ASUS Striker II Extreme: Mucho Bang, Mucho Bucks
by Kris Boughton on April 11, 2008 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test System Configuration and Methodology
| Test System Configurations | |
| Processor(s) | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (ES) Dual-core, 3.16GHz, 6MB Unified L2 Cache, 9.5x Multiplier, 1333 FSB Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (ES) Quad-core, 3.20GHz, 2x6MB Unified L2 Cache, 8.0x Multiplier, 1600 FSB |
| Motherboard(s) | ASUS Striker II Extreme (NVIDIA 790i Ultra SPP and
MCP) EVGA NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI (NVIDIA 790i Ultra SPP and MCP) EVGA NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI (NVIDIA 780i SPP and MCP, nForce 200) MSI PN7 SLI Platinum (NVIDIA 750i SPP and 480 MCP) ASUS P5E3 Premium (Intel X48 Experss MCH and ICH9R) |
| DDR2 Memory | 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix PC2 8500 (DDR2-1066) |
| DDR3 Memory | 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix PC3 12800 (DDR3-1600) |
| Graphics Card(s) | MSI 8800 GTS 512MB (G92) - single and SLI
configurations 675MHz core, 1625MHz shader, 970MHz (DDR-1940) memory |
| Cooling | D-tek FuZion CPU block, EK-FC88 GT/GTS full coverage GPU blocks, ThermoChill PA120.3 radiator, 3x SUNON KDE1212PMB3-6A 120x38mm fans, Laing D5 pump, 1/2" ID (3/4" OD) Tygon tubing |
| Power Supply | OCZ EvoStream 600W Modular PSU |
| Hard Drive | WD 74GB Raptor, 10K RPM, SATA 3Gbps, 8MB buffer |
| Video Driver | NVIDIA 169.25 (WHQL) |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate (x64) SP1 with DirectX 10.1 |
Each motherboard was flashed with the latest available BIOS - some of which were still labeled beta at the time of testing - and any unneeded functionality was disabled (unused serial ports, onboard HD audio, IDE controllers, etc.). This streamlined the OS and driver installs for optimum performance.
Prior to each round of motherboard testing we loaded a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate (x64), followed by platform drivers, then Service Pack 1 (SP1) including all patches and hot fixes currently offered by Microsoft's online Windows Update service. We made sure that our hard disk's write-back caching was enabled and the prefetch folder was cleared before each test run.
The latest WHQL-certified video drivers for our pair of MSI 8800GTS 512MB (G92) cards were then installed and all NVIDIA control panel settings were left as-is with the exception of SLI functionality, which was selectively enabled and disabled depending on which round of benchmarks were being run. Additionally, rather than deal with comparison issues arising from GPU core, shader, and memory clocks speed discrepancies seen from card to card, depending on the vendor, we chose to flash our pair of graphics cards to the NVIDIA reference clocks as listed on their site. Therefore, if some of our scores seem low to you it may be because the cards you have been working with come factory-programmed with higher clock frequencies.
Our test suite consists of Futuremark 3DMark 2006, a popular 3D benching program, Futuremark PCMark Vantage (x64), Crysis (32-bit executable), Unreal Tournament 3, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, and Lavalys' EVEREST Cache and Memory Benchmark tool. All game benchmarks are run at a higher resolution (1920x1200) and a lower resolution (1280x1024), always on "High Quality" settings - with the exception of Crysis that was run at "Medium" settings - and in each case results are reported with and without SLI enabled, whenever possible. In addition, these tests used our Core 2 Duo E8500 dual-core CPU as well as our quad-core QX9770. Finally, we show scores at both stock processor frequencies and rated bus speeds and when overclocked to 4.00GHz (8x500MHz for the E8500 and 10x400MHz for the QX9970).
We ran each test five times, threw out the high and the low score, and then averaged the remaining three. These results fully qualify the advantages (or not) of purchasing a more powerful CPU - whether that means higher frequencies or more cores - along with any real-world benefits of NVIDIA's SLI Technology.
There is one exception to this: the ASUS P5E3 Premium. Although a worthy contender, the P5E3 Premium is not SLI-capable due to drivers, and as such we do not provide SLI results. Future testing using Crossfire-capable ATI/AMD HD 3800-series cards will be completed in the next roundup, but for now we're concentrating on SLI. We've really added the P5E3 Premium to the mix just to get a feel for how X48 stacks-up against NVIDIA's 750i, 780i and 790i Ultra when it comes to single-card graphics performance. This will be good information for those that are not necessarily in the market for an SLI-capable motherboard or feel gaming may not be their top priority.
Before we get into the specifics let's look at overall system performance. We chose PCMark Vantage for this task as it does an excellent job of documenting the performance of nearly every subsystem and then combines the results in a meaningful way. This allows us to conduct a broad sweeping check of the system as a whole; then, if the score is unusually low, we can decide whether investigation and further testing may be prudent.
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takumsawsherman - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
But for $400, you only get Firewire 400. Is that like a key, or something? If we pay $800 for a board, will they finally feel as though they can afford to add Firewire800, as Gigabyte did on their $200 boards like 3 or 4 years ago?When they talk about adding firewire itself to a board, does it never occur to them that a faster variation has existed for 5 or 6 years now? How insulting.
Grandpa - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
It doesn't matter what the price, performance, make, or model. If the board is unstable I don't want it! I had an Abit board once with a VIA chipset. It corrupted data when large files were transferred between drives. Several BIOS updates later, with the performance down to a crawl, it still corrupted data. Because of that ugly bad memory, stability is number one important for me. So this review is very relevant to others like myself.Super Nade - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
As far as I know, the capacitors you mention are made by Fujitsu's Media division (FP-Cap series), not Fairchild semiconductor. Fujitsu did try to gobble up Fairchild in the 80's, but the US government killed the deal. Apart from this, I am not aware of any connection between these two companies.Here is the link--> http://jp.fujitsu.com/group/fmd/en/services/capaci...">http://jp.fujitsu.com/group/fmd/en/services/capaci...
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Stele - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
Super Nade's right. The vendor marking on the capacitors - which have been the same for almost all such solid electrolytic polymer caps used on Asus boards for some time now - is very much that of Fujitsu: a letter 'F' in Courier-esque font between two horizontal lines.Interestingly - and confusingly - however, once upon a time this logo was indeed that of Fairchild Semiconductor... the deal that almost happened in the 80s may have something to do with Fujitsu's current use of the said logo. Either way, Faichild Semi have long since changed to their current logo (a stylised italic 'f') so today, any current/new electronic/semiconductor component carrying the F-between-bars logo is almost certainly a Fujitsu product.
jojo29 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Just wondering how the Anandtech's Choice P5E3 Premium ( which i plan on buying) stacks up against this Striker? Any comments? Or did i miss something in the aricle as i was only able to skim through it, as im at work atm, and dontcoughwantcoughtogetcaughtbymybosscough...kjboughton - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
We used one X48 motherboard in this review and it was the ASUS P5E3 Premium. Enjoy the full read when you make it home. ;)ImmortalZ - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
You mention that overclocking the PCI-E bus provided tangible performance benefits on the EVGA board.Did you read about the rumblings around the net about some G92 based cards overclocking their GPU with the PCI-E bus? There are supposedly two clock sources for these type of cards - one on board and the other slaved to the PCI-E bus.
Are you sure that the performance improvement is not because of this anomaly?
CrystalBay - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Hi Kris, while UT3 does scale very well with multi-core. The game it self has no DX10 support as of yet. Hopefully EPIC will will enable it in a future update...Glenn - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
All the benchies and comparisons are great, but how does it compare to a P35 board? A 965 or X38 board? I doubt you will convert those that already own an X48 and I (P35) have no point of reference within this article to see if I'm 5, 10 or 25% behind the preformance curve?Rolphus - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Interesting review... only one question though. Why use the 32-bit version of Crysis on Vista x64? Is there an issue with the 64-bit version that I don't know about?