Intel P965: Foxconn P9657AA- 8KS2H
by Gary Key on December 28, 2006 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming Performance
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a variety of current games. We ran benchmarks with our standard 1280x1024 resolution. Given the number of users that run 19 inch LCDs these days, 1280x1024 represents one of the most commonly used resolutions.
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 the highest quality graphics settings available in the video settings.
Half Life 2: Lost Coast
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 highest visual quality settings possible were used with HDR enabled for our tests.
Quake 4
We utilize the nettimedemo test rather than the timedemo option for motherboard benchmarking of Quake 4. To be clear, this means our test results focus mostly on the performance one would experience during actual game play. Additionally, Quake 4 limits frame rate to 60 fps during gameplay whether or not VSync is enabled. Our benchmark utilizes the IdNetDemo. This demo includes mainly outdoor areas with numerous players trying to wipe each other out. We tested the game with High Quality settings (uncompressed normal maps), and we enabled all the advanced graphics options except for VSync.
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes is a very GPU intensive game and also requires a hefty CPU at times. The game contains a built-in performance test that utilizes the game engine to generate several different action scenes along with a coffee argument as a sideline distraction before the war starts. We found the performance test gives a good indication of how well your system will perform throughout the game on average.
Rise of Legends
Like most real-time strategy games this game is very CPU intensive but still offers a very visual experience. In order to experience the game properly you need a fast CPU, very good memory subsystem, and a decent GPU to play at the higher resolutions. We utilize FRAPS to capture the results from our replay file. Our benchmark consists of a one on one player game that takes approximately an hour to complete with some significant action throughout the game. Our camera movements are constant as we try to out play each other with a general tank rush between the two Vinci sides every few minutes. We set all video options to high but disable AA although we found it makes very little difference in the performance of the game at the lower resolutions.
Gaming Summary
We get tired of repeating ourselves but once again if you utilize the same chipset you can expect the same basic results during benchmark testing. The differences between each board are minor and during actual game play we could not tell any differences amongst the motherboards tested today. The Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H is just as competitive as the other P965 motherboards and while not leading the benchmarks, it was very consistent in scoring in the middle to upper ranges on each game.
We did not experience any issues during testing or during game play with the Foxconn board. We generally play every game for at least a couple of hours on each board to ensure there are no issues such as overheating, stuttering, or network issues when playing on-line with a various combination of components.
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a variety of current games. We ran benchmarks with our standard 1280x1024 resolution. Given the number of users that run 19 inch LCDs these days, 1280x1024 represents one of the most commonly used resolutions.
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 the highest quality graphics settings available in the video settings.
Half Life 2: Lost Coast
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 highest visual quality settings possible were used with HDR enabled for our tests.
Quake 4
We utilize the nettimedemo test rather than the timedemo option for motherboard benchmarking of Quake 4. To be clear, this means our test results focus mostly on the performance one would experience during actual game play. Additionally, Quake 4 limits frame rate to 60 fps during gameplay whether or not VSync is enabled. Our benchmark utilizes the IdNetDemo. This demo includes mainly outdoor areas with numerous players trying to wipe each other out. We tested the game with High Quality settings (uncompressed normal maps), and we enabled all the advanced graphics options except for VSync.
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes is a very GPU intensive game and also requires a hefty CPU at times. The game contains a built-in performance test that utilizes the game engine to generate several different action scenes along with a coffee argument as a sideline distraction before the war starts. We found the performance test gives a good indication of how well your system will perform throughout the game on average.
Rise of Legends
Like most real-time strategy games this game is very CPU intensive but still offers a very visual experience. In order to experience the game properly you need a fast CPU, very good memory subsystem, and a decent GPU to play at the higher resolutions. We utilize FRAPS to capture the results from our replay file. Our benchmark consists of a one on one player game that takes approximately an hour to complete with some significant action throughout the game. Our camera movements are constant as we try to out play each other with a general tank rush between the two Vinci sides every few minutes. We set all video options to high but disable AA although we found it makes very little difference in the performance of the game at the lower resolutions.
Gaming Summary
We get tired of repeating ourselves but once again if you utilize the same chipset you can expect the same basic results during benchmark testing. The differences between each board are minor and during actual game play we could not tell any differences amongst the motherboards tested today. The Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H is just as competitive as the other P965 motherboards and while not leading the benchmarks, it was very consistent in scoring in the middle to upper ranges on each game.
We did not experience any issues during testing or during game play with the Foxconn board. We generally play every game for at least a couple of hours on each board to ensure there are no issues such as overheating, stuttering, or network issues when playing on-line with a various combination of components.
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atlr - Friday, April 6, 2007 - link
A P9657AA-8EKRS2H / P9657AA-8KS2H BIOS dated April 5, 2007 has been released.No description about what's different though.
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/EN-US/service/downlo...">http://www.foxconnchannel.com/EN-US/ser...9657AA-8...
Sh0ckwave - Sunday, December 31, 2006 - link
343fsb is crap. no one will buy this for overclocking.ssiu - Thursday, January 11, 2007 - link
Seems like this could be a good option for ultra-budget E4300 overclocking. 9x343FSB = 3.087Ghz is pretty good. Save $30 on motherboard, use stock heatsink and save $$, save some more with cheaper DDR2-667 memory, etc.yyrkoon - Thursday, December 28, 2006 - link
Wouldnt it be nice is manufactures started making mother boards with loads of features, but without all the unnecessary stuff like SLI, dual GbE etc ?Personally, Id like to see a board like the Asus Striker, or ABIT IN9 32x-MAX, that didn't have SLI, and dual GbE. SO in other words, Something along the lines of these types of boards, but with the latest chip sets, eSATA (maybe), loads of disk ports, etc.
BladeVenom - Thursday, December 28, 2006 - link
I'd like to see at least one company make a motherboard with no legacy ports, and no built in audio. Who needs it, and why pay for it if you don't.Beachspree - Friday, December 29, 2006 - link
I'll keep repeating this with each review in the hope of getting a reply. ;-)I was wondering why the Firewire performance is so poor in these reviews:
Firewire 400 gets a best throughput of 230.6Mb/s
It is known that Macs have poor USB 2 performance but look at the Firewire results by Barefeats:
http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html">http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html
http://www.barefeats.com/hard70.html">http://www.barefeats.com/hard70.html
Without the perfect conditions of a RAM disk, and without cacheing turned off, they get real world performance of up to:
Firewire 400: 304 Mb/s (31% faster than PC)
Firewire 800: 464 Mb/s (41% faster than PC)
For comparison, Macs are getting lousy USB 2 performance. Intel Macs have improved it but that takes it from around 136Mb/s to 168Mb/s. That's 75% slower.
Given the importance of Firewire in multimedia applications, for which it can be critical, does this poor performance not warrant a mention?
To be clearer:
Can we please have some real world figures for USB 2.0, eSATA and Firewire 400/800 transfers under default settings and off an internal 7200 HDD you standardize on. That's what most people actually do when the backup, so that's what we need to see in order to make informed choices. I suspect these data rates you keep publishing are ones we will actually never see.
I suggest, also, that poor Firewire performance in Windows is more important than poor USB on Macs. They always have Firewire built in and tend to it on peripherals, while Windows users often make do with USB until they get into music or video editing when they then find the need for Firewire and hit this poor performance just when they start needing mission critical performance. I'm talking about dropped frames and music latency.
Why is that ignored in all your motherboard reviews?
Thanks.
SonicIce - Thursday, December 28, 2006 - link
What speakers or headphones do you use to test audio?Orbs - Thursday, December 28, 2006 - link
I have this board in a machine I'm using as a personal server. I paired it with G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ (2 x 1GB of DDR2 800) and it would crash randomly with that ram. After talking to G.Skill, it seems like there is an issue with that ram and all reference-based P965 boards including this board.Memtest86 also failed test #5 consistently with this ram on this board.
G.Skill is sending me replacement ram (their F2-6400PHU2-2GBNR) which should be here next week. Hopefully it's more stable.
Orbs - Thursday, December 28, 2006 - link
Just to be clear, I'm not saying this board or Foxconn is at fault for the compatibility issues, I'm just noting my experience so others don't run into the same problem.