Asus P5WDG2-WS and P5WD2-E Premium - 975X Motherboard Showcase

Name: Asus P5WDG2-WS and P5WD2-E Premium - 975X Motherboard Showcase - Page 14
Brand: Asus

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, April 21, 2006, 12:01 AM EDT

To start our in-game testing, we did some low-resolution benchmarking with Half Life 2. When testing a processor with HL 2, we use a specific set of game engine initialization settings that ensure all of the systems are being benchmarked with the exact same in-game settings and graphical options. Like the other in-game tests in this review, we used low-quality graphical settings and a low screen resolution to isolate CPU and memory performance.

Benchmarks with Half Life 2: Low-Res / Low Quality

DirectX 9 Gaming Performance

The AMD powered system was clearly the fastest in our custom Half Life 2 benchmark, outpacing all of the Intel based rigs by roughly 30 frames per second. If we look past the AMD result though, we see the Asus P5WD2-E Premium finished with the highest framerate when compared to the other Intel-powered rigs, followed by the other Asus board once again.

Benchmarks with Quake 4 v1.05: Low Quality

OpenGL Gaming Performance

For our next game test, we benchmarked all of the test systems using a custom single-player Quake 4 timedemo. Here, we installed the v1.05 patch which is SMP capable, cranked the resolution down to 640 x 480, and configured the game to run at its "Low-Quality" graphics setting. Although Quake 4 typically taxes today's high-end GPUs, when it's configured at these minimal settings it too is more CPU and memory-bound than anything else.

The results from our custom Quake 4 benchmark mirrored those of the Half Life 2 tests. The AMD rig was again the fastest, with the Intel based systems finishing in the same order as before -- P52D2-E Premium, P5WDG2-WS, and then the Intel D075XBX.

Tags: Asus, Motherboard, WD, case, Pre, OWC, EMI, Premium, 975, ium, g2, Show, showcase, board, SHO, WS, AR, and

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com