with a particularly noteworthy 16% increase in average FPS.



This test consists of actual gameplay using a single mission (Authie: Boudica's Boys from the British Campaign) since it holds a bit of everything the game has to offer: vehicle battles, artillery barrages and house-to-house fighting. We recorded frame rates using FRAPS up until the 15 minute mark of the mission and excluding any in-game briefings / cut scenes. The game was run in DirectX 10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out.



Clearly, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts is still a graphical force to be reckoned with when all its graphical settings are maxed out. Even the mighty the Radeon HD 4870 X2/Catalyst 9.1 duo is reduced to a pitifully low minimum frame rate. Ignoring the abnormally large increase in maximum FPS, we do notice a healthy 9% gain in the average frame rate.




Left 4 Dead is the latest disorienting, fast-paced zombie apocalypse mega-hit from Valve. L4D uses the latest version of the Source engine with enhancements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation. We test here at 1680x1050 with in-game details set to their highest levels, with MSAA 4X and AA 8X. For benching, we used a pre-recorded 20 minute timedemo taken on the No Mercy campaign during The Apartments mission.


Last but certainly not least is Valve's ground-breaking new multi-player title. From stock to overclocked the average frame rate increased by an impressive 16%. Clearly CPU scaling remains a strong point of the versatile Source engine, and we are glad to see this quality maintained and enhanced in this latest iteration of the engine.