Motherboard Testing Methodology

For this comparison, I used the Intel Core i7-3960X at stock and overclocked speeds on each motherboard. The same video card, hard drive, and memory were used in all cases. For overclock testing I ran the benchmarks at the highest stable overclock I was able to achieve on each motherboard.

Intel X79 Express Test Platforms

• Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 BIOS 0707
• Motherboard: Intel DX79SI Extreme BIOS 0280 (Beta)
• Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Deluxe BIOS 0707
• Processor: 3.3GHz Intel Core i7-3960X
• System Memory: 16GB (4 4GB DIMMs) Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24)
• Primary Drive: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300G
• Graphics Adapter: AMD Radeon 6850
• CPU cooler: Intel High Performance Liquid Cooling System RTS2011LC

Benchmark Applications

• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
• SiSoft Sandra Lite 2011.SPS (1780)
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.85.1600
• Futuremark PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 64-Bit
  • TV and Movies
  • Gaming
  • Music
• Maxon CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
• Street Fighter IV benchmark
• PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0b1021
• x264Bench HD 3.0, including AMD-supplied variants using new FX instructions
• SPECviewperf-11:
  • Lightwave 9.6
  • Autodesk Maya 2009
  • Siemens Teamcenter Visualization Mockup
• SPECapc LightWave 3D v9.6
• Handbrake 0.95 video transcoding
• Blender 3D rendering
• POV-Ray 3D rendering

Since I'm using the same video card, hard disk, memory, processor, and even CPU cooler in all platforms, the motherboards are the only things that can affect the performance. Keep this in mind as you review the benchmark results in the following sections.

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