Foxconn MARS: God of War Performance?
by Gary Key on September 21, 2007 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Ethernet Performance
LAN performance is also an area worth looking at, as these boards might be serving up media to the rest of the house. All of these boards utilize PCI or PCI Express based controllers with the only difference being the supplier of the core logic.
The Windows 2000 Driver Development Kit (DDK) includes a useful LAN testing utility called NTttcp. We used the NTttcp tool to test Ethernet throughput and the CPU utilization of the various Ethernet Controllers used on the Intel motherboards. We set up one machine as the server; in this test, an Intel system with an Intel CSA Gigabit LAN connection. Intel CSA has a reputation for providing fast throughput and is a logical choice for our Gigabit LAN server.
On the server side, we used the following Command Line as suggested by the VIA whitepaper on LAN testing:
The throughput performance favors the Realtek Gigabit controllers with the Foxconn implementation offering the best performance. The CPU utilization numbers favor the Intel controller the Realtek 8111B still offering good performance. However, the differences are slight and will not be noticed under normal operating circumstances.
LAN performance is also an area worth looking at, as these boards might be serving up media to the rest of the house. All of these boards utilize PCI or PCI Express based controllers with the only difference being the supplier of the core logic.
The Windows 2000 Driver Development Kit (DDK) includes a useful LAN testing utility called NTttcp. We used the NTttcp tool to test Ethernet throughput and the CPU utilization of the various Ethernet Controllers used on the Intel motherboards. We set up one machine as the server; in this test, an Intel system with an Intel CSA Gigabit LAN connection. Intel CSA has a reputation for providing fast throughput and is a logical choice for our Gigabit LAN server.
On the server side, we used the following Command Line as suggested by the VIA whitepaper on LAN testing:
Ntttcpr -m 4,0,‹server IP› -a 4 -l 256000 -n 30000Ntttcps -m 4,0,‹client IP› -a 4 -l 256000 -n 30000The throughput performance favors the Realtek Gigabit controllers with the Foxconn implementation offering the best performance. The CPU utilization numbers favor the Intel controller the Realtek 8111B still offering good performance. However, the differences are slight and will not be noticed under normal operating circumstances.
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Griswold - Sunday, September 23, 2007 - link
I see they also implemented the Northbridge<->PWM section cooling with heatpipes. Recipe for hot PWM with an Overclocked 4 core CPUHumbug. The PWMs with an overclocked quad will be hotter than a P35 NB - and they also can take alot more heat than a NB. Dont make issues up where there are none.
kmmatney - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
it seems like it would be better just to remove the covers over chipset heatsinks - don't they just reduce airflow? The coolpipe logo piece should just be taken off altogether.wolfman3k5 - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
Nice review, thanks allot! I want to buy one of these, where can I find this board?JarredWalton - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
Not out at retail quite yet - early next month I believe.cmdrdredd - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
Good board from the review, but it's a little late. Those who were looking to adopt P35 already have one of the other boards, everyone else wants to see X38. I suppose it would depend on the price of this board vs others once it hits actual retail channels.Griswold - Sunday, September 23, 2007 - link
Your world must be really small.strikeback03 - Monday, September 24, 2007 - link
Then again, didn't Gary Key say in the comments on the ASUS X38 board that he expects X38 to take over this market segment once initial hysteria wears off; as performance should be better than P35 for the same money. Then P35 would primarily work in the midrange.