ASUS M2A-VM HDMI 690G Motherboard

Futuremark PCMark05 Synthetic CPU and Memory Assessment

In our next round of testing, we ran both CPU and Memory performance modules of FutureMark's PCMark05.  Each results graph is prefaced by FutureMark's explanation of what each test does to arrive at its scoring metric.  Once again, all tests were run twice, once with integrated graphics and again with discrete.

"The CPU test suite is a collection of tests that are run to isolate the performance of the CPU. The CPU Test Suite also includes multithreading: two of the test scenarios are run multithreaded; the other including two simultaneous tests and the other running four tests simultaneously. The remaining six tests are run single threaded. Operations include, File Compression/Decompression, Encryption/Decryption, Image Decompression, and Audio Compression" - Courtesy FutureMark Corp.

FutureMark's PCMark05 CPU module showed all of the motherboards tested to be on the same level for the most part.  Each hovered in the ballpark of 5300 marks, give or take a few.  The ASUS M2N-MX managed the best overall score during testing with discrete graphics installed.

" The Memory test suite is a collection of tests that isolate the performance of the memory subsystem. The memory subsystem consists of various devices on the PC. This includes the main memory, the CPU internal cache (known as the L1 cache) and the external cache (known as the L2 cache). As it is difficult to find applications that only stress the memory, we explicitly developed a set of tests geared for this purpose. The tests are written in C++ and assembly. They include: Reading data blocks from memory, Writing data blocks to memory performing copy operations on data blocks, random access to data items and latency testing."  - Courtesy FutureMark Corp.

Once again, the board that showed the broadest swing was the MSI K9AGM2, which really opened up with the GeForce 7600GT installed.  The M2A-VM HDMI proved to be one of the more balanced systems, showing minimal changes when toggling between the two graphics options.

Futuremark 3DMark06 v1.1.0 Synthetic CPU Testing

3DMark06's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded "gaming related" DirectX metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems.  This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are generated with a software renderer that is dependent on the host CPU's performance.  This means that the calculations normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the central processor.  The number of frames generated per second in each test are used to determine the final score.  This test was run with both integrated and discrete graphics as well.

In this test, the ASUS M2A-VM HMDI tracked well with the various configurations of the ASUS M2N-MX and the MSI K9AGM2.   The M2NPV-VM, based on the nForce 430, delivered the best overall results, most notably with discrete graphics installed.