ASUS Striker II Extreme: Mucho Bang, Mucho Bucks
by Kris Boughton on April 11, 2008 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Overall System Performance with PCMark Vantage
Futuremark claims PCMark Vantage for Vista is the most complete total system-benchmarking suite to date and our experience has shown this to be true. The benchmarks are designed to test the performance of each major subsystem - CPU, memory, graphics, and disk performance based on real world applications. The final score presented at the conclusion of each test run takes into account the results of each carefully tailored test within the benchmark suite.
Because our goal was the measurement and analysis of motherboard performance, we took great care to use equivalent parts whenever possible. As such, each test setup utilized the same exact hard disk drive model, graphics card(s), and installed processors. The only real difference worth nothing is the memory and the chipset installed on each board. We used different modules depending on whether the motherboard tested used DDR2 or DDR3 memory. We used memory from the same manufacturer (and product line) in order to nullify any potential advantage arising from the use of dissimilar components.
As we can see, DDR3 motherboards based on NVIDIA 790i or Intel X48 chipsets score well above those that use DDR2 modules. Clearly, the additional memory read bandwidth and reduced access latencies associated with the faster DDR3 subsystems have a distinct affect on overall system performance. This is worth keeping in mind when it comes to buying your next motherboard - DDR3 prices continue to fall every day and we would argue that these once overly expensive products are now almost within the realm of affordability.
Switching from an E8500 dual-core CPU to a QX9770 quad-core provided an additional performance boost to the tune of about 1000 points on average. The fact that subsystem scores are additive in nature is demonstrated well by the EVGA 780i results - in this case, this same 1000-point increase can be seen, regardless of the initial lower score when compared to the other systems that managed to score higher overall.
Finally, PCMark Vantage measured absolutely no performance advantage when enabling NVIDIA's SLI Technology. Although the benchmark does run a couple of graphics-intensive tests, they are conducted in windowed mode and do not appear to respond to the additional available graphics horsepower provided by multi-GPU configurations.
We can conclude that the scores achieved by each system were a result of the components in use, and had nearly nothing to do with the actual motherboards utilized. That is to say, the motherboard merely functions as a platform for the installation of the components and has little to do with the development of actual performance; rather it simply allows the installed components to reach their full potential.
What this really means is that users who plan to run their systems in stock configurations will have a hard time going wrong with any motherboard examined above (and quite possibly any motherboard based on any of these four chipsets or others). The qualities and individual benefits of each motherboard do not become fully evident until overclocking comes into play. Let's move on to synthetic graphics performance courtesy of 3DMark06.
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Rodriguez - Friday, June 20, 2008 - link
Can anyone here indicate how to reach FSB 500 (2000) with Striker II Extreme & QX9770 C1, most I can get is 1900FSB.I've seen Kris reach this speed in this article & was eager to get to this speed as soon as I received my new CPU, but it has been more difficult than I thought, I was sure that if with my previous Q6600 G0 y could easily get 1900/1950FSB, now with QX9770 would be peanuts. The main reason I bought this CPU was to run 2000FSB linked & synced with Ballistix 2000 SLI.
Please give all detailed BIOS setup options for this CPU if possible
Nobody in Asus forum using this setup has been able to reach 2000FSB, but I have seen a few reviews (like Anandtech's) & posts showing it's possible
By the way, memory has been tested unlinked at 2000Mhz 9-8-8-24, 1.9v P1/P2 Enabled & works great
System:
QX9770 rev. C1 3.2Ghz (watercooled)
Asus Striker II Extreme BIOS 801, ver 1.02G (watercooled)
PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W
4 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix PC16000 SLI EPP2 , 2000Mhz 1800 8-7-7-24- 1T - 1.9v
SLI Leadtek PX8800 Ultra Leviathan (factory watercooled)
SLI Leadtek PX8800 Ultra
Asus Physx card (removed)
Dlink DWA556 PCIx Xtreme N Wireless card
2x WD Raptor 150GB Raid 0 300GB
1x Seagate 400GB Sata
X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion
24' Benq FP241VW Gamer
Innovatek XXD Rev 2 + G-Flow water cooling
CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 case
Saitek X52 Flight system
TrackIR 4 + Trackclip Pro
Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit
parkerdw - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
I used the same motherboard and cpu, but I liquid cooled it using the gigantic Kandalf Liquid Cooled case. My memory is different as well since I use 4 GB of Patriot Viper memory (2 x 2GB). Other than the memory settings in the BIOS, I set everything to match this guide. My system runs at 4.0Ghz and the cpu runs at no more than 88 degrees fahrenheit even while playing something like Crysis with everything set to Very High. Crysis runs between 35 and 60 fps on Very High on my system using a single 9800 GX2 at 1280 x 720. It's a HTPC connected to my older 56 inch DLP set via DVI, so I can't go any higher than that, but I fully expect to run great at 1080p when I get my new large screen set later this year. I don't have my bios settings in front of me, but setting everything to Auto for the memory works PERECTLY at 4.0 ghz. Pretty cool. I think it's running at 8,8,18 or so and 1.9v.Also, Asus just released a patch to the bios that fixes the data corruption issue mentioned in this artcle. Released on 5/29/08 I think.
hardist - Monday, April 21, 2008 - link
The water block seems to have leaking issues , I am wondering why it was not covered in this review since it is a major feature of this board ......Heatlesssun - Sunday, April 20, 2008 - link
This is a sweet motherbaord! Now I've not overclocked the FSB, just bumped up the multiplier of my QX9650 from the default of 9.5 to 10, and I'm not running RAID. We shall see but I feel good. To get this up and running with Vista x64 in a day so smoothly was pretty good I thought.electricx - Tuesday, April 15, 2008 - link
So this board is going for the aforementioned amount on newegg... The EVGA and the XFX 790i boards are going for $350... The ROG name carries that much of a premium? I mean, come on?! I'm sure ASUS will fix this data corruption issue and you typically do pay more for the privilege(?) of being a beta tester for high end hardware but $1000 over competing products seems a bit much... The EVGA board is looking to be a clear winner here to me. Time will tell I suppose.FightingEagle - Friday, April 18, 2008 - link
After the second EVGA 790i and full of bugs I just sent it back. I was interested in the ASUS X48 and the 790i, but the 790i over $400 is hard to grasp. EVGA has good looking heat sink but not very good at cooling. I may wait for all the bugs to leave but as now im sitting on $320 dollars worth of DDR3 and a E8400.electricx - Tuesday, April 15, 2008 - link
Edit: That should have been $100 not $1000UK1Man - Sunday, April 13, 2008 - link
Help please!!I'm currently in the process of building a computer but can only afford to buy a couple of parts a month, I have already purchased some DDR2 (1066) memory for an FXF 780 motherboard (not yet purchased) but am now considering the Asus striker II extreme.
Will my DDR 2 memory work with this?
seamusmc - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
This board/chipset, 790i, only supports DDR3.ianken - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
Can it go into S3 suspend and come back out and have the NICs still work? The Striker 2 Formula cannot.Can the SATA controller handle hot swap? The Stiker 2 Formula and the previous 680i boards could not. The 680i bios even had an esata setting that did NOTHING.
The latest crop of Asus boards, particularly the NV chipset rigs, have been pretty buggy and basic functionality has been borked.
But hey, who cares of the basics don't work right? it's got a water block for X-TREME OVERCLOXORS! YO! VTEC!