Test System Setup
Since we are comparing this directly to the GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P motherboard we last reviewed, it only made sense to install the same test rig in this board that we plugged into that board. Since the Asus M4A79T Deluxe is also part of the “Dragon: Reloaded” platform, it was quite easy to pick those components. Here’s what was used:
- AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU
- Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB DDR3-1600 Dual Channel Memory Kit
- Gigabyte Radeon HD 4890 1GB PCIe Video Card
- Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
- HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
- Lian Li MAXIMA Force Extreme PS-A650GB 650W Power Supply
We ran the board through the same synthetic and real world tests run in the last review, in an attempt to directly compare performance in areas like CPU performance, memory, I/O, and gaming. The results will not only give you an idea of what each board offers, but will let us decide which board we are using in our AMD test rig going forward. I had to update the BIOS on the Asus board, as the one shipped with out test board was incompatible with the Phenom II 955. Hopefully that is corrected in boards shipping to the general public.
Opening with the ExpressGate
Since this my second review of an Asus board that features ExpressGate (the first being the ASUS M3A78-T), I should probably talk about it before installing Windows Vista x64 amnd jumping into benchmarks.
Basically this feature is an on-chip version of Linux that is found on the motherboard. The purpose behind this is if you need info quickly and don’t want to wait for your OS, you can boot into this and get what you need. From within ExpressGate, you can go online, perform a few chat functions, view photos, and even play a few games. You can launch it prior to boot up, and since it’s stored on a ROM soldered on the motherboard it loads remarkably fast.
It should be noted that to activate ExpressGate, you need to install it from the drivers DVD. This means you still need to go through the rigmarole of installing your OS fully. Once that is complete, and the DVD is installed, you are good to go.
The First of Many Tests
We started off our tests with PCMark Vantage, set to default settings. We only picked the composite test, the TV and Movies test, and Productivity tests because they represent what we are best trying to achieve with the first round of tests without encroaching on our other benchmarks. Basically we use this test to get a general sense of system performance before really digging in.
In that vain things are looking good for the Asus M4A79T Deluxe, if only just. The board best it’s direct competitor by a marginal amount in all but the productivity tests. We’ll see how this plays out in the other benchmarks.
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth
For our fully synthetic benchmarks, we turned to SiSoftware’s Sandra suite of tools. This program tests the raw speed of a particular component, and can be a good way of measuring how another component affects the target of the particular test. Rather then relying on the built in database for these tests, we actually had something to compare against.
Since the Asus M4A79T Deluxe and the GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P board are so similar in specification, and using the same components, there wasn’t much deviation between the two. The GIGABYTE board did come out faster, but the amount by which it bested the Asus M4A79T Deluxe is so statistically insignificant as to not matter. This is effectively a tie.