HARDWARE

MSI Z77 MPOWER Mainboard - Military Class Burn-in Test Passed (Part 5)

4/9/2013 2:55:05 PM

We used Cinebench 11.5. All of our tests ran 5 times and the average result was put into the performance chart.

Cinebench 11.5

Cinebench 11.5

We used Fritz Chess Benchmark during a long period of time and it proved to be very visual. It created repetitive results; the performance in it is scaled perfectly depending on the number of involved computational threads.

Fritz Chess Benchmark

Fritz Chess Benchmark

A small video in x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 was encrypted in two tests then the whole process was repeated 4 times. The average of the second passage was showed in the following diagram:

x264 HD Benchmark

X264 HD Benchmark

We measured Adobe Photoshop’s performance, using our own standards created from Retouch Artists Photoshop Speed Test which had been creatively adjusted. It included typical corrections of four 10MP pictures from a digital camera.

Adobe Photoshop CS5

Adobe Photoshop CS5

In test of storing a 1GB data compressed by using LZMA2 computation, while other compressing settings were kept at default

7-zip 9.20

7-zip 9.20

Like in compressing data test, 16 million of Pi numbers were calculated, the better. This is the only standard where the number of processing cores doesn’t matter, as it creates a single-thread load.

SuperPi 16M

SuperPi 16M

Because we didn’t overclock graphics in our mainboard review, the next diagram only showed CPU experiment from 3DMark 11 – Physics Score. This result was witnessed in a special physical test emulating a complicated gaming system that works with a lot of projects.

CPU experiment from 3DMark 11 – Physics Score

CPU experiment from 3DMark 11 – Physics Score

FarCry 2

FarCry 2

Resident Evil 5 is also an internal performance test. Its peculiarity may have advantage of the multi-core processing system. The test was run in DirectX 10 at 1920x1080pixel resolution and high graphics. The average after 5 times was done for further research.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5

Batman: Arkham City also reacted forcefully to any change in CPU clock frequency, but it used DirectX 11. We ran the game’s built-in standard 5 times with high graphic setting then took the average of 5 runs for the diagram.

Batman

Batman

We saw a good illustration for a fact that has been known, is related mainboards working in similar test condition delivered the same performance. Thus, there’s no wonder that MSI Z77 MPOWER in nominal was quite similar to performance of participating components.

Overclocking mode

During the processing and overclocking memory, different mainboards got different results, we wrapped them up in this table for your convenience.

Processing and overclocking memory

Processing and overclocking memory

Cinebench 11.5

Cinebench 11.5

Fritz Chess Benchmark

Fritz Chess Benchmark

x264 HD Benchmark 4.0

x264 HD Benchmark 4.0

Adobe Photoshop CS5

Adobe Photoshop CS5

7-zip 9.20

7-zip 9.20

SuperPi 16M

SuperPi 16M

3DMark 11

3DMark 11

FarCry 2

FarCry 2

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5

Batman

Batman

Because MSI Z77 MPOWER didn’t allow us to overclock the test CPU to its maximum frequency, it appears in the lower part of the diagram. However, I want to focus on that in some cases it performed best among all other mainboards having the similar overclocking interval, for instance, in tests from Adobe Photoshop CS5 and SuperPi. Additionally, it worked better than we had expected in gaming tests. Of course, the difference between MSI Z77 MPOWER and other mainboard models is very small ye, at least, giving us the right to state surely that MSI Z77 MPOWER has no performance issues, if you are using an appropriate BIOS version, well.

Power consumption

We measured power consumption by using Extech Power Analyzer 380803. This device was connected before the PSU and measures the power consumption of the entire system (without the monitor), including the power loss which took place in the PSU itself. In the idle mode we booted the system and waited until it stopped logging into the hard disk. After that, we used LinX to load the CPU. For a more illustrative picture there are graphs that showed the increase in power consumption relying on the number of execution threads running in LinX (at both the default and overclocked system settings). The results of MSI Z77 MPOWER were marked with a darker color for your convenience.

Because our compatibility issue we found between Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH and Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH mainboards is our original Cooler Master Real Power M850 supply. We had to replace it with Enermax NAXN ENM850EW. All PSU share the same specifications, but Enermax NAXN ENM850EWTis 1-3W more energy-efficient than Cooler Master Unit. So as to be able to use the previous results received, we decided to make up for this difference in efficiency by adding 2 W to all new power readings, hence we could still compare their results against the power consumption of all early  tested products.

Idle mode

Idle mode

1 Thread

1 Thread

100% Load

100% Load

The diagram shows that MSI Z77 MPOWER mainboard proved fairly average power consumption in nominal mode. However, this is not actually true, and the board is not high-efficient. Unluckily, you couldn’t see this advantage with default setting, because in this case the power-saving mode only is only partly operational and “Intel Turbo Boost” didn’t work accurately. Though, even when you manually activate all of power-saving modes and switch the CPU to its originally nominal setting, the mainboard changes. At 48W, MSI Z77 MPOWER can easily become the most power-saving mainboard in idle mode. Under heavy load, some rival consume less power, yet it is still among the leaders.

Power consumption

Power consumption

In overclocked mode, the board seemed good, showing off lower power consumption than most of the rivals as all power-saving technologies were kept intact. However, the positive result of this triumph was shadowed by the fact that we couldn’t overclock our processor to the maximum, because the board didn’t allow increasing Vcore CPU in Offset mode and thus we had to overclock without adjusting CPU voltage.

Idle

Idle

1 Thread

1 Thread

100% Load

100% Load

 

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