![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Sunday , March 15, 2009
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS P6T
The ASUS P6T Intel Core i7 motherboard is one of the less expensive in the marketplace. While the board itself does not have all the bells and whistles of the others in the ASUS lineup, the P6T’s performance rivals that of the best boards in the bunch. Does 8+2 phase power make a difference? How does it overclock for the dollars spent?
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 2GB 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 Metallica album Death Magnet.
The audio listening experience was flawless, with no discernable distortion at any time during playback.
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.
There was no detectable distortion with or without Microphone Boost enabled. However, the overall audibility was much better with Microphone Boost enabled.
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
While the ICH10R based RAID 0 array outperformed all other drive configurations, its performance was well under expectations, lagging performance on other boards with the same chipset by over 15%. Both the ICH10R and JMicron based standalone SATA devices performed nearly as well, but again both performed under expectations again lagging by 10%. Amazingly enough, the 2 external devices performed as expected, with neither device having a definitive performance advantage. In all cases, the measured CPU utilization remained well below the 1% mark.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used in conjunction with Windows Task Manager to measure the performance of the Realtek GigE NIC. 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 fell well within expectations, with the download tests coming in at about 14 MB/s over that of upload, at just under 40 MB/s. In both cases, the CPU utilization remained very close to 0%.
The small file transfer results also fell within expectations, with the upload speed besting that of download by almost 9 MB/s coming in at 25 MB/s. The CPU Utilization remained at 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 memory in Triple Channel mode, with the exception of the Core2Duo and AMD based systems which run in Dual Channel memory mode.
As anticipated, the P6T’s memory performance closely matched that of the other Core i7 based systems. This is an indication that the board’s overall design was done in such a way as to have no adverse affects on the CPU memory controller’s overall operation.
The P6T continues its strong performance, further indicating the quality design of the board and its connection pathways between the CPU and the rest of its subsystems.
Hiper Pi
Again, the P6T’s performance matches that of the other Core i7 based systems. As with the other subsystem based benchmarks, this indicates a performance friendly board design.
wPrime
The P6T again manages to match performance with the other Core i7 systems, rounding out the tests with a strong indication that the board is functioning perfectly in conjunction with the CPU.