| MSI A75MA-G55 AMD FM1 Llano Motherboard |
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Reviews -
Featured Reviews: Motherboards
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| Written by Hank Tolman |
| Sunday, 11 September 2011 |
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Page 6 of 17
Testing and Results
Before I begin any benchmarking or overclocking, I thoroughly stress the CPU and memory by running Prime95 on all available cores, normally for 12 hours. In this review I stressed them for 6 hours. If no errors are found, I move on to a gaming stress test. To do this, I use Prime95 again to stress the processor, while running an instance of FurMark's stability test on top of this. If the computer survives this test for 2 hours without lockup or corruption, I consider it to be stable and ready for overclocking. After achieving what I feel is stable overclock, I run to these tests again for certainty. The goal of this stress testing is to ensure the clock speeds and settings are stable before performing any benchmarks. I adopted this method from another writer here at Benchmark Reviews and it seems to do a great job of flushing out what only seem to be stable overclocks.
Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proves extremely important in many gaming benchmarks, as the first run serves to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, with the average results displayed in our article.
AMD FM1 A-Series Platform
- Motherboard: MSI A75MA-G55
- Motherboard: ASUS F1A75-M PRO
- Processor: 2.9GHz AMD A-Series A8-3850 APU ($135 MSRP)
- CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
- System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3
- Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
- Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
- Graphics Adapter: APU Radeon HD 6650D; ASUS GT430 (Forceware 275.50)
Intel H67 Test Platforms
- Motherboard: Intel DH67BL with BIOS 1596
- Processor: 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) Intel Core i5-2500K ($225)
- CPU Cooler: Scythe Yasya
- System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1333MHz@7-7-7-21)
- Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
- Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
- Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)
Intel P67 Test Platform
- Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth P67 B3
- Processor: 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) Intel Core i5-2500K
- CPU Cooler: Scythe Yasya
- System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3
- Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
- Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
- Graphics Adapter: MSI Radeon HD 6870 Twin Frozr III (Catalyst Control Center 11.5)
Intel X58 Test Platform
- Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro LGA1366 Intel X58 ATX
- Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield/Nehalem BX80601920 ($280)
- CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
- System Memory: Kingston 6GB (3 x 2GB) KVR1333D3K3/6GR DDR3 1333MHz (PC3 10666) (CL7-7-7-20)
- Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
- Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
- Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)
AMD 890GX Test Platform
- Motherboard: Biostar TA890GXB-HD (890GX/SB850)
- Processor: 3.6GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-980BE HDZ980FBK4DGM (MSRP $195)
- Processor: 3.6GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-975BE HDZ980FBK4DGM (MSRP $175)
- Processor: 3.2GHZ AMD Phenom-II X4-840 HDX840WFK42GM (MSRP $105)
- Processor: 3.3GHz AMD Phenom-II X2-560BE HDZ560WFK2DGM ($110)
- Processor: 3.1GHz AMD Athlon-II X4-645 ADX645WFGMBOX ($110)
- Processor: 3.1GHz AMD Athlon-II X3-445 ADX445WFK32GM (~$79)
- Processor: 3.2GHz AMD Athlon-II X2-260 ADX260OCK23GM ($70)
- CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
- System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1333MHz@7-7-7-21)
- Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
- Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
- Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)
AMD 990FX Test Platform
- Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair V Formula (990FX/SB950)
- Processor: 3.7GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-980BE HDZ980FBK4DGM
- System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3
- Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
- Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
- Graphics Adapter: MSI Radeon HD 6870 Twin Frozr III (Catalyst Control Center 11.5)
Benchmark Applications
- Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
- AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.1
- PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0b1019
- Futuremark 3DMark Vantage v1.0.1.0 64-Bit
- Futuremark 3DMark 11 v
- Futuremark PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 64-Bit
- TV and Movies
- Gaming
- Music
- SiSoftware Sandra 2010.1.16.92 CPU Test
- Maxon CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
- Resident Evil 5 Benchmark
- Lost Planet 2 Benchmark
- ArcSoft MediaConverter 7 transcoding
- Handbrake 0.94 video transcoding
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Comments
I thought 5 simultaneous button keyboard presses ( w + a movement + shift run with a spacebar jump fer instance ) were still only possible using a ps2 cable or adapter?
oops meant 4 presses..
So, in that case, my opinion still stands. Even gaming, I'm not sure when I would push more than 6 keys at a time and I'm relatively sure I've never used more than 3 modifier keys at once.
Also, PS/2 keyboards have other limitations. Sure, you can press 188 keys at once, but you can't use a function key. Also, any of those specialty keys, mostly used for media functions, won't be found on a PS/2 keyboard. Oh, and those gaming keyboards? Forget about it.
-Hank
#geekhack.org/showthread.php?5572-USB-vs-Ps2-Keyboards/page3
Where the consensus seems to be that ps2 polling is less intrusive, potentially less cpu intensive and in the end more responsive...
The ghosting problems ( multi-button rollover fail ). Doesn't seem to be limited to USB anyway. My sidewinderx6 seems to behave with most all my important navigation combinations cept for ctrl failing with certain combinations. ( in which case the ability to map crouch to at least press on/off is greatly appreciated ) But then again I found A ps2 version of intellipoint Pro that I might try morrow. But again ghosting seems to be a problem anyway with any given keyboard whether it's Supposed to support at least 6 rollover keys or not. :-(
Neat geekHacks thread read either way.
I couldn't find if the DVI port is Single-link or Dual-link. It doesn't say in the MSI's page.
I´ve got a Dell U2711 (2560x1440), and I need a mobo with DVI-DL or DisplayPort to use it in native resolution. HDMI or DVI-SL only shows 1920x1080.
anybody know what the best graphics card works with an A6-3550 soon to be upgraded to an A8-3870 and what the benifits are to do dual graphics?