EVGA P55 Classified 200 LGA1156 Motherboard Review

Gaming Benchmarks

Alright, before we get into the benchmark results, I'll take a quick second to explain the PCI-E slot breakdown on this board. This may get a bit messy but we will do our best to explain.

As we saw on the P55 chipset diagram, there are a total of 16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes that go to the CPU, when there is just a single card in the top PCI-E #1 slot, all 16 lanes are used by this slot which is the case with most other P55 motherboards for a full 16X PCI-E 2.0 slot. Okay, so that is clear.

The PCI-E #2 slot is just a 4X slot that has no bearing on the red slots because it goes to the P55 PCH, and is colored black to help identify it.

Now, the rest of the red slots are connected to the NF200 chipset. So, as soon as another one of the red slots (PCI-E #3 ~ #6) is populated, then the top slot has to give up 8 lanes for the NF200 to access converting the top slot to an 8X PCI-E 2.0 slot; again like pretty much all other higher end P55 motherboards available. It is these 8 lanes that the NF200 now has access to that all other video cards will piggy back on. So even though the #3 and #5 PCI-E slots say they are 16X, that is only up to the NF200 chipset. At that point, they are all combined and fed through the 8 available lanes the NF200 chipset has access to.

In the end, while the NF200 chipset offers the use of up to 5 video cards on this motherboard, it doesn't magically provide more PCI-E lanes going to the CPU which is still-like all P55 motherboards-limited to 16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes. So in a typical 3-way SLI setup you would have cards in slot #1, #3, and #5. Slot #1 would be operating at 8X while slot #3 and #5 would technically be operating at 16X, but they actually get funneled into an 8X lane at the NF200 chipset that feeds to the CPU.

With our 4x4890's we essentially have 1x4890 running on an 8X lane to the CPU and 3x4890's running to the NF200, then fed on the other 8X lane to the CPU. Hopefully this makes sense. In short, what it means is that we are likely to see a point of diminishing returns because at some point, that 8X lane from the NF200 chipset is going to become saturated. The question will just be when, after 2, 3, or 4 cards?

We have forced ourselves to step up to 3DMark Vantage results for all reviews because the public demands it. 3DMark Vantage is the newest in a long line of 3D benchmarking software from Futuremark and is the most elaborate to date. Featuring multiple presets for various system configurations, Vantage is the culmination of all 3DMarks past relying on system and GPU power for its results. We will stick to the Performance preset as it seems to be the most popular at this point in time.

We first take a look at 3DMark 06 and Vantage. The 06 results are what we were expecting to see, a complete lack of gains going from three to four video cards. Unfortunately Vantage turns our theory inside out. Confused a bit by the results I then down clocked the video cards and sure enough, the GPU test scores dropped appropriately which means there is definitely still GPU scaling, even with four cards installed. Based on that I would have to say the NF200 isn't bottlenecking the three cards it has over the 8X PCI-E lane it is feeding to the CPU.

We all know what Crysis is and how much it beats up systems but we wanted to see how the multi GPU setup would fair. Keep in mind, we are just running 1680x1050 so the true potential of this 4x4890 setup will not be fulfilled. Detail levels are all set to Very High with the resolution at 1680x1050 with 4xAA. We ran the benchmarks with a demo of the Tank level in DX9 and 64-bit. The game looks great with this setup and plays just well enough to keep us happy.

Well, it is hard to determine what the limiting factor is here in our Crysis results but based on the Vantage scaling we are going to put it on the fact that 1680x1050 just isn't a high enough resolution to let these four cards stretch their legs. We get a big boost from single to dual cards then a small boost to the third card in both minimum and average FPS, but that is where it stops. Only maximum FPS continues to scale with the fourth card.

Another new fall release of this past silly season Far Cry 2 has some beautiful scenery but does lack that buttery smooth game play in places. A lot of moaning and groaning has occurred with Far Cry 2 but acceptable frame rates are much easier to achieve than Crysis and the game play is plenty smooth enough to enjoy. We were really able to crank up the settings with this benchmark on this setup.

Another little surprise shows up here in Far Cry 2 with scaling in all three min/avg/max right up to four cards. This is definitely a good sign that 4x4890's aren't too much to saturate the limited PCI-E lanes of the P55 chipset. We know 4x4890's aren't exactly the newest generation of cards but it is all we had access to so we did the best we could with them.

The newest game in our testing sweet, Prototype is sill this reviewers favorite game. The immense city is just too much fun flying around. Since there is no built in time demo or way to benchmark the game, we simply loaded up the same scene and spent 5 good minutes in an all out battle with the military at the Gentek building. Needless to say, there is going to be some variation in each test but we did this three times for each setup and averaged out the results.

The Prototype results are the most interesting at first glance but easily explainable once you see what has happened. Essentially, the game doesn't know how to deal with the fourth card. Perhaps the drivers weren't quite ready for this game and this many video cards or the game itself isn't. Either way, we still see scaling up to three cards in the average and maximum frame rates which is good to see.

In the end, we think it is safe to say that the limited amount of PCI-E lanes available to the P55 chipset is still capable of handling quite a GPU load while showing gains in gaming and 3D mark benching. The NF200 chipset is not a magician and can't make the LGA1156 CPU's accept more PCI-E lanes, but it appears to be doing a good job opening up the EVGA P55 Classified 200 for more than dual video cards and in certain setups can definitely add performance to your gaming experience.