![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, June 24, 2009
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
DFI UT X58-T3eH8
The UT X58-T3eH8 is DFI’s answer to the current onslaught of Intel X58 chipset based motherboards. The board is part of DFI’s much vaunted LanParty line of boards, squarely aimed at the gaming and hardware enthusiast. It looks to be strong contender in this highly competitive space.
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 XM3-1866C7 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.
Audio playback of the selected album was without issue, with overall audibility and clarity flawless.
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 there was no distortion detected on playback of the recorded audio segment, overall audibility with and without Microphone Boost enabled was questionable at best. The captured audio byte came out sounding more like whispers than a person speaking at normal levels. You may want to look elsewhere for a microphone solution.
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 standalone configuration on the JMicron controller. All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program
The ICH10R based RAID 0 array outperformed all other configurations including the JMicron based RAID 0 array, but only by a very slight margin. Both the SATA 2 and IDE standalone devices performed well within expectations, as did the external drive devices. Both external drive configurations performed similarly well. In addition, CPU utilization remained well under 1% during all drive related testing.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used in conjunction with Windows Task Manager to measure the performance of the Marvell GigE NICs. Note that no performance differences were found between either of the 2 included NICs. 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.
Marvell GigE controller
The large file transfer test results were within expectations, with the download besting that of upload by 12 MB/s at a cool 37 MB/s. For both tests, CPU utilization remained close to 0%.
The small file transfer tests also resulted in strong performance results, with the upload speed besting that of download by 7 MB/s coming in at just over 23 MB/s. Again, the CPU utilization measured during both tests remained closed to 0%.
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.
The UT X58-T3eH8’s memory performance was on par with the other Core i7 systems, indicating that DFI’s board design had no unforeseen negative impacts on the performance of the integrated memory controller interface.
The UT X58-T3eH8 made a strong showing in this CPU specific benchmark, again showing that the board’s design did not inhibit overall performance in the slightest.
Hiper Pi
Yet again, we see the UT X58-T3eH8 matching the rest of the Core i7 pack performance-wise. Similar to the other system related benchmarks, any anomaly in performance would be indicative of board performance related issues.
wPrime
The UT X58-T3eH8 rounds out the subsystem benchmarks with another strong score, yet again supporting the solid design of the board itself.