Subsystem Testing

Date:: Tuesday , January 26, 2010
Category:: Motherboards / Chipsets
Manufacturers:: ASUS
Author:: Daniel Dobrowolski
Editor:: Kyle Bennett

ASUS Maximus III Gene Motherboard Review

The ASUS Maximus III Gene expands not only the Republic of Gamers product line, but the lineage of "Maximus" motherboards ASUS has created under the name. Thus far every Maximus board has been nothing short of excellent and even bordering on legendary, the Maximus III Gene continues this tradition.

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NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel Core i5 750 (2.66GHz) and 2 x 2048MB Corsair Dominator TR3X6G1866C7GT ver 2.1 DDR3 1866MHz (7,8,7,20,1T @ 1.65v) memory modules running at DDR3 1333MHz were used. The CPU was cooled with a home brew water cooling setup consisting of a Swiftech MCR320 triple radiator, 3x120mm fans, Swiftech MCP655-B pump, and a Swiftech Apogee GTZ water block which was modified to work with socket LGA1156 motherboards.

Sound Hardware

Though the board is advertised with EAX support from Creative Labs, the truth is that this is a software solution only. This board uses the VIA VT2020 chip just as the latest version of the SupremeFX audio board bundled with many ASUS boards do. In this case expansion slot space is at a huge premium so ASUS opted for a built in solution.

Audio – Subjective Listening

For subjective listening you want to listen to something that covers a range of sound types. For this portion of the review I went with Disturbed, Indestructible.

The onboard audio provided a solid CD audio playback experience. There was no audible distortion present.

Audio – Microphone Port Testing

The onboard audio MIC-IN port was tested using a Logitech Internet Chat Headset. Spoken words were recorded from the Windows Sound Recorder found under the Accessories\Entertainment folder in the start menu within Windows XP. The recording was made with the Microphone Boost option disabled, then enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the advanced menu under the microphone section within the Volume Control Menu.

The recording sample was inaudible when played back with the microphone boost option disabled. When enabled the playback was certainly audible, but it was badly distorted. I think anyone needing serious recording capability or good in-game voice support will want to spend the expansion slot real estate on a real sound card. Otherwise the sound solution is decent.

Drive Performance

To test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 connections, we used an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected first to the USB port. SATA and IDE drive tests were performed using Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives on the primary SATA header and Samsung 40 GB SATA 3G with NCQ hard drives on additional SATA headers. The SATA drives were used for testing in RAID 0 16k block size configurations on all applicable controllers. Testing was also conducted using a stand-alone SATA drive on all applicable controllers, and an EIDE drives connected in a primary slave configuration on the appropriate controller All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program.

As is usually the case, the integrated controller in the chipset proved to be the better performing solution. The RAID0 configuration was the fastest tested, but the JMB363 isn't setup for RAID on this board. I do not understand why ASUS is continuing to use the JMB363 in this type of application. The JMB363 supports IDE and floppy ports, as well as RAID. In this application, none of those features are being used.

Network Utilization Tests

Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used with Windows Task Manager to determine the performance levels of the onboard network interface. DU Meter was used to measure bandwidth and transfer speeds, while Windows Task Manager monitored CPU utilization on the test system. For the testing, a 750MB Archive file consisting of several compressed WMA/MP3 files was used for the large file transfer, and 750MB worth of MP3/WMA files were used ranging in sizes from 3 to 30MB was used for the small files transfer test. The test was performed using a plenum rated category 5e crossover cable to bypass any traffic, routing or other transfer issues and possible packet loss or corruption that can be caused by a router/switch or hub. The cables were connected between two test machines, one using the onboard NIC(s) of the board being reviewed and the other is an Intel EXPI9400PT 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet adapter installed into a test machine using an Intel DX48BT2 motherboard.

The Maximus III Gene uses a single Realtek® RTL8110SC Gigabit LAN controller. This controller is capable of 10/100/1000 speeds, auto negotiation and offers full or half duplex operation.

LAN1

The small files download test showed a maximum transfer rate of 56.26MB a second with an average speed of 41.79MB a second. CPU usage was higher than I'd ever seen on any LGA1156 motherboard at 16%. The small files upload test hit speeds of 66.16MB a second and averaged 43.60MB a second. The CPU utilization climbed even higher to 19%.

The large files download test peaked at 58.70MB a second and averaged 46.48MB a second. CPU utilization was still high at 17%. The large files upload test showed a maximum transfer rate of 66.26MB a second. The average transfer speed was 57.50MB a second and again the CPU utilization was a staggering 19%.

The performance of this solution is actually quite excellent. The main problem is that the CPU usage is quite high. Hopefully improved drivers will help out with this in the future.

Test Systems

The following system configurations were used for the Sandra memory benchmark graph, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmarks sections: