My Benchmarking Thread *56k Beware*

[Sideways8LV]

So this is going to be my benchmarking thread for what will be the evolution from my existing setup to my new build, plus the added AMD/Nvidia Hybrid test. So 4 tests in total.

So to start, the first test!...

Here's a pic of the inside of my b0x. got a 120Gb Kingston SSD and a 500Gb Seagate in there at the moment. Not a lot of storage space I agree, but up until recently I had been using (read:'struggling to make room') on 3x 2Tb WD Element External drives, which are now sold. My new case has plenty of storage space though which I plan on making good use of over time.



The specs are as follows:

Here are some benchmarks:

3DMark06

3DMark Vantage

3DMark11

Now for some game benchmarks:

Just Cause 2

Dawn of War 2

Company of Heroes

Metro 2033

Far Cry 2

Funnily enough, the only game that lags at these settings is Metro 2033 which is the only game that uses Nvidia PhysX as far as I know.

Oh and in case anyone was wondering, I'm testing at 1280x720 because I'm running this on a 42" LG Plasma and I can't read text at 1920x1080 from my sofa

With the new build I am going to see the difference it makes on Borderlands 2 and Max Payne 3 as both of those games I have had to sacrifice Anti-Aliasing. Borderlands 2 in particular gives me FPS drops in Caustic Caverns and when there is a lot of physics action. So will be interested to see the improvement.

Hopefully I'll be updating tomorrow or Friday whenever my parts are ready, where the next test will be with:

i7 3770k @ 4.2-4.4Ghz
Asus Z77 Sabertooth Intel Z77
Prolimatech Megahalems Black CPU Cooler w/ x2 Akasa Apache Black Fans
16Gb Corsair Vengeance Black
1x MSI 7850 2Gb Power Edition
850w Corsair PSU
120Gb SSD

*excited!*

 

[Sideways8LV]

The first test is as already posted.

The second, again as mentioned at the end of the last post does have the RAM and Processor upgrade.

Third test will include a second MSI 7850 2Gb Power edition in Crossfire.

Finally the fourth test will be the i7 build only with crossfired 7850's and a Nvidia Geforce 550Ti 1Gb to handle Physx.

 

[Sideways8LV]

It actually worked!

The i7 was a vast improvement but then crossfire was dramatically better and then the dedicated PhysX card was just the icing on the cake!

Will post tomorrow with my results. Need sleep after all that tinkering heh

 

[Sideways8LV]

The plasma is just for now. I can play games at 1080p no problem and would happily benchmark at that if requested. I always use 720p as for now the machine doubles as everyday desktop and I like to see what's on the screen without getting up close and personal like I would with an actual monitor.

I can't do everything at once though and a triple screen setup is on my wishlist heh.

What's AB?

 

[Sideways8LV]

This b0x is by no means solely for gaming at 720p. Being used to that resolution was a combination of old 720p max LCD TV and the i3 530 struggling with resolutions above that. Was so accustomed to working at that res, I hadn't even thought to start my benchmark at 1080p.

To be honest it's only really RTS/Sim games that have the tiny text, most others are fine at 1080p. I've seen mods to increase font size in some cases, but knew nothing about windows DPI so I'll look into that.

I'm familiar with MSI Afterburner and was gonna grab a copy today so I could keep an eye on temps anyways, as obviously the Nvidia card is veeery close to the second 7850, causing it to run 8-10 degrees hotter than the other two at all times.

I'll do some screen caps tonight.