EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified LGA1366 Motherboard Review

Memory Benchmarks

Everest Ultimate is the most useful tool for any and all bench markers or overclockers. With the ability to read most voltage, temperature, and fan sensors on almost every motherboard available, Everest provides the ability to customize the outputs in a number of forms for display on your desktop. In addition to this, the memory benchmarking provides a useful tool of measuring the changes to your memory sub-system when tweaking to measure the differences.

We have quite the cross reference of data being presented here in the benchmarks today. At the top in blue is our bone stock setup combined with high end DDR3-1866 memory and tight timings. Then in the middle are our grey bars that represent a hefty overclock on the CPU, combined with decent memory frequency, but comparatively pedestrian memory timings. On the bottom in red we have the same hefty CPU overclock combined with very tight timings and rather substantial frequency for said timings. The Everest memory numbers are a bit of a mixed bag because of this odd combination of results. We aren't really going to determine much about the Classified motherboard looking at these results, but we do get an interesting look at how CPU frequency and memory timings can effect memory bandwidth in Everest Ultimate.

The latency results are a little more standardized with the ultra tight 6-7-6 timings showing a decided advantage. It is interesting to see the rather close race between the stock setup and the middle overclock. CPU frequency is evidentially not that large a factor in Everest latency measurements.

SiSoft Sandra is a popular and well used benchmark in the industry but not really a friend of serious benchmarkers. The results SiSoft Sandra produces have been suspect at times basing the numbers it comes up with on system specs and not actual testing. The latest version of Sandra seems to be one of the few programs that appear to calculate memory bandwidth consistently so we decided to include it in today’s benchmarks. Like we have always said with SiSoft Sandra though, take these results for what they are and nothing more.

SiSoft Sandra paints a completely different picture when talking about memory bandwidth with these setups. Sandra has the stock setup pulling slightly ahead in the bandwidth department which indicates that Sandra does not factor in CPU frequency at all, and memory timings seemingly play a small role as well. It appears that memory frequency is the end all say all for Sandra. This is the primary reason for having to take memory bandwidth benchmarks with a grain of salt. Each seems to have different factors in their results, and even with the large discrepancies in timings and CPU clocks, all three setups are very similar in some tests.

Despite the bandwidth numbers from Sandra not matching up, the pattern in latency results is virtually identical to Everest latency. This would show a strong sign that both programs take memory timings into factor in this benchmark and indicate that our 6-7-6 setup is really ahead of the crowd when it comes to memory latency.

ScienceMark is an almost ancient benchmark utility at this point in time and hasn't seen an update in a long time. It is, however, still a favorite for accurately calculating bandwidth on even the newest chipsets.

We like to think of ScienceMark as that old uncle who only shows up to obscure family gatherings. He may not be around all of the time, but when he does, he straightens out the young kids and tells it like it is. No fluff, not political correctness, just straight forward facts. With memory bandwidth, I like to rely on ScienceMark primarily for testing to see what is working and what isn't when testing the memory sub-system for 32M SuperPi benchmarking. It never steers me wrong and the numbers seem the most consistent of any bandwidth benchmark.