EVGA 790i FTW

Standard Performance Results

Futuremark's PCMark Vantage is probably the single most diverse set of benchmarks that can be run on a system to mimic real world usage scenarios. The TV and Movies, Gaming, and Music Suites can be frighteningly difficult to pass when a system is overclocked. We've had boards in the labs that will pass hours of Prim95 torture test or OCCT that fail even the basic 30 minute run of PCMark Vantage, let alone the full 1 hour and 30 minutes test run. We used similar components for both stock 9.5x333FSB and absolute maximum stable settings at 8x500FSB to see how the EVGA 790i FTW compares to the ASUS P5E3 Premium, Biostar TPower I45 (DDR2), and the Foxconn Black Ops.

The EVGA 790iFTW strongest performance comes in the Gaming test suite, which is typical for an NVIDIA chipset. However, we find the EVGA board being an average performer in the balance of the test suites.  The real world effects of the deficits seen here are hardly noticeable but go a long way when it comes to convincing users that what they are getting for their money is an outright winner. The other major problem in this regard is that we had real issues getting the board to run at 500FSB consistently.

We also lost an OS install through SATA drive corruption. We were only using 2x1GB of memory running at CAS 8-8-8-25 2T, which is within expectations of boards in this price range. On our system, the boot folder and BCD file both went missing after we rebooted the board. Unfortunately, although Vista 64-bit does attempt a boot folder/file repair, the corruption is such that you have no option but to re-install Vista completely or to use a backup image. Considering we were only using a single drive and not onboard RAID, this is a little concerning to say the least. We'd recommend users avoid high memory speeds (in excess of 1800MHz or so) on boards that will be used as workstations for everyday tasks.