3D Performance Results

Once we completed our CPU test suite, we took some time to play some games with the TPU community to get an overall feel for gaming on the X79R-AX. After a couple of days we settled in to complete our 3D benchmarking, feeling confident that the ECS X79R-AX was going to put on a good show. Let's take a look at what numbers the board provided.

3DMark11

Once we ran 3DMark11, it became clear that a trend was emerging. The numbers easily show that there are benefits to be had in Intel's high-performance platform.

Civilization 5

Our first real-world 3D performance test comes in the form of Civilization 5, using the included benchmark. We let the game recommend us settings, and then disabled V-SYNC and AA to eliminate bottlenecks introduced by the GPU itself. We were a bit disappointed in the ECS X79R-AX, as it ended up right in the middle of the pack. However, the Civilization 5 benchmark does serve to show that although the Intel X79 platform excels in some workloads, it's not always going to beat out all the other options on the market today.

F1 2010

Our second real-world 3D performance test comes from CodeMasters, in the form of the "F1 2010" included benchmark. We let the game recommend us settings, which included 8xAA with our newly added HD6950 2GB from Sapphire. Again we were impressed, as F1 2010 proves to be one of our personal favorites, and the ECS X79R-AX again noticed higher performance than the majority of other products we've tested in the past few months. However it was again beat out by the Intel Z68 boards with higher default clock speeds.