![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , December 29, 2008
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution
The ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution motherboard has six PCIe x16 slots and delivers true x16 bandwidth for 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX, but does it work? Overall performance looks to rival that of the current reigning X58 chipset champs while delivering none of the features you don’t want.
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel LGA 1366 Core i7 920 CPU with a 133MHz FSB and 3 x 1GB Corsair XM3-1600 memory modules running at 1600MHz were used in testing.
Audio – Subjective Listening
One of the easiest ways to determine the quality of the audio subsystem is via a subjective sound test. Ideally, a sound test requires audio covering the entire spectrum, from subtle to intense. For this test, I chose to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins album Zeitgeist.
Playback of the selected album was without issue, with no distortion or other type of audio degradation encountered during the listening session.
Audio – Microphone Port Testing
The MIC-IN input was tested using our standard Labtec Desk Mic 524 testing microphone. Spoken words were recorded and played back using Microsoft Sound Recorder, with the Microphone Boost option disabled and enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the Advanced menu under the Microphone section within the Volume Control menu.
No distortion was detected at any time during the audio tests, but it was found that Microphone Boost was not unnecessary. Audio pickup and audibility with the microphone was more than adequate in normal mode.
Drive Performance
To adequately test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 connections, we chose to use an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected to one of the onboard the USB ports. SATA drive tests were performed using Samsung 40GB SATA II hard drives on the SATA headers. The SATA drives were used for testing in a RAID 0 16k block size configuration and in standalone mode on both the Intel ICH10R Southbridge and Marvell SAS controllers. All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program
The RAID 0 arrays on both controllers performed best overall, with neither the ICH10R nor the Marvell SAS controller showing definitively better performance. However, the standalone drive on the ICH10R controller performed above and beyond the standalone drive on the Marvell SAS controller, with the ICH10R controlled drive’s performance approaching that of the RAID 0 arrays. The USB 2.0 device performed within expectations as well. During all tests, CPU utilization remained well below 1%.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used in conjunction with Windows Task Manager to measure the performance of the Realtek GigE NICs. Note that both Realtek based GigE NICs performed on par with one another. DU meter was used to measure bandwidth, with Windows Task Manager to monitor the CPU utilization on the test system. For the test itself, a 750MB archive file containing various sized .WMA audio files for the large file transfer test and a 750MB worth of various sized .WMA audio files for the small files transfer test were used in conjunction with an integrated Gigabit NIC on the host system and a crossover cable to connect the host system to the test system. A crossover cable was used to rule out any possible bandwidth losses due to hub or switch passage.
Realtek GigE controller
The large file download tests easy met expectations, with the average download speed besting that of upload by a mere 7 MB/s coming in at a cool 38 MB/s. That statement almost trivializes the upload speed witnessed, but at 31 MB/s, the upload speeds were indeed good. In both cases, measured CPU utilization was negligible.
The small file transfer results were also within expectations, with the average upload speed just about doubling that of download, coming in at just under 30 MB/s. The CPU utilization remained at about 0% for the duration of both tests.
Test Systems
The following system configurations were used for the system benchmark graphs, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmarks sections:
Graphs are labeled as follows: Motherboard - CPU Clock - Memory Type
Sisoft Sandra 2009
Note that all results above were obtained running the installed DDR3 memory in Triple Channel mode, with the exception of the Core2Duo based system which runs DDR3 in Dual Channel memory mode.
The P6T6 WS Revolution easy matched the performance of the other Core i7 based systems, which is an indication that the board is working properly.
The P6T6 WS Revolution again matches the performance of the other Core i7 boards, good news pointing to a solidly designed bus interconnection system on the part of ASUS.
Hiper Pi
Yet again, the P6T6 WS Revolution performs as expected in comparison with the other Core i7 based systems in this single threaded benchmark. This is telling due to the multi-core nature of this test, as adverse performance would be indicative of board related CPU interface issues.
wPrime
Again, the P6T6 WS Revolution offers no surprises here in this 8-threaded benchmark, showing that the board is not adversely impacting CPU performance on any of its cores. It is working as it should.