Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6: An early look at X38
by Gary Key on September 4, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming Performance
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a variety of current games. We ran our benchmarks at a 1280x1024 resolution with high quality settings
Battlefield 2
This benchmark is performed using DICE's built-in demo playback functionality with additional capture capabilities designed in house. During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a significant amount of smoke, explosions, and vehicle usage as this a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. We run Battlefield 2 using medium quality graphics settings available in the video settings. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game frame rates of 35 and up.
Half Life 2: Episode One
We use the built-in timedemo feature to benchmark the game. Our timedemo consists of starting at the bottom of the hill near the lake and ending in the old church. The Source engine timedemo feature is similar to the nettimedemo of Id's Doom 3 engine, in that it plays back more than just the graphics. The visual quality settings were set to high or medium where possible with HDR off. While the Source engine is notorious for giving great frame rates for almost any hardware setup, we find the game isn't as enjoyable if it isn't running at 30fps or above.
Prey
Prey offers some superb action sequences, unique weapons and characters, and is a visually stunning game at times. It still requires a very good GPU to run it with all of the eye candy turned on. We set all graphic settings to their maximum except for AA/AF and utilize a custom timedemo that takes place during one of the more action oriented sequences. We generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 35fps.
Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander is one of the favorite real time strategy games around the office as it continues to provide a great deal of replay value and the graphics are very good once the eye candy is turned on. What we especially like about the game is the fact that it can bring the best system to its knees and that fact makes it a great system benchmark. This particular game requires both a very good CPU and GPU when playing the game at anything above 1024x768 with decent settings. We utilize the game's built-in benchmark and generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 25fps.
Gaming Summary
Although the X38 board consistently finishes first in all of our benchmarks, the differences only average around 1% to 2% at this time. We fully expect the retail level boards to improve upon these scores by a couple of percent, but the net result is that GPU choice will still be a much bigger consideration than the motherboard chipset. Once we receive the shipping BIOS and retail board, we will revisit these same games and provide CrossFire results against the P35 and 975X equipped boards.
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a variety of current games. We ran our benchmarks at a 1280x1024 resolution with high quality settings
Battlefield 2
This benchmark is performed using DICE's built-in demo playback functionality with additional capture capabilities designed in house. During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a significant amount of smoke, explosions, and vehicle usage as this a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. We run Battlefield 2 using medium quality graphics settings available in the video settings. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game frame rates of 35 and up.
Half Life 2: Episode One
We use the built-in timedemo feature to benchmark the game. Our timedemo consists of starting at the bottom of the hill near the lake and ending in the old church. The Source engine timedemo feature is similar to the nettimedemo of Id's Doom 3 engine, in that it plays back more than just the graphics. The visual quality settings were set to high or medium where possible with HDR off. While the Source engine is notorious for giving great frame rates for almost any hardware setup, we find the game isn't as enjoyable if it isn't running at 30fps or above.
Prey
Prey offers some superb action sequences, unique weapons and characters, and is a visually stunning game at times. It still requires a very good GPU to run it with all of the eye candy turned on. We set all graphic settings to their maximum except for AA/AF and utilize a custom timedemo that takes place during one of the more action oriented sequences. We generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 35fps.
Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander is one of the favorite real time strategy games around the office as it continues to provide a great deal of replay value and the graphics are very good once the eye candy is turned on. What we especially like about the game is the fact that it can bring the best system to its knees and that fact makes it a great system benchmark. This particular game requires both a very good CPU and GPU when playing the game at anything above 1024x768 with decent settings. We utilize the game's built-in benchmark and generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 25fps.
Gaming Summary
Although the X38 board consistently finishes first in all of our benchmarks, the differences only average around 1% to 2% at this time. We fully expect the retail level boards to improve upon these scores by a couple of percent, but the net result is that GPU choice will still be a much bigger consideration than the motherboard chipset. Once we receive the shipping BIOS and retail board, we will revisit these same games and provide CrossFire results against the P35 and 975X equipped boards.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
BLHealthy4life - Thursday, September 13, 2007 - link
According to the INQ, this mobo will be available on the 14th, tommorrow.I've only found retailers for this board in the UK.
Anyone been able to find a USA retailer(s) that have this board for preorder?
Thanks
TokyoFerret - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Are such powerful PSUs utilised in overclocking articles? I am thinking of buying this board and running it with an E6850, 4Gb RAM and a 8800GTX, 2 SATA drives and 3D Galaxy2 water cooling but my PSU is only rated at 500W (Enermax Liberty).Should I be buying a new PSU as well? Or try out my current one and upgrade if its voltage seems too unstable...
TokyoFerret - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Correction...Are such -> Why are such...
bigphil1974 - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
Hi thanks for a great previewWould this motherboard pose any problems installing a large heatsink with backplate such as a thermalright ultra 120 extreme as I have seen similar gigabyte products where you cannot install bolt through coolers due to copper blocks on the back of the motherboard.
Thanks
Bigphil
larciel - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
so not neglectible difference between P35 and X38, just like P965 and x975 weren't that much different.Upgrade bug is so addictive but I've learned to avoid it after spending $$$$$$$ just to satisfy my desire that dies the first day I get a new toy, or CPU, or motherboard in this case.
457R4LDR34DKN07 - Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - link
What I want to see is the ASUS ROG Maximus Formula SE.Lord Evermore - Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - link
Does having more PCIe lanes automatically mean higher power consumption? If they're unused, if you just have the same hardware installed, does power consumption go up significantly just because the lanes are available? I'd assume a small amount but not so much that you'd really notice it unless you actually were taking advantage of the increase.Dawgneck - Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - link
Gary, can you confirm if the X38 chipset will only support Crossfire, or will it also support SLI?JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - link
This is an NVIDIA issue. NVIDIA needs to allow it in their drivers, or the only way to make it work will be hacking drivers. There have been various custom driver releases in the past to get SLI working on certain chipsets - i.e. the Alienware m9750 laptop and other SLI laptops are 945GM chipsets but still support SLI. The real issue here is whether or not Intel will pay NVIDIA... and how much NVIDIA wants to be paid, I would assume.Gary and I have had conversations about this, and while the NVIDIA GPU guys would love to get Intel chipset SLI support, the NVIDIA chipset guys are understandably not as gung-ho. Personally, I'd say their chipset business on the high-end doesn't do enough to compensate for the number of 8800 cards they could sell if they were to license SLI support to Intel. Besides, profit margins on 8800 chips (and even 8600) are *much* higher than chipset profit margins. For every 8800 card they sell, they probably make as much as they would off of four SLI chipset sales.
Will we ever see SLI support on Intel chipsets? That's going to depend on the two companies and pretty much nothing else. It could work right now... heck, it could work on 975X, P965, P35, and pretty much any dual-x16 slot motherboard+chipset.
PeteRoy - Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - link
Anandtech is a great site to show Battlefield 2 benchmarks, this is the game I play the most and I find it odd that sites like THG and others tend to ignore this game and show benchmarks of doom3 which nobody plays anymore, and if they do they won't after they finish the single player.