Our testing methods
We've assembled a small collection of boards for testing to represent the 780i SLI's most direct competitors. From the Intel camp, we have P35 and X38 Express-based motherboards from Asus and Gigabyte. The Asus boards use DDR3 memory, while the Gigabytes are equipped with DDR2. We've also thrown in an nForce 680i SLI reference board from EVGA to illustrate how the 780i compares with its predecessor. The nForce 780i SLI comes with a slightly newer ForceWare driver package, which is why that board is using different drivers than the 680i.
All application tests were run on each board. However, since our Intel-based DDR2 and DDR3 configs all share the same ICH9R south bridge, we've limited our Serial ATA, USB, PCI, and PCIe testing to the DDR2 systems.
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged.
| Processor | Core 2 Duo E6750 2.67GHz | |||||
| System bus | 1333MHz (333MHz quad-pumped) | |||||
| Motherboard | Asus P5K3 Deluxe | Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n | Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 | Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 | EVGA 122-CK-NF68 | XFX nForce 780i SLI |
| Bios revision | 0604 | 0201 | F5a | F6 | 31 | 2.053.B0 |
| North bridge | Intel P35 Express | Intel X38 Express | Intel X38 Express | Intel P35 Express | Nvidia nForce 680i SLI SPP | Nvidia nForce 780i SLI SPP |
| South bridge | Intel ICH9R | Intel ICH9R | Intel ICH9R | Intel ICH9R | Nvidia nForce 680i SLI MCP | Nvidia nForce 780i SLI MCP |
| Chipset drivers |
Chipset 8.3.1.1009 AHCI 7.6.0.1011 |
Chipset 8.3.1.1009 AHCI 7.6.0.1011 |
Chipset 8.3.1.1009 AHCI 7.6.0.1011 |
Chipset 8.3.1.1009 AHCI 7.6.0.1011 |
nForce 15.08 | ForceWare 9.46 |
| Memory size | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) |
| Memory type | Corsair CM3X1024-1066C7 DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz | Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz | ||||
| CAS latency (CL) | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| RAS precharge (tRP) | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Cycle time (tRAS) | 21 | 21 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Audio codec | Integrated ICH9R/AD1988B with 7.0.0.0 drivers | Integrated ICH9R/AD1988B with 5.10.1.6110 drivers | Integrated ICH9R/ALC899A with 1.78 drivers | Integrated ICH9R/ALC889A with 1.78 drivers | Integrated nForce 680i/ALC885 with 1.78 drivers | Integrated nForce 670i/ALC888S with 1.78 drivers |
| Graphics | GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB PCI-E with ForceWare 163.69 drivers | |||||
| Hard drive | Western Raptor X 150GB | |||||
| OS | Windows Vista Ultimate x86 with KB936710, KB938194, KB938979, KB940105 updates | |||||
Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. 2GB of RAM seems to be the new standard for most folks, and Corsair hooked us up with some of its 1GB DIMMs for testing.
All of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.
Finally, we'd like to thank Western Digital for sending Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives for our test rigs. The Raptor's still the fastest all-around drive on the market, and the only 10K-RPM Serial ATA drive you can buy.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- SiSoft Sandra Standard 2008 12.34
- WorldBench 6.0 Beta 2
- TCD Labs HD Tach 3.01
- Futuremark 3DMark06 Build 110
- RightMark Audio Analyzer 6.05
- NTttcp
- CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
- Intel IOMeter v2004.07.30
- Crysis
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Demo
- Bioshock
- CPU-Z 1.41
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
