What's new
  • Please do not post any links until you have 3 posts as they will automatically be rejected to prevent SPAM. Many words are also blocked due to being used in SPAM Messages. Thanks!

EVGA P55 FTW LGA1156 Motherboard Review

Status
Not open for further replies.

Eldonko

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
5,416
Location
Calgary, AB
System Benchmarks

System.jpg

SuperPI Benchmark

SuperPi calculates the number of digits of PI in a pure 2D benchmark. For the purposes of this review, calculation to 32 million places will be used. RAM speed, RAM timings, CPU speed, L2 cache, and Operating System tweaks all effect the speed of the calculation, and this has been one of the most popular benchmarks among enthusiasts for several years.

SuperPi was originally written by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 and was updated later by snq to support millisecond timing, cheat protection and checksum. The version used in these benchmarks, 1.5mod is also the official version supported by hwbot.


pi.jpg

Results: A 29% increase in SuperPI 32M is noted going from 2800Mhz to 400Mhz on the i7 860 and EVGA P55 FTW. This is a very nice gain and well worth the effort to overclock. We should also add that these chips are great for PI and 9m26.203 is an excellent time for 4Ghz with a stock operating system. For reference it is almost 3 minutes faster clock for clock (4Ghz) compared to C2D.


CINEBENCH R10

CINEBENCH R10 is a testing suite that assesses your computer's performance capabilities, both 2D and 3D. CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances.

The test procedure consists of two main components: The first test sequence is dedicated to the computer's main processor. Next, a 3D scene file is used to render an image file. The scene makes use of various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders. In the first run, the benchmark only uses one CPU (or CPU core), to ascertain a reference value. On computers that have multiple CPUs or CPU cores, CINEBENCH will run a second test using all available CPU power.

In this review, x64 single-CPU and multi-CPU rendering speeds will be measured for both stock speed and an overclocked system.


cb.jpg

Results: The CINEBENCH R10 results show an impressive increase in performance in rendering moving from a stock system to an overclocked system. Improvements in rendering time of 30% and 31% are noted for single-CPU and multi-CPU rendering benchmarks respectively.


Sandra Memory Bandwidth, Processor Multi-Media, and Processor Arithmetic

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. The software suite provides most of the information (including undocumented) users like to know about hardware, software, and other devices whether hardware or software. The name “Sandra” is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means "defender", "helper of mankind".

The software version used for these tests is SiSoftware Sandra Professional Home XII.SP2c and the three benchmarks used are the Memory Bandwidth, Processor Multi-Media, and Processor Arithmetic benchmarks. These three benchmarks were chosen as they provide a good indication of three varying types of system performance. The bandwidth test shows performance of memory sub-systems, the multi-media test shows how the processor handles multi-media instructions and data, and the arithmetic test shows how the processor handles arithmetic and floating point instructions. These three tests illustrate three important areas of a computer’s speed and provide a wide scope of results.


Sandraarith.jpg


Sandramm.jpg

Results: Sandra processor arithmetic and multi-media show very impressive improvements on an overclocked system, with 43% gains in performance across the board in arithmetic and multi-media. This is exactly on par with the overclock percentage of 43%!

Sandrabw.jpg

Results: Memory was ran at the same speeds for both tests: 800Mhz (DDR1600) at 7-7-7-21 1T. As a result it is not surprising to see modest gains in bandwidth with a CPU overclock; a gain of 7%. We do want to note however that this bandwidth is very good and really helps with that PI time.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Eldonko

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
5,416
Location
Calgary, AB
3D and Gaming Benchmarks

3d.jpg


This section will provide an overview of stock vs. overclocked 3D results in synthetic benchmark and gaming situations. SLI is enabled for all tests and comparisons will be made to show performance increases in overclocked situations. The GPUs used for the test are a set of GTS250s.

3DMark Vantage Benchmark:

3DMark Vantage is the latest release by Futuremark, creators of the 3DMark suite. This program is the first Futuremark version of 3DMark designed exclusively for Windows Vista. 3DMark Vantage consists of 2 CPU and 2 GPU tests as well as and 6 feature tests all of which are very hardware intensive. Four presets are available to allow for those with older PCs to benchmark just as easily as those with cutting edge hardware. For our testing, we will use the Performance setting with all other settings at default. The build version is the latest patched version of Vantage v1.0.1.

Vantage.jpg

Results: Similar to 3DMark 2006 upon it’s release, Vantage performance relies heavily of graphics card performance, with modest gains going from 2800Mhz on an i7 860 to 4000Mhz, an improvement of about 4%.


3DMark 2006 Benchmark:

Futuremark 3DMark 06 has been the worldwide standard in advanced 3D game performance benchmarking for a few years now. A fundamental tool for PC users and gamers, 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests. 3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today. The tests below use 3DMark 2006 defult setting and a resolution of 1280x1024.

3dmark06.jpg

Results: 3DMark 2006 has much more reliance on CPU power due to the age of the benchmark; and we always see more of an improvement with a CPU overclock than we do with Vantage. A gain in 3DMarks of 38% is noted in 3DMark 2006, quite impressive for only an increase in CPU speed.


World in Conflict Benchmark:

The World in Conflict in-game benchmark is a great test to show video card performance in real gaming situations. Under the Graphics menu in options, you can choose a variety of video settings and there is a "Run Benchmark" button. The actual benchmark uses all of the game’s graphic capabilities and is a good indication which settings will be optimal for a user’s system. For the tests below resolution was set to 1680x1050 and graphics was set to “Very High” which gives fullscreen anti-alias at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 4x.

Wic.jpg

Results: The World in Conflict benchmark shows a respectable gain in frames per second, an improvement of 18% or an extra 9 FPS. This tells us that not only overclocking a video card will improve your gaming experience; those extra CPU Mhz also contribute to FPS.


Call of Juarez Benchmark:

Developed by Techland, the Call of Juarez Benchmark is a fast-paced Wild-West shooter. CoJ is a very attractive DX10 benchmark to watch and we feel it is great to test a system in gaming situations. Call of Juarez uses Shader Model 4 with DirectX 10, so the usage of Vista32 (at the minimum) is necessary. There is lots of movement into different environments and some cool looking water systems where the physics is done via geometry shader. For our tests, 1680x1050 resolution, 4x AA, and High Detail is used.

Coj.jpg

Results: The Call of Juarez DX10 Benchmark is very graphics dependant and shows little gain with a CPU overclock. We see a modest gain in average frames per second of 6% or an extra 2 FPS. Stay tuned for the difference between one and two GPUs in the SLI section, I think you may be pleasantly surprised with the results for CoJ.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Eldonko

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
5,416
Location
Calgary, AB
SLI Benchmarks

SLItitle.jpg

This section will provide an overview of single card vs. SLI performance. For SLI testing, two GTS250s were used, both running at a speed of 760/1000. All tests were completed using Nvidia ForceWare 191.07 drivers and Windows 7 Pro 64bit. Since the memory sizes on the two cards were different (1GB vs. 512 MB), the Coolbits registry tweak was used to enable SLI. Additionally, all SLI comparisons will be ran at overclocked CPU settings (4000Mhz/800Mhz 7-7-7-21 1T).


3DMark Vantage Benchmark:

The first 3D benchmark test for SLI is quickly becoming the new standard among benchmarking enthusiasts, Futuremark 3DMark Vantage. Performance settings will be used and all other settings remain at default to allow other users to compare their results.

Vantagesli.jpg

Results: SLI results are really where the EVGA P55 FTW shines with gain in Vantage 3DMarks (performance preset) of 6,931 or an improvement of 85%!


3DMark 2006 Benchmark:

The second 3D benchmark test for SLI is among the most common in the enthusiast world, Futuremark 3DMark 2006. To be comparable to other users’ systems, all settings remain at default, including the resolution which is 1280x1024.

3dmark06sli.jpg

Results: For 3dMark06 we see a 46% gain (7,576) in 3DMarks when adding a second GTS250 and running the 3DMark06 benchmark in SLI. Not quite on par with the impact SLI had on Vantage, but close.


World in Conflict Benchmark:

Moving to the third SLI test we have the World in Conflict Benchmark. For World in Conflict tests, resolution is set at 1680x1050, Detail is set to Very High, all other display options remain at default settings.

Wicsli.jpg

Results: In a gaming benchmark that simulates gaming situations, the performance gained when running SLI vs. a single card is nothing short of outstanding. When adding a second GTS250, FPS improves 87%, a gain of 27 frames per second!


Call of Juarez Benchmark:

Last but not least is another benchmark that simulated gaming situations, Call of Juarez. For our tests, 1680x1050 resolution, 4x AA, and High Detail is used.

Cojsli.jpg

Results: Call of Juarez of Call of Juarez is what SLI is all about. This benchmark shows an unheard of gain of 100% when adding a second GPU, moving from 25 to 50 frames per second. The FTW really shines with it's SLI capabilities on a benchmark or game such as CoJ.

sli.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Eldonko

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
5,416
Location
Calgary, AB
Voltage Regulation & Heat Analysis

Voltage Regulation & Heat Analysis

Voltage Regulation:

When evaluating a board’s voltage regulation, we first need to know what a few voltages refer to. More specifically what the BIOS set VCore is versus what the VCore is in Windows and how things change when the system is put under load. In theory these numbers should all be the same but load line droop (commonly known as Vdroop) is an intentional part of any Intel power delivery design specification.

Droop by definition is the real voltage delta from idle to load on a motherboard. Vdroop is usually larger for quads due to the extra power going through the voltage regulation integrated circuits and some boards have larger Vdroop than others, depending partly on the quality of the voltage regulation of the board.

To analyze Vdroop and voltage regulation we usually look at how smooth the voltage line on an overclocked system is over a 5 hour period using OCCT and the degree of droop. However, OCCT does not detect VCore on this board so unfortunately we are unable to have the usual nice, clean OCCT-provided graph. What we can do instead is measure VCore with our digital multimeter and report the differences in BIOS VCore, idle VCore and load VCore.

First off, the BIOS setting – EVGA Vdroop Control is set to Without Vdroop which means the board itself senses and tries to level out any voltage drops that occur. Our 24/7 overclock of 4Ghz takes 1.350V set in the BIOS and in Windows this value actually increases instead of decreasing giving 1.364V at idle. Stressing the CPU 100% with the 8 thread Prime95, VCore increases this even more resulting in a reading 1.388V. Basically, most boards regulate things so the BIOS VCore is the highest, idle slightly lower and load is lowest, even with Load Line Calibration enabled. However, the FTW actually gives us 0.24v more under load than when idle which is interesting to say the least.

volts.jpg


Heat Analysis:

Since the P55 chipset is brand new, there is not a whole lot of info out there on how hot it runs. You would expect that a passive cooled chipset that is doing multiple duties would get quite hot but we have to remember that Intel has moved quite a few functions onto the CPU die.

Measuring the Northbridge heatsink with a digital thermometer, temperatures hover around 40C even when the system is at full load. Some users like to water cool their chipset, but it really is not necessary in the case of P55. To put 40C in perspective, the human body temperature is 37C, so the P55 hardly runs hotter than we do even when it is working it’s butt off.

Stemp1.png
Stemp2.jpg

Before we get into CPU temperatures, we should add that the quad core multi threading Intel Core i7 860 is a hot running CPU. This is no dual Core 2 Duo we are dealing with here and many enthusiasts are even upgrading their waterblocks to the latest and greatest to deal with the heat. This is precisely why we stuck with a 4Ghz overclock although the chip would do more, temps were as high as we felt comfortable running 24/7.

The MOSFET coolers did a good job in cooling while not being overly how while the board didn’t really have any hot spots. As for CPU temperatures, 1.37V (full load) and 4Ghz stressed over five hours got us about an average of 68-69C which is really not too bad considering the additional voltage and clock speed increase. However this was watercooled so a user using the stock cooler will see higher temps and will be probably have to live with less of an overclock if he wants to keep temps around the same point. With low chipset temps and reasonable CPU temps we have no long-term concerns over heat on this board, as long as the user does not overdo the overclock without sufficient cooling.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Eldonko

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
5,416
Location
Calgary, AB
Conclusion

Conclusion


With one of the higher end entries into EVGA’s latest line of P55 boards, EVGA looks to be right up there with manufacturers such as ASUS with a fully featured board targeted to enthusiasts. At about $230, the EVGA P55 FTW easily competes with some more expensive boards in terms of what you get for the money; not to mention that comparable X58 boards are not even close to this price point. The FTW board has something for everyone in a motherboard price we are used to paying. Didn’t like the direction boards were going in terms of price point? We didn’t either so we must say that it is great to see a somewhat affordable enthusiast board hit the shelves, especially when the economy is finally on the rebound.

In terms of features it is hard to think of anything which is lacking. The ECP V2 allows everyone from enthusiasts to have a good amount of control over important aspects of overclocking and E-LEET gives you some great software monitoring / tweaking in a convenient Windows environment. To make matters even better, this board has some additional features such as socket 775 cooler mounting holes and triple switchable BIOS, which really allow it to stand out from the competition. For the hardcore enthusiast, the FTW has modes for extreme cooling, EZ voltage measure points to eliminate guess work when checking voltages with a multimeter, and a 12+2 phase PWM for the cleanest power switching you could ask for. Even a novice user has the appropriately-named Dummy OC feature which can give a significant boost in performance by simply changing one BIOS setting.

In our overclocking tests the board worked like a champ but we would expect no less from a product from EVGA. In general we felt that overclocking the P55 FTW was quite easy and painless and the AMI BIOS was well designed. For a 24/7 overclock we were able to achieve a 43% gain over stock speed for 4000Mhz, saw some nice memory overclocks at CL 7 and CL8 with our Ripjaws kit and were able to bench up to 220 BCLK at a reasonable VTT voltage. Unfortunately, it wasn't the board that was holding us back so it should be said that what we saw is just scratching the surface of the FTW's potential and it should really fly with some sub-zero cooling.

While there is no better feeling than slathering on the love from this board, there are still some small gremlins in the system. We found two minor issues with the BIOS: the first was the 2:6 memory ratio that did not seem to allow the board to POST when selected and it was more than annoying that we had to reset the clock and date after every CMOS clear. The 2:6 issue is really no big deal because 99% of users will not need that ratio anyways since with the speed of today’s DDR3, you will be using 2:8 and 2:10 regularly. The time and date resetting with a CMOS clear is however something we would like to see fixed. The only other minor issue we saw was that there are no IDE and floppy ports on the board. Yes, we understand it is 2009 and very few people use a floppy and those that need one can get a USB drive, but we feel that some users may still have IDE DVD or CD drives which they may want to use. That being said, if you are one of those people who wants to use a 4-year old CD drive with a board like this, we think it is time you move on.

In the end we found the EVGA FTW to be an excellent board, packed full of the features we want, at a reasonable price. For overclocking everything went smoothly and frustrations (which are common when overclocking) were virtually nonexistent which is more than we could ask of any board. The FTW should appeal to users from basic to mainstream to hard core enthusiast as it has something for everyone. For a user looking to save a few dollars without sacrificing much there is also the P55 SLI or for a power user that must have the absolute best of the best there is the P55 Classified but if you are looking for the best possible board for your money, it should be the FTW at the top of your list.


Pros

- ECP V2 and E-LEET make overclocking life easier
- Tri-BIOS adds convenience and safety
- Dummy OC works great and will be useful for a novice user
- SLI gave a huge boost in FPS
- EZ Voltage read points eliminates the guess work
- 775 cooler support
- Huge overclocking potential
- Value for the $$


Cons

- Have to set BIOS time and date after every CMOS clear
- No IDE or floppy ports
- 2:6 memory ratio did not seem to work


maximus_III_Formula_181.jpg

Thanks to EVGA for making this review possible!




 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top