![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, October 29, 2008
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
EVGA 790i SLI FTW Motherboard
EVGA brings us their latest in its “FTW” motherboard series. EVGA promises that this one is engineered For The Win! Is this marketing fluff or is it the truth? A trip to the “cooker” will tell us how tough it is.
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel ® Core™2 Duo E8500 clocked at 3.16GHz with 2x 2048MB Corsair CM3X2048-1600C7DHXIN (DDR3 1600MHz) memory modules running at 1333MHz were used. The CPU was cooled with a Corsair Nautilus 500 fitted to a Swiftech Apogee GT waterblock.
Audio – Subjective Listening
For subjective listening you want to listen to something that covers a range of sound types. For this portion of the review I went with Disturbed, Indestructible.
The integrated audio proved to be excellent in regard to CD audio playback. No popping hissing or distortion was heard.
Audio – Microphone Port Testing
The onboard audio MIC-IN port was tested using a Logitech Internet Chat Headset. Spoken words were recorded from the Windows Sound Recorder found under the Accessories\Entertainment folder in the start menu within Windows XP. The recording was made with the Microphone Boost option disabled, then enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the advanced menu under the microphone section with in the Volume Control Menu.
The integrated Azalia Codec proved to be a decent solution. The recording sample was almost inaudible but relatively free of distortion. Unfortunately when the microphone boost option was enabled, there was a fair amount of distortion however the sample was much easier to hear. Audio recording professionals need not apply here but that generally goes without saying.
Drive Performance
To test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 connections, we used an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected first to the USB port. SATA and IDE drive tests were performed using Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives on the primary SATA header and Samsung 40 GB SATA 3G with NCQ hard drives on additional SATA headers. The SATA drives were used for testing in RAID 0 16k block size configurations on all applicable controllers. Testing was also conducted using a standalone SATA drive on all applicable controllers, and an EIDE drives connected in a primary slave configuration on the appropriate controller All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program.
As you might expect the NVRAID RAID 0 configuration was the fastest configuration tested. I did have one problem with this board's onboard drive controllers. I was unable to get the JMicron controller to run in RAID mode at all. I couldn't even access the RAID BIOS at all. I did get an error message saying that there was a failure invoking the option ROM. I ran into similar problems on another board awhile back which turned out to be a drive compatibility problem. I then got out my Raptor 150GB drives to rule out a compatibility problem. Unfortunately the problem was present for both the Raptor and Samsung drives. Windows showed the controller to be a valid RAID capable piece of hardware but the JMicron RAID configuration software showed no RAID active in the system. At the time of this writing the BIOS version is the most current one so hopefully this will be resolved in the future with a BIOS update.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used with Windows Task Manager to determine the performance levels of the onboard network interface. DU Meter was used to measure bandwidth and transfer speeds, while Windows Task Manager monitored CPU utilization on the test system. For the testing, a 750MB Archive file consisting of several compressed WMA/MP3 files was used for the large file transfer, and 750MB worth of MP3/WMA files were used ranging in sizes from 3 to 30MB was used for the small files transfer test. The test was performed using a plenum rated category 5e crossover cable to bypass any traffic, routing or other transfer issues and possible packet loss or corruption that can be caused by a router/switch or hub. The cables were connected between two test machines, one using the onboard NIC(s) of the board being reviewed and the other is an Intel EXPI9400PT 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet adapter installed into a test machine using an Intel DX48BT2 motherboard.
For the integrated networking, EVGA stuck with the nForce Networking controllers. They are both PCI-Express solutions that are capable of 10/100 or Gigabit speeds.
LAN1
The small files download test showed a maximum transfer speed of 69.08MB a second and an average speed of 33.76MB a second. CPU usage was a reasonable 13%. The small files upload test peaked at 44.32Mb a second and averaged 25.88Mb a second. CPU usage was again very reasonable at 15%.
The large files download test maxed out at 69.42MB a second while averaging a very nice 57.93MB a second. CPU usage was a little higher than expected at 25%. During the large files upload test we saw a transfer rate of 23.38MB a second and an average transfer rate of 22.98MB a second. CPU usage was lower this time around at 9%.
LAN2
The small files upload test showed a peak speed of 69.60MB a second and an average of 34.11MB a second. CPU usage was on the high side at 22%. The small files upload test showed a maximum transfer speed of 49.43Mb a second with an average of 27.94MB a second. CPU usage was a modest 11%.
While not the equal of dedicated PCI-Express server class adapters (not that anyone expected that they should be) the onboard network solution is a fairly good one. Transfer rates are up where they should be and CPU usage is about middle of the road. I've seen better and I've certainly seen worse. All in all a competent implementation of the nForce Network Controllers.
Here we see excellent results from the large files download test. We see a maximum transfer rate of 78.34MB a second and an average of 51.92MB a second. Incidentally this performance comes at the cost of CPU usage which was a constant 27%.
Test Systems
The following system configurations were used for the Sandra memory benchmark graph, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmarks sections:
Graphs are labeled as follows: Motherboard - CPU Clock - FSB Clock - Memory Clock
SiSoft Sandra XII -Memory Bandwidth Buffered
Note that all results above were obtained running the installed memory in Dual Channel mode.
The EVGA 790i SLI FTW has a good showing here. Not quite the top spot but great results for an Intel CPU based motherboard. Besting the Intel X48 chipset is something worth mentioning and is something that is a good showing for benchmark monkeys.
SiSoft Sandra CPU Operation Benchmark
The metric produced by the EVGA 790i SLI FTW here are a bit on the low side, but well within expected ranges. The scores are very close to the 790i Ultra SLI reference board. The Intel chipsets get better results here but those can be attributed to design differences between Intel and NVIDIA chipsets.
Super Pi Mod v1.5 Benchmark
The EVGA 790i SLI FTW scores right where it should in this test and shows that our CPU is operating as it should again.
wPrime 1.5
Again we see excellent results out of the EVGA 790i SLI FTW which are right in line with other Intel Core 2 Extreme test configurations. This is a heavily threaded benchmark that reaches into all four cores on the QX9770 processor.