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| by FiXT | December 20, 2009 | ||
| System Benchmarks System BenchmarksSuperPi Mod v1.5 When running the SuperPI 32MB benchmark, 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. We are running one instance of SuperPi via the HyperPi 0.99b interface. This is therefore a single-thread workload.  Despite it's 2.2% BCLK advantage, the P55-UD6 squeaked by the fast Maximus III Formula by a mere 0.7%. The Difference between all five motherboards is really quite minimal though, and some tweaking of the secondary memory timings would easily even out all the models. Cinebench R10Cinebench R10 64-bit Test1: Single CPU Image Render Test2: Multi CPU Image Render Comparison: Generated Score Developed by MAXON, creators of Cinema 4D, Cinebench 10 is designed using the popular Cinema software and created to compare system performance in 3D Animation and Photo applications. There are two parts to the test; the first stresses only the primary CPU or Core, the second, makes use of up to 16 CPUs/Cores. Both are done rendering a realistic photo while utilizing various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders  No big surprises here, the Gigabyte P55-UD6 is roughly 2% faster than the rest of the field due to its BCLK and thus CPU clock advantage. PCMark Vantage x64PCMark Vantage Advanced 64-bit Edition (1.0.0.0) PCMark Suite / Default Settings Comparison: Generated Score The main focus of our General Tasks category lies with the most recent installment of the PCMark series, Vantage. While still classified under the description of a Synthetic benchmark, PCMark Vantage uses many of Vista's (Note - Vantage is Vista-only) built-in programs and features along with its own tests, so it is "real-world" applicable in regards to CPU performance. The following is a general list of the tests in the PCMark suite, very much in line with tasks of an average user: Data encryption, Data compression, CPU image manipulation (compression/decompression/resize), Audio transcoding,Video transcoding,Text editing,Web page rendering, Windows Mail, Windows Contacts, and CPU game test.  In PCMark Vantage, the Gigabyte ties with the MSI P55-GD80, but of which fall a bit behind the unusually fast ASUS motherboards. Photoshop CS4 For the image editing portion of this review, we will use Photoshop CS4 in coordination with Driver Heaven’s Photoshop Benchmark V3, which is an excellent test of CPU power and memory bandwidth. This is a scripted benchmark that individually applies 15 different filters to a 109MB JPEG, and uses Photoshop’s built-in timing feature to provide a result at each test stage. Then it’s simply a matter of adding up the 15 results to reach the final figure.  As expected, the P55-UD6 is fastest motherboard in our PhotoShop test, while the other four models are effectively equal. Lame Front End Lame Front End v1.0 is a single-threaded application, which means that it only utilizes a single processor core. This will obviously limit performance but it will allow us to see the benefits of Lynnfield aggressive Turbo Boost with single-threaded loads. We will be encoding a WAV rip of Santana’s Supernatural album and converting it to MP3 using the highest fidelity VBR 0 quality preset.  In LFE, the UD6 blows past the competition by a solid 4-6%. Clearly, it's superior performance is caused by more than just its clock speed advantage. x264 HD Benchmarkx264 HD Benchmark v1.0 Test: MPEG-2 HD 720P Video Clip Conversion to x264 DVD Video Length: 30 Seconds Comparison: FPS of Second Pass x264 is quickly becoming the new codec of choice for encoding a growing number of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC videos. Think of it as the new Divx of HD and you can understand why we felt it critical to include. Tech Arp's recent development of the x264 HD Benchmark takes a 30 second HD video clip and encodes it into the x264 codec with the intention of little to no quality loss. The test is measured using the average frames per second achieved during encoding, which scales with processor speed and efficiency. The benchmark also allows the use of multi-core processors so it gives a very accurate depiction of what to expect when using encoding application on a typical full length video.  In this encoding test, the P55-UD6 is roughly 2% faster than the second place Maximus III Formula. WinRARWinRAR 3.8.0 Test: Compression of 1GB of Assorted Files Comparison: Time to Finish One of the most popular file compression/decompresion tools, we use WinRAR to compress a 1GB batch of files and archive them, timing the task until completion.  In WinRAR, the UD6 claims another win, although followed closely by the rest of the pack. Overall, as in the Synthetic Benchmarks, the Gigabyte P55-UD6 proved to be fastest motherboard that we have tested so far. However, obviously the bulk of its advantage comes from its 136Mhz BCLK, which provides it with an average 2% performance improvement over the other models. Frankly though, you will never notice the performance difference between these five motherboards. | ||
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