3oh6
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System Benchmarks
SuperPi Mod v1.5<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>When running the 32M benchmark of SPi, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. SPi 32M has been a favorite amongst benchmarks for these very reasons and is admittedly the favorite benchmark of this reviewer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-1.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">I like to start the system benchmarks section with a look at the SPi 32M benchmark, despite the fact that it has very little to do with depicting system performance. In fact, it is more of a memory sub-system test but I just hope some users out there are interested in SPi. It is basically the primary testing facility for all of my benchmarking from testing basic memory stability to CPU clocks when testing a new chip or kit of memory. Needless to say, our 40% increase in CPU frequency and 17% increase in memory frequency equates to a 37% increase in 32M performance. This is a pretty fair trade off considering memory sub-timings can also play a substantial role in 32M performance and they are likely loosened off slightly going from stock to overclock to accommodate the increase in uncore and memory clocks as well as memory timings.</p>
PCMark Vantage<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>The latest iteration of the popular system benchmark is PCMark Vantage from the Futuremark crew. The PCMark series has always been a great way to either test specific areas of a system or to get a general over view of how your system is performing. For our results, we simply run the basic benchmark suite which involves a wide range of tests on all of the sub-systems of the computer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-2.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">As mentioned in the intro, PCMark Vantage measures a wide range of daily computer tasks in the PCMark Suite that we bench. Everything from browser rendering to 3D performance to multi-tasking, PCMark Vantage is actually a pretty good overall gauge of how much of a performance increase an overclock will have on your daily activities. As it stands, our overclock appears to have netted us an 18% gain in PCMark Vantage score. This makes sense as some of the tests PCMark Vantage runs are not going to be beneficial to a CPU/memory overclock. Things like hard drive performance are obviously going to be immune to performance increases on the CPU.</p>
Cinebench R10<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Another benchmarking community favorite, Cinebench renders an intense 2D scene relying on all the processing power it can. Cinebench R10 is another 64-bit capable application and is likely the most efficient program tested today at utilizing all cores of a processor. We will be running both the single threaded and multi-threaded benches here today.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-3.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Switching gears from an overall system benchmark to a strictly CPU bound benchmark, we should now see an almost linear increase in Cinebench performance when compared to the CPU frequency increase. This is in fact the case with the single thread of Cinebench increasing in performance by just over 40% and the multi-threaded benchmark increasing a solid 43%. Compare this to our 40% CPU overclock and we can see the 1:1 performance increase.</p>
DivX Converter v7.1<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Next up is a real life benchmark where we simply time a common task done on the computer. Encoding DVDs for viewing on the computer or other devices is an increasingly important task that the personal computer has taken on. We will take a VOB rip of the movie Office Space, and convert it into DivX using the default 720P setting of the new DivX converter v7.1.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-4.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">During the DivX conversion we watched task manager for CPU activity during the conversion and it appears that DivX only uses about 75% of each thread. We thought this was a bit weird as something as CPU intensive as a conversion would want to use the entire potential of the system. When we look at the results, this observation is confirmed as we only see a 32% increase in performance going from stock to overclocked which is almost 25% less of a performance increase than our CPU frequency increase of 40%. Overclocking your CPU will definitely cut down on encoding time with DivX, just not at the same percentage that the CPU is overclocked. We experienced a 3:4 performance to overclock ratio in our setup today.</p>
Lame Front End<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Un-like the DivX conversion we just looked at, Lame Front End is not multi-threaded and only utilizes a single core of a processor. This will obviously limit performance but we should still recognize significant time savings going from the stock settings to the overclocked results. We will be encoding a WAV rip of the Blackalicious album, Blazing Arrow and converting it to MP3 using the VBR 0 quality preset.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-5.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Unlike DivX, the Lame Front End WAV to MP3 encoding task showed an almost 40% decrease in encoding time even though it is a single threaded application. This indicates an equal 1:1 performance to overclock ratio, much like Cinebench. Again, overclocking the CPU definitely increases encoding performance and if you are doing an entire music library, you can save years off your life by pushing the system a little bit.</p>
Photoshop CS4<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Adobe Photoshop CS4 is fully x64 compliant and ready and able to use every single CPU cycle our processor has available including the implementation of GPU support utilizing the GTX 280 in our test system. It is just a shame it can't fully utilize all 8 threads of the i7 processor yet. We have changed our Photoshop benchmark to more of a standardized test configured by DriverHeaven.net. Their Photoshop benchmark utilizes 15 filters and effects on an uncompressed 109MB .JPG image that will test not only the CPU but also the memory subsystem of our test bench. Each portion of the benchmark is timed and added together for a final time that is compared below.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-6.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Continuing with the real world benchmarks we find that the DriverHeaven.net Photoshop benchmark also provides a solid 40% increase in performance. This again equates to a 1:1 ratio when looking at the CPU overclock percentage compared to the performance gain. We thought that there would be other factors holding back the performance gains below 40% but it appears that Photoshop is enough CPU bound to provide this perfect ratio. The memory overclock obviously helps this ratio a little bit as memory will play a large role in Photoshop performance in some of the tests performed.</p>
WinRAR 3.90 Beta 4<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>We all know what WinRAR is and does. It is a compression and decompression tool that has a built in benchmark, a way to tell just how fast a system can do this programs given task. We simply run the benchmark up to 500MB processed and time how long it takes.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-7.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">The final benchmark we look at today is the WinRAR built in benchmark testing to 500MB. This benchmark has traditionally been memory frequency bound and with a 28% decrease in calculating time, this makes sense as the full 40% CPU overclock couldn't come through in the results.
We know the motherboard plays a small role in the actual results presented here because pretty much all, if not every single motherboard, would show the same gains given the same overclock. What we can hang on the motherboard is the fact that this EVGA X58 SLI Micro can handle such a substantial system overclock. This is what makes this little board so great. The fact that it can handle a heavy overclock like its larger full ATX counterparts resulting in outstanding performance increases.</p>
System Benchmarks
SuperPi Mod v1.5<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>When running the 32M benchmark of SPi, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. SPi 32M has been a favorite amongst benchmarks for these very reasons and is admittedly the favorite benchmark of this reviewer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-1.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">I like to start the system benchmarks section with a look at the SPi 32M benchmark, despite the fact that it has very little to do with depicting system performance. In fact, it is more of a memory sub-system test but I just hope some users out there are interested in SPi. It is basically the primary testing facility for all of my benchmarking from testing basic memory stability to CPU clocks when testing a new chip or kit of memory. Needless to say, our 40% increase in CPU frequency and 17% increase in memory frequency equates to a 37% increase in 32M performance. This is a pretty fair trade off considering memory sub-timings can also play a substantial role in 32M performance and they are likely loosened off slightly going from stock to overclock to accommodate the increase in uncore and memory clocks as well as memory timings.</p>
PCMark Vantage<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>The latest iteration of the popular system benchmark is PCMark Vantage from the Futuremark crew. The PCMark series has always been a great way to either test specific areas of a system or to get a general over view of how your system is performing. For our results, we simply run the basic benchmark suite which involves a wide range of tests on all of the sub-systems of the computer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-2.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">As mentioned in the intro, PCMark Vantage measures a wide range of daily computer tasks in the PCMark Suite that we bench. Everything from browser rendering to 3D performance to multi-tasking, PCMark Vantage is actually a pretty good overall gauge of how much of a performance increase an overclock will have on your daily activities. As it stands, our overclock appears to have netted us an 18% gain in PCMark Vantage score. This makes sense as some of the tests PCMark Vantage runs are not going to be beneficial to a CPU/memory overclock. Things like hard drive performance are obviously going to be immune to performance increases on the CPU.</p>
Cinebench R10<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Another benchmarking community favorite, Cinebench renders an intense 2D scene relying on all the processing power it can. Cinebench R10 is another 64-bit capable application and is likely the most efficient program tested today at utilizing all cores of a processor. We will be running both the single threaded and multi-threaded benches here today.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-3.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Switching gears from an overall system benchmark to a strictly CPU bound benchmark, we should now see an almost linear increase in Cinebench performance when compared to the CPU frequency increase. This is in fact the case with the single thread of Cinebench increasing in performance by just over 40% and the multi-threaded benchmark increasing a solid 43%. Compare this to our 40% CPU overclock and we can see the 1:1 performance increase.</p>
DivX Converter v7.1<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Next up is a real life benchmark where we simply time a common task done on the computer. Encoding DVDs for viewing on the computer or other devices is an increasingly important task that the personal computer has taken on. We will take a VOB rip of the movie Office Space, and convert it into DivX using the default 720P setting of the new DivX converter v7.1.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-4.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">During the DivX conversion we watched task manager for CPU activity during the conversion and it appears that DivX only uses about 75% of each thread. We thought this was a bit weird as something as CPU intensive as a conversion would want to use the entire potential of the system. When we look at the results, this observation is confirmed as we only see a 32% increase in performance going from stock to overclocked which is almost 25% less of a performance increase than our CPU frequency increase of 40%. Overclocking your CPU will definitely cut down on encoding time with DivX, just not at the same percentage that the CPU is overclocked. We experienced a 3:4 performance to overclock ratio in our setup today.</p>
Lame Front End<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Un-like the DivX conversion we just looked at, Lame Front End is not multi-threaded and only utilizes a single core of a processor. This will obviously limit performance but we should still recognize significant time savings going from the stock settings to the overclocked results. We will be encoding a WAV rip of the Blackalicious album, Blazing Arrow and converting it to MP3 using the VBR 0 quality preset.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-5.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Unlike DivX, the Lame Front End WAV to MP3 encoding task showed an almost 40% decrease in encoding time even though it is a single threaded application. This indicates an equal 1:1 performance to overclock ratio, much like Cinebench. Again, overclocking the CPU definitely increases encoding performance and if you are doing an entire music library, you can save years off your life by pushing the system a little bit.</p>
Photoshop CS4<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Adobe Photoshop CS4 is fully x64 compliant and ready and able to use every single CPU cycle our processor has available including the implementation of GPU support utilizing the GTX 280 in our test system. It is just a shame it can't fully utilize all 8 threads of the i7 processor yet. We have changed our Photoshop benchmark to more of a standardized test configured by DriverHeaven.net. Their Photoshop benchmark utilizes 15 filters and effects on an uncompressed 109MB .JPG image that will test not only the CPU but also the memory subsystem of our test bench. Each portion of the benchmark is timed and added together for a final time that is compared below.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-6.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Continuing with the real world benchmarks we find that the DriverHeaven.net Photoshop benchmark also provides a solid 40% increase in performance. This again equates to a 1:1 ratio when looking at the CPU overclock percentage compared to the performance gain. We thought that there would be other factors holding back the performance gains below 40% but it appears that Photoshop is enough CPU bound to provide this perfect ratio. The memory overclock obviously helps this ratio a little bit as memory will play a large role in Photoshop performance in some of the tests performed.</p>
WinRAR 3.90 Beta 4<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>We all know what WinRAR is and does. It is a compression and decompression tool that has a built in benchmark, a way to tell just how fast a system can do this programs given task. We simply run the benchmark up to 500MB processed and time how long it takes.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58slimicro/sys_bench-7.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">The final benchmark we look at today is the WinRAR built in benchmark testing to 500MB. This benchmark has traditionally been memory frequency bound and with a 28% decrease in calculating time, this makes sense as the full 40% CPU overclock couldn't come through in the results.
We know the motherboard plays a small role in the actual results presented here because pretty much all, if not every single motherboard, would show the same gains given the same overclock. What we can hang on the motherboard is the fact that this EVGA X58 SLI Micro can handle such a substantial system overclock. This is what makes this little board so great. The fact that it can handle a heavy overclock like its larger full ATX counterparts resulting in outstanding performance increases.</p>
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