Motherboard peripheral performance
Core logic chipsets integrate a wealth of peripherals, but they don't handle everything. Firewire and audio are farmed out to auxiliary chips, for example. Intel chipsets also rely on third-party silicon for networking, and many motherboards feature additional SATA controllers to complement south bridge Serial ATA offerings.
To provide a closer look at the peripheral performance you can expect from the motherboards we've tested today, we've complied Firewire, Serial ATA, and audio performance results below. You'll notice that there isn't much variance from one board to another, but there are a few things worth pointing out. Our 790i-based motherboard is highlighted and in bold to make it easier to pick out from the crowd.
| HD Tach Firewire performance | ||||
|
Read burst speed (MB/s) |
Average read speed (MB/s) |
Average write speed (MB/s) |
CPU utilization (%) |
|
| Asus P5E3 Deluxe | 42.3 | 37.5 | 28.8 | 1.7 |
| Asus P5K3 Deluxe | 42.3 | 37.4 | 28.7 | 0.7 |
| Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 | 42.1 | 37.5 | 28.7 | 2.3 |
| XFX MB-N780-ISH9 | 42.2 | 37.5 | 21.8 | 3.0 |
| XFX nForce 790i SLI Ultra | 42.2 | 37.6 | 21.8 | 1.3 |
The XFX-branded nForce 790i SLI Ultra motherboard is about as high-end as you can get, but Nvidia's reference design still features a Texas Instruments Firewire controller with relatively slow write performance.
| HD Tach Serial ATA performance | |||||
|
Read burst speed (MB/s) |
Average read speed (MB/s) |
Average write speed (MB/s) |
CPU utilization (%) |
Random access time (ms) |
|
| Asus P5E3 Deluxe | 133.5 | 75.2 | 101.0 | 2.0 | 8.4 |
| Asus P5K3 Deluxe | 133.7 | 75.2 | 98.7 | 3.7 | 8.3 |
| Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 (ICH9R) | 133.2 | 75.2 | 94.5 | 2.7 | 8.3 |
| Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 (JMB363) | 129.5 | 75.2 | 47.4 | 5.3 | 8.1 |
| XFX MB-N780-ISH9 | 131.9 | 75.2 | 87.0 | 4.0 | 8.4 |
| XFX nForce 790i SLI (nForce MCP) | 132.2 | 75.2 | 87.5 | 3.3 | 8.3 |
| XFX nForce 780i SLI (JMB362) | 109.8 | 75.3 | 42.7 | 20.3 | 8.7 |
The auxiliary JMicron storage controller Nvidia has hooked into the board's eSATA port isn't all that hot, either. Not only does it offer slower burst and write speeds than the 790i's own SATA ports (and those on the other boards), it does so while consuming 20% of our test system's CPU time.
| RightMark Audio Analyzer audio quality | |||||||||
| Overall score | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | THD + Noise | IMD + Noise | Stereo Crosstalk | IMD at 10kHz | |
| Asus P5E3 Deluxe | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| Asus P5K3 Deluxe | 4 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| XFX MB-N780-ISH9 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| XFX nForce 790i SLI Ultra | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
Nothing to see here. Move along.
