MSI Big Bang P67 Marshal review - Game performance - Synthetic

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 02/02/2011 03:00 PM [ ] 0 comment(s)

DX10: 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage focuses on the two areas most critical to gaming performance: the CPU and the GPU. With the emergence of multi-package and multi-core configurations on both the CPU and GPU side, the performance scale of these areas has widened, and the visual and game-play effects made possible by these configurations are accordingly wide-ranging. This makes covering the entire spectrum of 3D gaming a difficult task. 3DMark Vantage solves this problem in three ways:

1. Isolate GPU and CPU performance benchmarking into separate tests,
2. Cover several visual and game-play effects and techniques in four different tests, and
3. Introduce visual quality presets to scale the graphics test load up through the highest-end hardware.

To this end, 3DMark Vantage has two GPU tests, each with a different emphasis on various visual techniques, and two CPU tests, which cover the two most common CPU-side tasks: Physics Simulation and AI. It also has four visual quality presets (Entry, Performance, High, and Extreme) available in the Advanced and Professional versions, which increase the graphics load successively for even more visual quality. Each preset will produce a separate, official 3DMark score, tagged with the preset in question.

Above, you can see 3DMark Vantage, this time the overall P score. Again, due to the GPU switch from R5870 to GTX 580 we have to start from scratch again in matters of comparative results. But sure, the CPU used makes a difference alright.

DX11: 3DMark 11

3DMark 11 is the latest version of what is probably the most popular graphics card benchmark series. Designed to measure your PCs gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

Here's a first selection of 3DMark 11 as well, again over time accumulated data will build up. For 3DMark 11 we show the overall P score. The difference here is still quite noticeable.

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MSI Big Bang Z77 Mpower review
Today we test the Z77 MPower version, which as you'll notice is a pleasant upgrade from their Z77A-GD65 motherboard -- yet with an improved CPU VRM, more friendly warranties and a new black and yellow color-scheme which merges the Lightning series graphics cards and these motherboards a little closer together. Have a peek at what was just released, this is the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower motherboard. You just have to be impressed by the overall looks ...

MSI Big Bang P67 Marshal review
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