Gaming: X2, 3DMarks and Far Cry 1.1

X2: The Threat


VIA K8T890 - PCI Express Reaches AMD - Chipsets 54

We turned off antialiasing in order to decrease the value of the graphics card here, and while the results were impressive, there is little differentiation between the boards. 

3D Mark 2001


VIA K8T890 - PCI Express Reaches AMD - Chipsets 55

3DMark03


VIA K8T890 - PCI Express Reaches AMD - Chipsets 56

VIA K8T890 - PCI Express Reaches AMD - Chipsets 57

3DMark 2001 scores nearing 28,000 are damn nice to see and even the 3DMark03 scores around 12,000 should be expected at this level of system and graphics card.  The K8T890 did score slightly slower on the 03 test, by about 4%.  I was hoping the fill rate tests would show some advantage to the PCIe system, but that was not the case as the two boards scored very closely.

Far Cry


VIA K8T890 - PCI Express Reaches AMD - Chipsets 58

VIA K8T890 - PCI Express Reaches AMD - Chipsets 59

Far Cry is a new addition to our suite of motherboard and platform tests and is an attempt to test the PCI Express bandwidth in a real world application that gamers actually use.  We kept the resolution at its highest and used an outdoor level demo custom made here at PCP, in hopes that the large textures would show the bandwidth differences.  After enabling 4xAA and 8xAF on it, the K8T890 board was able to inch by the K8T800 Pro board by a very slight margin.

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