![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , August 17, 2009
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer
ASUS' latest X58 chipset motherboard from its extremely popular workstation board series, the P6T7 WS SuperComputer is poised to impress many folks looking for more PCIe lanes than the next guy.
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel LGA 1366 Core i7 920 CPU with the board base clock running at 133MHz and 3 x 2GB Corsair XM3-1600C8D memory modules running at 1600MHz were used in testing.
Audio - Subjective Listening
One of the easiest ways to determine the quality of the audio subsystem is via a subjective sound test. Ideally, a sound test requires audio covering the entire spectrum, from subtle to intense. For this test, I chose to listen to the self titled Avenged Sevenfold album.
Album playback was without issue, making for an enjoyable listening session.
Audio - Microphone Port Testing
The MIC-IN input was tested using our standard Labtec Desk Mic 524 testing microphone. Spoken words were recorded and played back using Microsoft Sound Recorder, with the Microphone Boost option disabled and enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the Advanced menu under the Microphone section within the Volume Control menu.
Playback of the recorded audio was excellent both with and without Microphone Boost enabled. I dare say that you don’t even need Microphone Boost for good performance with this audio chipset, as long as you carefully tune the input volume settings.
Drive Performance
To adequately test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 connections, we chose to use an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected to both ports. SATA drive tests were performed using Samsung 40GB SATA II hard drives on the SATA headers. The SATA drives were used for testing in a RAID 0 16k block size configuration and in standalone mode on both the Intel ICH10R Southbridge and Marvell SAS controllers. All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program
While both RAID 0 arrays outperformed the other tested devices, the performance gap between RAID 0 and the standalone drive on the ICH10R controller was marginal at best. The Marvell SAS drive performance in standalone mode seemed a bit muted when compared with the other drivers unfortunately. Both external drive devices performed very well, with the USB 2.0 device actually outperforming the IEEE 1394 device for once. In all cases, CPU utilization remained well under 1%.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used in conjunction with Windows Task Manager to measure the performance of the Realtek GigE NICs. Note that it was found in testing that both NICs performed on par with one another. DU meter was used to measure bandwidth, with Windows Task Manager to monitor the CPU utilization on the test system. For the test itself, a 750MB archive file containing various sized .WMA audio files for the large file transfer test and a 750MB worth of various sized .WMA audio files for the small files transfer test were used in conjunction with an integrated Gigabit NIC on the host system and a crossover cable to connect the host system to the test system. A crossover cable was used to rule out any possible bandwidth losses due to hub or switch passage.
Realtek GigE controller
The large file transfer tests were both impressive, with the download coming in at a blazingly fast 47 MB/s, beating out upload by an almost 17 MB/s margin. As expected, the CPU utilization remained close to 0% during both tests.
The small file transfer tests were equally good, with the small file upload speeds besting that of download by a mere 3 MB/s, coming in at over 28 MB/s. The CPU utilization again remained near the 0% mark during both transfer tests.
Synthetic Performance Testing
Test Systems
The following system configurations were used for the system benchmark graphs, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmarks sections:
Graphs are labeled as follows: Motherboard - CPU Clock - Memory Type
Sisoft Sandra 2009
Note that all results above were obtained running the installed memory in Triple Channel mode.
The P6T7 WS SuperComputer starts off strong, with managing to stick close with the other X58 based boards, illustrating that the board’s memory subsystem was well designed. Interesting though that it falls a good bit behind its P6T6 brethren.
Again, the P6T7 WS SuperComputer board manages a solid performance, indicating that the board is solidly put together. The numbers are where we expect them for this board, indicating a solidly designed board to CPU interface. Again a slight bit behind the P6T6.
Hiper Pi
The P6T7 WS SuperComputer board manages another strong performance. Performance differences in this benchmark indicate performance inhibiting design related issues with the board. And again behind the P6T6.
wPrime
The P6T7 WS SuperComputer board closes out the subsystem tests with another good score, further illustrating ASUS’ well designed product. And yet again behind the P6T6 by one hundredth of a second.