ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe - nForce 4 SLI X16 Unleashed
To start our in-game testing, we did some low-resolution benchmarking with Unreal Tournament 2004. With this specific in-game test, we used "Low-Quality" graphical settings and low screen resolution, which almost completely isolates CPU and memory performance.
 |
|
In UT2004 we're witness to a less than 2% variance in scores amongst all the motherboards we tested. The MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI took the lead spot this time by a hair, most likely due to its use of a Creative SB Live 24 chip for its on-board sound processing. If we turned up the resolution and level of detail in this test, you would see all of these boards fall completely in line with respect to frame rate.
 |
|
For our next game test, we benchmarked all of the test systems using a custom multi-player Doom 3 timedemo. We cranked the resolution down to 640 x 480 and configured the game to run at its "Low-Quality" graphics setting. Although Doom 3 typically taxes today's high-end GPUs, when it's configured at these minimal settings it too is also much more CPU / Memory-bound than anything else.
In this test, the tables turn in favor of the ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe, but again, the performance delta is so marginal that it's really not worth considering. So when looking back at things here, the moral of the story is that as far as standard usage models in general CPU and Memory bandwidth measurements go, the new A8N32 SLI Deluxe and its nForce4 SLI X16 two-chip set offers every bit of performance that the legacy single chip solution does today. So let's look at a couple of areas where the board may perhaps have more of a competitive advantage...
