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 Z68-ITX WiFi. After a couple of days we settled in to complete our 3D benchmarking, feeling confident that the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi 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. We were completely surprised by the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi here, with it giving us lower results than any other Socket 1155 product. It was so low, in fact, that once again we found ourselves trying an OS re-install to see if some weird software issue was at play, but the exact same results were given on the new OS. Something is fishy.

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 weren't disappointed in the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi, as it managed to duplicate numbers given by the P67-based boards we looked at earlier. However, because the numbers are so close, we as sure we have to replace this benchmark in the near future. The Civilization 5 benchmark does serve to show that everything is working as it should, as any deviations from the average numbers here indicates a problem, and the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi showed no issues.

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 HD 6950 2 GB from Sapphire. Again we find the numbers were what we expected, just slightly below the P67-based numbers, affected by the lower memory bandwidth we noticed in AIDA64.