Benchmarks Continued, HD Testing, Conclusion
High Definition Testing:
I lugged my box over to a mate's place for some 1920x1080 or “HD” testing on his 40” LCD, and the Spider platform didn’t disappoint.
The results speak for themselves. These games are graphically intensive and the ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 just chews them up and spits out visual bliss. Additionally, the HDMI audio pass-through worked without a hitch.
Crysis:
The Crysis GPU test shows fairly modest gains, with the 3.2GHz Phenom leading the 3.2GHz Athlon by around 5 to 10 percent.
The first of Crysis’ CPU tests skews more towards the Phenom X4. The Athlon at 3.2Ghz is level with the 2.5GHz Phenom, which then goes on to average a 21.5% lead when pushed to 3.2GHz.
In the hardware-crushing CPU2 test, the Phenom's muscle is flexed decisively, as the overclocked Athlon struggles to keep pace with the Phenom's stock settings, and gets blown away once the Phenom is sped up.
Conclusion:
From my testing and the reading of many others before me who have tested alike, the K10 architecture brings 10-15% performance gains over the K8 across the board - sometimes more, sometimes less. Overclocking with an unlocked multiplier is a cinch, and at around AU$240, it’s certainly the pick of AMD’s bunch for this reviewer.
The ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 is, quite simply, a beast. Whilst I haven’t benchmarked every game I’ve played with the card, rest assured I’m yet to find a game, other than Crysis, that I can’t run with maximum graphic detail at 1600x1200.
The 790GX chipset is very impressive, bringing motherboard makers the opportunity to do things like include HDMI, DVI and VGA in the ATX back panel, which Gigabyte has done with their GA-MA790GP-DS4H. The flexibility this brings to end users is commendable, and enables one board to really suit a few different audiences. The fact it can be done at a reasonable price is testament to the ever-dwindling price, and ever-increasing power, of consumer PC hardware in general.
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