DFI Lan Party UT X58 T3eH8 - Motherboard Review

Page 4 - Testing methodology & configurations

For the purpose of the review we choose components that adequately match the platform we're testing. We included tests of Core i7 920 at its default frequency of 2.66GHz with 3x1GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory, naturally we tested also with Core i7 965, Intel Q9550 Quad Core + DDR3 1600MHz @ 333x8.5 и 400x8 (3.2GHz) and also with Intel Dual Core E8500 @ 400x8 (3.2GHz) with DDR3 1600MHz.

Common components

• HDD 1: Western Digital Raptor 10 000rpm 36GB
• HDD 2: Seagate Barracuda 9 7200rpm 300GB
• ODD: ASUS DVD+/-RW 24x Ligthscribe SATA
• PSU: Raptoxx 1200W
• Cooling: Noctua NH-C12P + original mounting hardware for LGA1366
• Monitor: Belinea o.display 4_24" LCD 1920x1200

Test configuration – DFI LanParty UT X58

Video controller: ATI HD4870x2

Motherboard DFI LanParty UT X58 (Intel X58 Chipset)

CPU: Intel Core i7 Nehalem 920 [default 2.66GHz (133x20)]

Memory: 3x1GB A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR3 1600MHz (7-7-7-20)

Comparative configurations

Configuration 1 (in benchmarks you'll see two columns for it, Core i7 965 XE @ default (133x25 = 3.2GHz, DDR3 1600MHz memory) and Core i7 @ 160x24 (3.84GHz) DDR3 1600MHz)

• Video Controller: MSI N280GTX 1GB
• Motherboard ASUS P6T Deluxe (Intel X58 Chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core i7 Nehalem 965 XE [default 3.2GHz (133x25)]; >>>> [3.84GHz (160x24)]
• Memory: 3x1GB A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR3 1600MHz (9-9-9-24)

Configuration 2(in benchmarks you'll see two columns for it, Core i7 965 XE @ default (133x25 = 3.2GHz, DDR3 1600MHz memory) and Core i7 @ 160x24 (3.84GHz) DDR3 1600MHz)

• Video Controller: MSI N280GTX 1GB
• Motherboard: ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (Intel P35 Chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9550 [default 2.83GHz (333x8.5)]; >>>> [3.2GHz 400x8]
• Memory: 2x1GB A-DATA DDR3 Extreme Edition 1600MHz (9-9-9-24)

Configuration 3

• Video controller: MSI N280GTX 1GB
• Motherboard ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (Intel P35 Chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8500 3200MHz (400x8)
• Memory: 2x1GB A-DATA DDR3 Extreme Edition 1600MHz (9-9-9-24)

Configuration 4: AMD Phenom II X4 810 Deneb 45nm @ default 200x13 (2.6GHz); DDR2 2x2GB 800MHz 5-5-5-18

• Video Controller: Sapphire HD4870X2 2GB и 2 x Sapphire HD4870X2 2GB в Crossfire режим
• CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 Deneb 45nm
• Memory: 2x2GB Corsair Dominator 800MHz (5-5-5-18)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790GP DS4H (AMD 790GX Chipset)

Configuration 5: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 45nm @ default 200x15 (3GHz); DDR2 2x2GB 800MHz 5-5-5-18

• Video Controller: Sapphire HD 4870 X2 2GB
• CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 Deneb 45nm
• Memory: 2x2GB Corsair Dominator 800MHz (5-5-5-18)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790GP DS4H (AMD 790GX Chipset)

Tests were conducted under Windows Vista x64, since this is the only modern OS capable of handling all the capabilities of the platform and running 4 or more GB of memory with no problem.

Here is the complete list of tests:

• HDTach for performance of SATA, E-Sata and USB 2.0 connectivity
• Cinebench 10
• WPrime (32MB & 1024MB)
• SuperPI (32MB)
• Everest Ultimate (memory copy, read, write & latency)
• SiSoft Sandra Lite XII.SP2c (memory bandwidth & memory latency)
• DivX compression
• Paint.NET image operations
• WinRAR & 7-zip

The tests included in the review are of various types - from purely synthetic, single & multi thread, to fully functional as compression of video files, image processing, WinRAR & 7-Zip compression. This time we skipped 3D benchmarking as for every test we used different video controllers. Well, time to see the results.