3oh6
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System Benchmarks
SuperPi Mod v1.5<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>When running the 32M benchmark of SPi, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. SPi 32M has been a favorite amongst benchmarks for these very reasons and is admittedly the favorite benchmark of this reviewer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-1.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">We were almost expecting a bit more difference in the 32M SuperPi calculation between the two bottom setups. At exactly the same CPU clock, memory frequency, and uncore frequency, the only difference between the two is primary memory timings. Seven seconds in 32M SuperPi at 4.1GHz is rather substantial but something just made us think it would be a wider margin. Perhaps, with a completely tweaked system we would see more than a 1% gain.</p>
PCMark Vantage<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>The latest iteration of the popular system benchmark is PCMark Vantage from the Futuremark crew. The PCMark series has always been a great way to either test specific areas of a system or to get a general over view of how your system is performing. For our results, we simply run the basic benchmark suite which involves a wide range of tests on all of the sub-systems of the computer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-2.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">PCMark Vantage isn't going to show a huge difference between similarly clocked setups, regardless of memory frequency and timings. What this might indicate, however, is that our two overclocked setups are going to be quite similar in results with the real world benchmarks we are about to look at.</p>
Cinebench R10<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Another benchmarking community favorite, Cinebench renders an intense 2D scene relying on all the processing power it can. Cinebench R10 is another 64-bit capable application and is likely the most efficient program tested today at utilizing all cores of a processor. We will be running both the single threaded and multi-threaded benches here today.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-3.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Cinebench is the last synthetic benchmark we look at before the real world stuff, and because our two overclocked setups are identical in CPU frequency, the results here are no surprise. Cinebench is pretty much 100% reliant on CPU frequency and very little, if at all, dependent on memory.</p>
DivX Converter v7.1<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Next up is a real life benchmark where we simply time a common task done on the computer. Encoding DVDs for viewing on the computer or other devices is an increasingly important task that the personal computer has taken on. We will take a VOB rip of the movie Office Space, and convert it into DivX using the default 720P setting of DivX converter v6.8.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-4.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">We have finally arrived at what we were really interested in with this comparison and the first round appears to show the cheaper, more domestic, memory being the clear winner here. The eight second better average time for encoding the movie isn't going to be determined a win as it is well within the margin of result differences, but the simple fact that the results are even close eliminates memory from being a factor in DivX encoding.</p>
Lame Front End<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Un-like the DivX conversion we just looked at, Lame Front End is not multi-threaded and only utilizes a single core of a processor. This will obviously limit performance but we should still recognize significant time savings going from the stock settings to the overclocked results. We will be encoding a WAV rip of the Blackalicious album, Blazing Arrow and converting it to MP3 using the VBR 0 quality preset.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-5.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Round two also goes to not bothering to run high performance memory or adding the extra voltage to get the memory to run at tighter timings. Both setups were virtually identical in the encoding time here during all the runs. When it comes to encoding, CPU is king...period.</p>
Photoshop CS4<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Adobe Photoshop CS4 is fully x64 compliant and ready and able to use every single CPU cycle our processor has available including the implementation of GPU support utilizing the GTX 280 in our test system. It is just a shame it can't fully utilize all 8 threads of the i7 processor yet. We have changed our Photoshop benchmark to more of a standardized test configured by DriverHeaven.net. Their Photoshop benchmark utilizes 15 filters and effects on an uncompressed 109MB .JPG image that will test not only the CPU but also the memory subsystem of our test bench. Each portion of the benchmark is timed and added together for a final time that is compared below.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-6.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">With the last two benchmarks showing very little preference to the tighter timings, we thoroughly expected a bit more of a difference but that wasn't the case. It really is looking like the added pressure on the memory to run 6-7-6 instead of 8-8-8 at 900MHz isn't worth it at all.</p>
WinRAR 3.80<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>We all know what WinRAR is and does. It is a compression and decompression tool that has a built in benchmark, a way to tell just how fast a system can do this programs given task. We simply run the benchmark up to 500MB processed and time how long it takes.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/corsair/tr3x6g1866c7gtf/sys_bench-7.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">When WinRAR doesn’t' show a lick of difference, it is all but game over. The encoding didn't really surprise us, the Photoshop results were not mind boggling, but at least a couple seconds difference should have shown up in WinRAR. Of the six runs between the two setups, there was a single run at one minute and fifty seconds. The rest of the runs were all one minute and fifty-one seconds. Let's wrap this benchmarking up with a quick look at some gaming results. Based on what we have seen on this page, we don't expect much difference at all.</p>
System Benchmarks
SuperPi Mod v1.5<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>When running the 32M benchmark of SPi, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. SPi 32M has been a favorite amongst benchmarks for these very reasons and is admittedly the favorite benchmark of this reviewer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-1.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">We were almost expecting a bit more difference in the 32M SuperPi calculation between the two bottom setups. At exactly the same CPU clock, memory frequency, and uncore frequency, the only difference between the two is primary memory timings. Seven seconds in 32M SuperPi at 4.1GHz is rather substantial but something just made us think it would be a wider margin. Perhaps, with a completely tweaked system we would see more than a 1% gain.</p>
PCMark Vantage<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>The latest iteration of the popular system benchmark is PCMark Vantage from the Futuremark crew. The PCMark series has always been a great way to either test specific areas of a system or to get a general over view of how your system is performing. For our results, we simply run the basic benchmark suite which involves a wide range of tests on all of the sub-systems of the computer.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-2.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">PCMark Vantage isn't going to show a huge difference between similarly clocked setups, regardless of memory frequency and timings. What this might indicate, however, is that our two overclocked setups are going to be quite similar in results with the real world benchmarks we are about to look at.</p>
Cinebench R10<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Another benchmarking community favorite, Cinebench renders an intense 2D scene relying on all the processing power it can. Cinebench R10 is another 64-bit capable application and is likely the most efficient program tested today at utilizing all cores of a processor. We will be running both the single threaded and multi-threaded benches here today.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-3.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Cinebench is the last synthetic benchmark we look at before the real world stuff, and because our two overclocked setups are identical in CPU frequency, the results here are no surprise. Cinebench is pretty much 100% reliant on CPU frequency and very little, if at all, dependent on memory.</p>
DivX Converter v7.1<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Next up is a real life benchmark where we simply time a common task done on the computer. Encoding DVDs for viewing on the computer or other devices is an increasingly important task that the personal computer has taken on. We will take a VOB rip of the movie Office Space, and convert it into DivX using the default 720P setting of DivX converter v6.8.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-4.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">We have finally arrived at what we were really interested in with this comparison and the first round appears to show the cheaper, more domestic, memory being the clear winner here. The eight second better average time for encoding the movie isn't going to be determined a win as it is well within the margin of result differences, but the simple fact that the results are even close eliminates memory from being a factor in DivX encoding.</p>
Lame Front End<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Un-like the DivX conversion we just looked at, Lame Front End is not multi-threaded and only utilizes a single core of a processor. This will obviously limit performance but we should still recognize significant time savings going from the stock settings to the overclocked results. We will be encoding a WAV rip of the Blackalicious album, Blazing Arrow and converting it to MP3 using the VBR 0 quality preset.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-5.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">Round two also goes to not bothering to run high performance memory or adding the extra voltage to get the memory to run at tighter timings. Both setups were virtually identical in the encoding time here during all the runs. When it comes to encoding, CPU is king...period.</p>
Photoshop CS4<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Adobe Photoshop CS4 is fully x64 compliant and ready and able to use every single CPU cycle our processor has available including the implementation of GPU support utilizing the GTX 280 in our test system. It is just a shame it can't fully utilize all 8 threads of the i7 processor yet. We have changed our Photoshop benchmark to more of a standardized test configured by DriverHeaven.net. Their Photoshop benchmark utilizes 15 filters and effects on an uncompressed 109MB .JPG image that will test not only the CPU but also the memory subsystem of our test bench. Each portion of the benchmark is timed and added together for a final time that is compared below.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/evga/x58sliclassified/sys_bench-6.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">With the last two benchmarks showing very little preference to the tighter timings, we thoroughly expected a bit more of a difference but that wasn't the case. It really is looking like the added pressure on the memory to run 6-7-6 instead of 8-8-8 at 900MHz isn't worth it at all.</p>
WinRAR 3.80<p style="text-align: justify;"><i>We all know what WinRAR is and does. It is a compression and decompression tool that has a built in benchmark, a way to tell just how fast a system can do this programs given task. We simply run the benchmark up to 500MB processed and time how long it takes.</i></p><center><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/corsair/tr3x6g1866c7gtf/sys_bench-7.png" alt=""></center><p style="text-align: justify;">When WinRAR doesn’t' show a lick of difference, it is all but game over. The encoding didn't really surprise us, the Photoshop results were not mind boggling, but at least a couple seconds difference should have shown up in WinRAR. Of the six runs between the two setups, there was a single run at one minute and fifty seconds. The rest of the runs were all one minute and fifty-one seconds. Let's wrap this benchmarking up with a quick look at some gaming results. Based on what we have seen on this page, we don't expect much difference at all.</p>
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