Integrated Device Testing
Audio Subsystem Testing
Audio Playback Testing
Using a selection of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music tracks and Windows Media Player, the audio subsystem playback performance was tested for playback accuracy and fidelity.
Playback using the app provided test sounds and audio test tracks was clear and distortion free with the 7.1 speaker setup going through the integrated analogue audio ports. Note that the side channel output must be attached to the Line-In port when audio is set for 7.1 speaker output.
Listening tests using the selected audio tracks were performed with a Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming audio headset as well as a 5.1 speaker setup to exercise the subsystem's audio fidelity. In both cases, audio reproduction was clear and distortion-free with little difference in terms of audio reproduction quality.
Microphone Port Testing
For testing the board's Microphone input port, the microphone from a Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming audio headset was used to capture a 10 second spoken phrase with the assistance of the Microsoft Voice Recorder application. The resulting audio file was saved to the desktop and played back using Windows Media Player.
Audio pickup was distortion free without Microphone Boost enabled, but was best with Microphone Boost set to +10dB with a recording volume of 75%. Also, there was no quality difference between audio pickup in normal mode and with the Noise Suppression and Acoustic Echo Cancellation functionality active.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
To validate that the board’s device ports were functioning correctly, we connected an Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SATA III SSD to the system and ran the ATTO Disk Benchmark against the drive. The SSD was directly connected to the native SATA 3 ports, the SATA-Express device ports, the USB 3.0 ports, and USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. NGFF port testing was performed using an M.2 based Samsung 950 Pro PCIe M.2 2280 256GB SSD. The M.2 device was tested using the board's integrated M.2 slot. USB port testing performed using the SSD in a USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatible enclosure. ATTO was configured to test against transfer sizes from 0.5 to 8192 KB with Total Length set to 512 MB and Queue Depth set to 10. The M.2 SSD selected for testing has a maximum read throughput of 2200 MB/s and a write throughput of 900 MB/s over a PCI-Express x4 bus. The selected SSD has a maximum read throughput of 540 MB/s and a write throughput of 520 MB/s on a SATA III controller. The drive tests were repeated three times with the highest repeatable read and write speeds recorded.
Across all testing interfaces, the SSDs performed well within expectations with read performance pushing over 530 MB/s and the write performance topping 550 MB/s. The only exception was the performance when connected to the USB 3.0 port, which settled a bit below 450 MB/s for both read and write speeds (again, as expected). The Samsung 950 Pro drive performed also performed well, pushing the physical speed limits of the drive on the integrated PCIe x4 M.2 slot.
SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Test
In conjunction with Windows Performance Monitor, SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Meter application was used to measure the upload and download performance of the motherboards integrated network controllers. Speed Meter was used to measure average network throughput in MB/s with Windows Performance Monitor used to measure average CPU utilization during the tests.
The LanBench network benchmarking software was used to generate send and receive traffic between the local and remote systems over a five minute period with packet size set to 4096 and connection count set to 20. A LanBench server was set up on the remote system to generate or receive traffic for the tests performed. The upload and download tests were repeated three times with the highest repeatable average throughput, the lowest repeatable average CPU utilization, and lowest repeatable performance spike percentages recorded.
Note that that theoretical maximum throughput for a Gigabit Ethernet adapter is 125 MB/s (1.0 Gbps).
The integrated GigE Intel I218-V network controller demonstrated strong performance with speeds averaging 117 MB/s for both upload and download. The measured CPU utilization remained low as well, average under 5% during all tests with minimal performance spikes observed during the test runs.
I just skip to the conclusion
I just skip to the conclusion to see if ‘CMOS battery placement’ is listed as a strength or a weakness. That’s pretty much all I need to know about a motherboard.
Same here although, I can
Same here although, I can count no of times I changed CMOS battery on fingers of my hand. Still I look for CMOS battery placement on any motherboard.
Windows only is major
Windows only is major weakness to me.
Do I notice a new (at least
Do I notice a new (at least to me) type of release lever for the pcie 16 slots? How is this one activated?
If a MB maker anywhere has designed a release lever that does not require losing the skin on your hand to remove a graphics card, I would love to know about it.
I had an old motherboard with
I had an old motherboard with an AGP retention mechanism that was essentially 2 zip ties that stood up along either side of the video card, molded into the plastic slot if I remember correctly, and then a little plastic “8” went over both to cinch down the pcb.
newish, of a sorts. It the
newish, of a sorts. It the same standard push-down release (triangular in shape) at the lower end of the PCIe slot with an embedded LED for RGB "glowy" support. Thus, the clear color of the plastic tab 🙂