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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kmmatney - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
These reviews have been very interesting for me. I have 5 computers in the house (Mine, Wife, 2 for the kids, computer hooked up to the TV) so I don't want to be spending more money than I have to. The only problem I can see with this motherboard is that there are no decent "budget" processors to put in there yet, and the big spenders probably won't be buying this board.If you want to keep an AGP, DDR, bugdet gaming system around or use older parts, then your best bang for buck is the Athlon 3400+ and AGP motherboard combo at NewEgg for $99.
Gary Key - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
How do you think I feel after a 100 plus hours with this board. ;-) Although we concentrated on one board, the purpose was to show a migration path and the effects of typical GPU and Memory configurations with the "budget" Core 2 Duo. Our plans are to do more of these types of articles in the future with various components. I think everyone will agree that always testing a $1000 CPU, $600 GPU, $450 Memory, and a $250 Motherboard is not in the best interests of our audience when a large portion might be willing to spend only $400~$1000 for a total platform update. We will have our next roundup of P965 boards shortly along with some additional AM2 coverage among other things.
GoatMonkey - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
I feel like this board is interesting enough to be worthy of its own detailed review. I like that it was broken up into multiple parts instead of one huge one that I would never completely read. I don't have huge amounts of time each day to read this stuff, so small doses works best.I have been seriously considering buying one to upgrade my Athlon XP3200 with a GeForce FX5950 Ultra and a single 1GB DDR stick. However, I think I have decided against it since I want to keep that machine's parts as upgrades for my HTPC/Beyond TV machine which is running an Athlon XP2100. It would greatly reduce my mpeg4 compression times to be able to upgrade that computer with the XP3200 and faster ram. So, while I appreciated the detailed review I'm going to have to go with another route and lay down more money to get DDR2 and a PCIe video card.
Anyway, I'm done rambling, not that anyone is interested, but it helped me plan my system to write this.
saiku - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
This is precisely the kind of article that I love about Anandtech. It provides a clear idea to us "gamers-with-jobs" :). Great work, Gary ! Keep 'em coming !mendocinosummit - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
I posted above. But yay I usually just like to see how my hardware and the hardware that I buy for customers compare for others, but I feel that these three reviews could have been combined to one review and still have other reviews. I am just saying that the frequency and variety of reveiws on Anandtech has been lacking for a while. At first I thought a big review was coming out and then I was just disappointed.mino - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
Yeahm they could have, maybe it has something to do with the fact human resources are kinda limited ?One should not expect one big quality review(10+ pages) a day.
I'd rather have 1 smaller, bu quality one, a day, then 1 huge one a week.
Just a though.
Remember the amount of work is NOT proportional to the amount of words necessary to describe it!
mendocinosummit - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
Ya, I know how long it takes to swap RAM, change bios, reboot, reboot, reboot, benchmark, change bios, reboot, swap ram, etc.poohbear - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
lol the MAJORITY of ppl out there are still using AGP solutions, so lots of ppl still care about it mate.veryevilmike - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
I disagree completely - this has been the best reviews on AT for a long time, as it is very relevant to a large proportion of the userbase so soon after this new chip's release. There are endless numbers of hardware sites overclocking their free x6800 engineering samples with pre-release ram and diamond encrusted motherboards ad nauseum if thats your fancy.mendocinosummit - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - link
Not really. Just that Anandtech has already done many reviews comparing DDR and DDR2 and also who really cares about the performance difference between PCI express x4 and AGP. No one is going to go buy a AGP board now and if they still do have one they are not going to have a x4 or any other express slot on their motherboard. Really most people buy new comps every 2 to 4 years and if I remember right Express has been out for at least two years if not more.I like to see more reviews about AM2 and Conroe boards and not just how well they overclock, but mainly stability issues. I tried buying a C2D setup for my friend, but I did not feel comfortable with all the problems with limited number of boards out there that support dual GPU's. I want to know how long I have to wait or should I wait for better motherboards to come out. This should include high to low. It is nice to know how much a CPU does OC though. Most people that build their own systems also overclock. I like to know how much to overclock, instead of reading the Newegg reviews.