Performance Testing
Our objective here is to present you with non-redundant results that you can apply to real world situations. We’ve selected a well rounded benchmark suite covering CPU, platform stability, 3D performance, IO feature performance using a mixture of real-world and synthetic benchmarks.
We will finish off by exploring the overclocking capabilities of the board. Keep in mind that your results may vary depending on the capabilities of your CPU, video card, DDR3 memory, and system cooling. If you’re not able to reproduce our overclocked results, just be aware of that.
Synthetic Benchmarks
These benchmarks come in handy as third party creators have developed them to reveal any performance variances between systems. Some tax the entire system and some load specific components in the system. Most importantly, they are fairly consistent and can be run across platforms, allowing you to easily compare your results with ours.
3DMark Vantage
Starting off strong, the Extreme 3 seems to pull a little extra power from somewhere. Perhaps Intel Turbo settings are slightly more aggressive. Either way, it’s just enough to keep the average lead over the GIGABYTE X58A-UD5.
PCMark Vantage
PCMark reveals the Extreme 3 to be just a handful of points behind the X58A. It’s most likely due to different levels of BIOS tuning. Music and Communcations tilt in favor of the X58A-UD5 probably due to the use of the Realtek audio and slightly better implementation of the Realtek LAN.
Sisoft SANDRA CPU
Both platforms are comparable during the CPU tests. While the X58A is the more aggressive platform, the X58A and Extreme trade places on the multimedia test. A little tuning up in the BIOS and both would be right on queue.
Cinebench R11.5
It’s interesting to see the Extreme 3 pull just ahead in single CPU core performance and match everything else except the MP Ratio. This proves that it’s an equally capable rendering platform if you’re looking for the resources of the X58 chipset.
Unigine Heaven Demo v2.1
Here, we see very similar performance. The X58A just slightly sneaks past the Xtreme 3 in stock settings. Still, it’s pretty neat watching the benchmark run so smoothly on both platforms. Especially with a capable video card like the ZOTAC GTX 480.