![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , February 24, 2009
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
MSI X58 Platinum
Among MSI’s boards supporting the Intel Core i7 CPU, the X58 Platinum seems to have a good mix of features and performance all while being one of the most inexpensive LGA 1366 motherboards you can purchase..
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel LGA 1366 Core i7 920 CPU with the board base clock running at 133MHz 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 self-titled Avenged Sevenfold album.
I found the album playback enjoyable, with no detected distortion or any other type of audio degradation.
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.
While no distortion was detected either with or without the Microphone Boost setting enabled, the sound output with Microphone Boost enabled contained a noticeable amount of base. As long as you are careful with input volumes, you should find that the microphone capabilities of the sound system are fine without the need for Microphone Boost.
Drive Performance
To adequately test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 connections, we chose to use an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected to both ports. SATA and IDE drive tests were performed using a Maxtor 40Gb ATA 133 model 6E040L0 hard drive on the IDE header and 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 JMicron controllers. Testing was also conducted using an IDE drive in a primary slave configuration on the JMicron controller. All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program
The ICH10R based RAID 0 array performed best overall, with the standalone SATA drive on the JMicron controller coming in a close second. The RAID 0 array performance on the JMicron controller was sub-par at best, most likely due to the fact that the array specific settings are not tweakable beyond selecting the drive operating type (standalone, RAID 0, or RAID 1). Both external drives performed very well, with the IEEE 1394 device outperforming the USB 2.0 device by a small margin. In all cases, the measured 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 transfer tests were outstanding, with the download test coming in at over 41 MB/s, besting that of upload by 10 MB/s. That is not to say that a 31 MB/s average upload speed is unimpressive, though. In both cases, CPU utilization remained close to 0%.
The small file transfer results were equally impressive, with the average upload speeds almost doubling the download performance at an outstanding 30 MB/s. Again, the measured CPU utilization remained close to 0% throughout the 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 memory in Triple Channel mode, with the exception of the Core2Duo based system which runs in Dual Channel memory mode.
As expected, the X58 Platinum performed on par with the other Core i7 based motherboards. This is a very strong indicator that the overall design and implementation of the board had no inverse impact on the processor’s integrated memory controller.
Again, no surprises here with the X58 Platinum’s performance. This further supports the fact that the board is solidly designed; with no detectable flaws in the implementation of the board interconnect pathways.
Hiper Pi
The X58 Platinum again manages a solid performance in relation to the other Core i7 based systems, very telling of a solid implementation in this multi-core aware processor intensive benchmark.
wPrime
The X58 Platinum again delivers solid performance, further indicative of a solidly designed CPU to motherboard interface on MSI’s part.