Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

Gaming Performance

The overall gaming performance of the ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 is very good in all titles, except Doom3 where the board consistently produced results up to 9fps lower than the ATI and NVIDIA chipset based boards. In actual DOOM3 game play, the drop in frame rates was not noticeable. We did not witness any further anomalies or issues throughout our test benchmarks and on-line gaming sessions. At stock settings, this board competes very well against boards costing twice as much. The board exhibited excellent stability in all phases of game testing.

Memory Performance SLI Performance
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  • Gary Key - Saturday, March 4, 2006 - link

    It works very well on this board with an Opteron. ;-)
  • Kiste - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    quote:

    The 1.31 driver release has now eliminated all stuttering in our current benchmarks while improving performance across the board except in Serious Sam II.


    In the past, Realtek has solved performance issues by reducing the number of buffers and disabling EAX effects without telling anyone. I hope someone will have a really good look at these integrated audio solutions one day, one that isn't just FPS and CPU utilization.
  • Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    quote:

    n the past, Realtek has solved performance issues by reducing the number of buffers and disabling EAX effects without telling anyone. I hope someone will have a really good look at these integrated audio solutions one day, one that isn't just FPS and CPU utilization.


    To date with the HD Codecs, Realtek has not decreased the buffers nor have we noticed changes in EAX2 output except for the positive. It is a very subjective area to comment on but in BF2 I like the sound quality of the 1.29 drivers better but Serious Sam II seems to have improved a great deal in the 1.30 and 1.31 drivers. While the on-board audio solutions are still lacking in most areas compared to the add-in solutions at least the manufacturers (board/chipset) are trying to improve quality in this area instead of pumping out the same old AC97 codecs. If it were not for the cost I think we would have seen several additional Audigy-SE solutions on the motherboards by now and even possibly an improved offering from Creative. While the A-SE is an older chipset it does offer better performance and audio quality in gaming than the current HD codecs from Realtek, C-Media, ADI, and SigmaTel. I really thought the VIA Envy24 series would have had greater market penetration on the motherboards but one can only speculate as to why this never happened. ;->
  • tjpark1111 - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    is it just me, or does this thing have a 20-pin power connector. ?!?!?!??!???
  • kelim - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    Yes, the board does in fact use a 20-pin power connection. If you have a 24-pin PSU, this shouldn't be a problem, since most are 20+4-pin, meaning you can detach the extra 4 pins and only use the ones you need. Either that, or the uneeded pins will hang off the side.
  • Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    You are correct, it is a 20-pin ATC connector as stated in the article. I was surprised also and did a double take after removing it from the box. :)
  • dab - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    It says that this motherboard supports ddr2,
    "(4) x DIMM, max. 4GB, DDR2 400/333/266, non-ECC, un-buffered memory..."

    Is this a joke? There's no 240pin slots on that board, only on the riser (which is not included). s939's IMC doesn't support this either..

    Am I mistaken?
  • Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    quote:

    "(4) x DIMM, max. 4GB, DDR2 400/333/266, non-ECC, un-buffered memory..."


    I was just changing that to DDR, sorry about the mistake. The AM2 daughter card will have slots for DDR2 memory.
  • Puddleglum - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    The figure is noteworthy, but it's actually the only Firewire 800 test result I can find in AT's reviews.
  • Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link

    quote:

    The figure is noteworthy, but it's actually the only Firewire 800 test result I can find in AT's reviews.


    I know we only have it in a recent review and probably should drop it. I keep hoping Firewire 800 will be implemented on the higher end boards or those designed for HTPC life. :) However, it appears to be a dead-end option at this point and the technology itself seems to be going away without a fight.

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