Integrated Device Testing

Audio Subsystem Testing

Audio Playback Testing

Using a selection of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music tracks and Windows 10 Groove Music applet, 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 Line-In audio port is used for side speaker connection in a 7.1 configuration.

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 quality difference between the listening sessions.

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, requiring minimal tweaking of the recording volume for optimal operation. However, recording quality was found to be best with recording volume set to 75% and with Microphone Boost set to +10dB. Audio pickup quality did not change when the provided software audio tools where activated, including Noise Suppression and Acoustic Echo Cancellation.

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 III and SATA-Express ports, the native USB 3.0 ports (USB 3.1 Gen1), and the native USB 3.1 Gen2 Type A and Type C 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 3.0 x4 bus. Note that the bus speed is limited to 1600 MB/s when using a PCI-Express 2.0 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.

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Across the board, drives connected to the native chipset and Ryzen 2 CPU controlled ports performed well within specs. The only oddity was the Samsung 950 M.2 drive's performance on the 80mm port located in between the outer PCIe x16 slots. Performance for the drive was capped at 1600 MB/s instead of the expected 2300+ MB/s because of the port's PCIe 2.0 implementation. However, 1600 MB/s is still plenty fast (read noticeably faster than SATA III). Drive performance connected to the USB 3.1 ports were equally impressive, matching that of the native SATA III ports. The drive performance on the USB 3.0 ports matched expectations as well, with that of the Ryzen 2 port falling slightly behind the drive performance on the X470 chipset port.

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 GigE and WiFi-based 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 theoretical maximum throughput for the integrated wireless AC controller is 108 MB/s (867 Mbps).

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The integrated Intel I211 controller performed well within expectations, averaging 117 MB/s for both upload and download tests. The Intel 9260 802.11ac wireless controller performance was significantly lower with both upload and download speeds averaging between 70 and 80 MB/s. The wireless controller performance suffers in comparison to the wired controller because of packet loss and transfer overhead inherent to over-the-air transmission. The CPU utilization remained strong during all testing, averaging well below 5% with spikes not breaking the 10% mark.

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