![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , January 05, 2009
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
EVGA X58 3X SLI Motherboard
EVGA brings us its first Intel processor motherboard using the X58 chipset. We've seen quite a few exceptional X58 motherboards so far. Is EVGA’s design going to have what it takes to compete with the rest in terms of performance, stability, and overclocking?
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel® Core™i7 920 clocked at 2.66GHz with 3 x 2048MB Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D – 1600MHz DDR3 8-8-8-24-1T @ 1.66v memory modules running at 1600MHz. The CPU was cooled with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme mounted with an LGA1366 bracket.
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 onboard audio solution functioned well for CD audio playback. No distortion, hissing or popping was heard during usage.
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 within the Volume Control Menu.
The microphone recording sample wasn't all that great. The audio sample wasn't audible when the microphone boost option was disabled. When it was enabled, the recording sample was audible, but badly distorted.
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.
The EVGA X58 3X SLI has three drive controllers that give it support for a total of 10 SATA ports and 1 eSATA port. The Intel ICH10R provides support for six SATA ports and supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 0+1, RAID5, and JBOD spanning. Additionally there two JMicron drive controllers. The JMicron JMB363 adds PATA support and controls SATA ports 6&7. It supports IDE, AHCI, RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes. The JMicron JMB362 controller supports SATA ports 8 and 9. 9 being the eSATA port. This controller supports Legacy IDE, AHCI, RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes as well.
As is typically the case, the ICH10R RAID-0 configuration was the best performing solution overall. With that said the performance of the JMicron solutions was very solid as well. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference between any of the controllers. Unfortunately I did have one annoying issue with my testing. When using the JMB363 controller I was unable to build a drive array. After setting the controller to RAID mode in the BIOS I never got a prompt to let me enter the RAID utility. Instead once I had given up and moved onto the JMB362, controller, I had the idea of creating the array in that configuration utility and then plugging the array into the JMB363 controller while in RAID mode which worked and allowed me to complete the testing. This would certainly seem to be a controller firmware issue which can of course be resolved through BIOS updates.
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.
EVGA chose the Realtek 8111C embedded Ethernet controller for both integrated LAN adapters which are capable of 10/100/1000mbps speeds.
LAN1
The small files download test showed a maximum transfer rate of 68.58MB a second. The average speed was 57.33MB per second with a consistent 4% CPU utilization. The small files upload test showed a maximum transfer rate of 45.38MB per second with an average of only 26.83MB per second. CPU usage was only 3%.
The large files download test showed a peak transfer rate of 69.26MB a second with an average transfer rate of 45.85MB a second. The CPU usage was a modest 4%. The large files upload test came in at a maximum of 26.65MB per second and averaged 22.00MB per second. CPU usage was a very reasonable 3%.
LAN2
The small files download test showed a maximum speed of 76.93MB a second. The average transfer speed was a little lower at 61.76MB a second. The CPU usage was a consistent 4%. The small files upload test showed much less impressive results given the maximum transfer rate of only 47.78MB a second with an average transfer speed of 27.71MB a second. CPU usage was in line with the other tests at 3%.
The large files download test showed a solid maximum transfer speed of 61.02MB a second and an average 43.18MB a second. The CPU utilization came in at 4%. The large files upload test had a peak transfer of 36.34MB a second with an average of 22.68MB a second. CPU usage for this test came in at 3%.
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 - Memory Clock
Sandra Memory Bandwidth Buffered Integer
Note that all results above were obtained running the installed memory in Triple Channel mode except the Core 2 Quad QX9770 system running in dual chancel mode.
Memory bandwidth fell back quite a bit in this test and for good reason. We have standardized on DDR3-1600 speed memory for all our recent motherboard testing. The EVGA board has a problem with running engineering sample processors from Intel at DDR3-1600 speeds so all of our EVGA X58 results shown here today are at DDR3-1333. These ES processors will only run at a proper stock 1333MHz memory speed. Retail Core i7 processors will run at an overclocked DDR3-1600 memory speed as we verified with our retail Core i7 model 920 processors that we have purchased in e-tail. We have forgone purchasing a $1000 Core i7 processor to test this specific EVGA motherboard although EVGA was certainly open to supply its own had it wished to do so. Other motherboards have no problem in running overclocked memory speeds with ES processors that we have come into contact with.
So given that we are comparing DDR3-1333 to DDR3-1600, we see results exactly as we should expect.
Sandra CPU Drystone ALU (2009 v1542)
In this CPU benchmark we see the EVGA board as we think it should.
Hiper Pi v 0.99B
Again we see the EVGA board coming in a tenth of a second behind the other systems very likely due to the limited memory bandwidth compared to the other systems.
wPrime v2.00
The EVGA X58 3X SLI comes in precisely where it should in this test.