CPU Performance Results

We spent a couple of days with the Biostar TZ68A+ before beginning our performance testing, running various configurations and CPUs, and checking hardware compatibility. We verified our power consumption numbers using various different power supplies, and played a few hours of games with some members of the TPU community to get an overall feel for the board, and to verify stability. Once completed, we tore down the system, mounted our Noctua cooler, and put the board through the paces. On to the results!

SuperPi

SuperPi serves as our memory-focused benchmark, being highly single-threaded. The Biostar TZ68A+ put out fantastic numbers here, near the top of the pack. We were expecting a much lower result, based on cost alone, but we couldn't have been more wrong.

wPrime

wPrime is much more CPU-focused, but memory plays its role as well. In this test, the numbers were much closer, and this time faster than even the P7P55D-E PRO's results, which is more in line with what we expect from the Z68 chipset and a SandyBridge CPU, as the cache on the chip is shared between both the CPU, and the onboard GPU.

WinRAR

A new addition to our motherboard benchmarking suite is the built-in benchmark that is part of the WinRAR software suite. In this test, the Biostar TZ68A+ put up good numbers, matching the best results from our P67 platform testing.

AIDA64

We employed AIDA64's memory bench to highlight memory bandwidth. We isolate the write performance metric as it serves as a good indicator of overall memory performance. Again the TZ68A+ ended up in the middle of the pack, most likely due to the shared CPU cache.

HandBrake Encoding

Handbrake is used for encoding testing, and provided results much similar to the previous benchmarks, with the Biostar TZ68A+ right in the middle of the pack again.

CineBench Encoding

In Cinebench, the Biostar TZ68A+ followed the emerging pattern, right in the middle, but still put up a decent result.