ASRock Core 2 Duo: AGP/PCI Express Graphics Performance, Part Tres
by Gary Key on August 15, 2006 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Game Performance, Continued
In our two games that tend to be GPU limited we see the i865 AGP/DDR solution continuing the trend of offering the best graphics performance regardless of video card choice. On the VIA platform the AGP slot still provides better overall results than the PCI Express slot. The 6800 Ultra continues to offer a better gaming experience than the 7600GS at our settings mainly due to the memory speed running 300MHz higher on the 6800 Ultra. The sweet spot for gaming with the 7600 GS seems to be at 1280x1024 with the older games and at 1024x768 with the newer releases. The introduction of low antialiasing or antistrophic filtering settings at these two resolutions should still provide a decent gaming experience.
Final Words
Our results confirm that there is not a throughput performance penalty for using AGP over PCI Express on the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA. In fact, just the opposite is true in this case as our AGP graphics cards consistently scored better than their PCI-E counterparts. This is attributable to the PCI Express Graphics slot being limited to X4 operation at the upper resolutions and the slight overhead penalty incurred due to the VIA chipset design. However, the performance of the PCI Express slot is not that bad with the worst penalty being around 5% with our video cards. (Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that can be up to 10% slower in certain applications than competing motherboards.) If you have either an AGP or midrange PCI Express card then this board will handle both in a more than acceptable manner with today's applications.
The overall performance of the ASRock 775i65G board still surprised us, even though we already knew it was just as competitive with the other chipsets from our previous testing. It proved itself once again to be extremely stable with every benchmark or application we threw at it. If you still have a high performance AGP 8X video card and DDR memory then this board would make an incredible "budget" system with the addition of an E6300 or E6400 Core 2 Duo processor. The same holds true for the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board which also allows you to use a current PCI Express video card at a small performance penalty and DDR2 memory which improves performance slightly over DDR-400.
If gaming is your priority then we still suggest upgrading your entire platform at this time as the top games being introduced over the next six months are just going to put additional demands on even the latest hardware. There are quite a few attractive midrange GPU offerings now available. If you happen to need a good second computer or utilize your system mainly for media encoding or general applications then either board allows you to extend your current component investment while realizing a CPU performance increase, especially when compared with older Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 systems. In the end, this might just be the most important reason to consider either board.
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In our two games that tend to be GPU limited we see the i865 AGP/DDR solution continuing the trend of offering the best graphics performance regardless of video card choice. On the VIA platform the AGP slot still provides better overall results than the PCI Express slot. The 6800 Ultra continues to offer a better gaming experience than the 7600GS at our settings mainly due to the memory speed running 300MHz higher on the 6800 Ultra. The sweet spot for gaming with the 7600 GS seems to be at 1280x1024 with the older games and at 1024x768 with the newer releases. The introduction of low antialiasing or antistrophic filtering settings at these two resolutions should still provide a decent gaming experience.
Final Words
Our results confirm that there is not a throughput performance penalty for using AGP over PCI Express on the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA. In fact, just the opposite is true in this case as our AGP graphics cards consistently scored better than their PCI-E counterparts. This is attributable to the PCI Express Graphics slot being limited to X4 operation at the upper resolutions and the slight overhead penalty incurred due to the VIA chipset design. However, the performance of the PCI Express slot is not that bad with the worst penalty being around 5% with our video cards. (Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that can be up to 10% slower in certain applications than competing motherboards.) If you have either an AGP or midrange PCI Express card then this board will handle both in a more than acceptable manner with today's applications.
The overall performance of the ASRock 775i65G board still surprised us, even though we already knew it was just as competitive with the other chipsets from our previous testing. It proved itself once again to be extremely stable with every benchmark or application we threw at it. If you still have a high performance AGP 8X video card and DDR memory then this board would make an incredible "budget" system with the addition of an E6300 or E6400 Core 2 Duo processor. The same holds true for the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board which also allows you to use a current PCI Express video card at a small performance penalty and DDR2 memory which improves performance slightly over DDR-400.
If gaming is your priority then we still suggest upgrading your entire platform at this time as the top games being introduced over the next six months are just going to put additional demands on even the latest hardware. There are quite a few attractive midrange GPU offerings now available. If you happen to need a good second computer or utilize your system mainly for media encoding or general applications then either board allows you to extend your current component investment while realizing a CPU performance increase, especially when compared with older Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 systems. In the end, this might just be the most important reason to consider either board.
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deathwalker - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
This review is right on the mark! Very pleased to see this type of review that so closely address's the needs of the budget restricted enthusiast. In my opinion this is one of the best series of reiviews that AT has done in quite some time. I feel far too often that AT is unduely influenced by a small sector of big daddy warbucks system builders in there reiview approach. When in fact it is quiet possible that there are more system builders out there that actually have to feed their families and put a roof over there heads, which comes before there desire to dump the next 2 mortage payments on new computer parts. In closing it is interest to see and also somewhat confirm the feel that many have had about PCIe graphics..its more about hype and marketing than it is about performance. Great job Gary.poohbear - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
“Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that is up to 10% slower than competing motherboards, but it is unlikely anyone would be looking to purchase a $300+ GPU to use with a $50 motherboard.)”there are quite a few owners of the asrock dualsata2 that bought the mobo for its agp 8x support so they dont hafta ditch their 6800GTs/Ultras and later bought a 7900gtx when upgrading (very expensive card for a very cheap mobo). The fact of the matter is all the a64 mobos barely show any difference in performance @ stock because the memory controller is on the cpu, not the chipset anymore. so really, assuming u're running the cpu @ stock, there is no difference in performance between a FX62 on a $250 dfi mobo and a $70 budget Asrock mobo. For overclocking & onboard features, it's a different story.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
The statement (made by me and not Gary) applies specifically to the ASRock 775Dual, not any Athlon 64 compatible boards. Also, note that "unlikely" doesn't mean some of you won't do it, but as also pointed out in the statement it is likely to be a temporary situation. Gary also mentioned in the Conroe Buyer's Guide that power delivery is at least something of a concern: "...we had no difficulties running our ATI X1900XTX or EVGA 7900GTX in the board - though we never quite trusted it due to power delivery concerns. The board on a couple of occasions while overclocking completed a brown out while either GPU was being stressed in 3DMark06."Does that mean you shouldn't use the board with a high-end GPU? No. But at the high-end you do lose more performance - as much as an entire CPU bin - and overclocking plus a high-end GPU doesn't appear to be 100% reliable. As a temporary solution? Sure, go for it. As a long term solution to get faster CPU performance? Again, go for it. As a long term to run the latest GPUs - and maybe a G80 or R6xx in the future - I at least would be very hesitant.