ATI HD 5870 Scaling Performance: X58 vs P55 Showdown
by Gary Key on September 29, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
H.A.W.X.
We utilize FRAPS to capture our results in a very repeatable section of the game and report the median score of our five benchmark runs. H.A.W.X. responds well to memory bandwidth improvements and scales well with GPU improvements.
The stock HD 5870 single card x8 configuration is around 1% slower in average frame rates. The 4.2GHz single card x8 setup is slightly slower than either the stock P55 or X58 setups. The stock/overclocked single card HD 5870 P55 platform is 3% slower than the X58. Once again, there was no difference in actual game play, especially considering minimum frame rates are above 65fps in each instance.
The results with 4xAA enabled improve the P55’s standing against the X58. The stock HD 5870 single card x8 configuration is around 2% slower in average frame rates. The 4.2GHz single card x8 setup is slightly slower than the X58. The overclocked single card HD 5870 P55 platform is slightly faster than the X58 with equal minimum rates. In fact, thanks to the turbo mode on the 860, the stock minimum frame rates are 7% at this setting than the X58.
H.A.W.X. CrossFire Scaling – Average Frame Rates
| ATI HD 5870 CF Scaling | H.A.W.X. 2xAA | H.A.W.X. 4xAA | H.A.W.X. 2xAA 4.2GHz | H.A.W.X. 4xAA |
| Intel Core i7 920 (X58) | 70.8% | 73.7% | 75.2% | 75.8% |
| Intel Core i7 860 (P55) | 70% | 72.5% | 73.2% | 72.2% |
At stock speeds, the X58 has a 3% scaling advantage over the P55 and 5% when overclocked in the 2xAA benchmark.
H.A.W.X. CrossFire Scaling – Minimum Frame Rates
| ATI HD 5870 CF Scaling | H.A.W.X. 2xAA | H.A.W.X. 4xAA | H.A.W.X. 2xAA 4.2GHz | H.A.W.X. 4xAA |
| Intel Core i7 920 (X58) | 72.7% | 87% | 80.3% | 62.5% |
| Intel Core i7 860 (P55) | 68.2% | 66.1% | 71% | 62.5% |
Minimum frame rates and scaling favor the X58 in our stock clock speed results by 4% and 9% when overclocked in the 2xAA bench. In the 4xAA benchmark, the X58 has a 10% advantage at stock speeds and it is dead even when the two platforms are overclocked.
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GeorgeH - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
Wow, you're totally right:Lynnfield: 12-28 min FPS
X58: 8-26 min FPS
Talk about a crippled platform!
We all already know that you're a moron, but in the future please try to make it less obvious. Thanks.
philosofool - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
The result of this test is really clear to me: if you are even remotely close to on a budget, P55 w/ a great card is the way to go. The $100 you save on a P55 mobo invested into graphics will get you way more than the same invested in X58 and a $100 cheaper graphics card. If money is no object, get X58. Perhaps more importantly, once we're dealing with cards and games that drop things well below the 60Hz refresh rate of our monitor, the additional bandwidth in X58 will probably make an even smaller difference.The fears regarding the integrated PCIe controller on Lynnfield are wildly exaggerated.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
I'd say a $100 difference in motherboards is largely an exaggeration depending on exactly what features you are looking for, the power consumption differences are far more interesting to me.Now if we could only find out whether 8x PCIe would be a bottleneck for a SATA3 card.
UNHchabo - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
In terms of theoretical bandwidth, there's plenty in a PCIe slot. The SATA 6Gbps standard gives about 600MB/s of effective bandwidth, and PCIe 2.0 has 500MB/s per lane. This means that with PCIe 2.0, your motherboard slot is only limiting your card's performance if you give one lane per port.yacoub - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
Sure, and the power consumption savings are a nice plus. Then consider that 90+% of us don't even care about CF/SLI because we only ever one run GPU card, and there's really no reason to bother with X58 over P55.ekoostik - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
Agreed. Really enjoyed reading this on my new single-GPU powered 860 sitting silently next to me.yacoub - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
"Does that mean the integrated dual x8 PCIe 2.0 logic on Lynnfield is a poor choice compared to the dual x16 PCIe 2.0 sporting X58, absolutely not based on our initial tests."The comma after "X58" should be a question mark and "absolutely" should be the beginning of a new sentence. ;)
the zorro - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
almost 10% penalty because of the lynnfield crippled northbridge.its not just that but in the more interesting part of the game when there is more congestion, lynnfield stutters.
if you are going to buy a new spanking 3.72 tflops directx ati card don't commit the mistake of using lynnfield.
Griswold - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
You're an idiot regardless of what you buy - so it evens out.DominionSeraph - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
"x58 is 1fps faster than lynnfield!!" as he sits behind his 33ms input lag, 3 frame ghosting, 60Hz LCD using a 600dpi mouse on a free mousepad.