Testing and Comparison

For testing as I said I used my C2D6420 and 2 gigs of Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500 Ram, the same CPU and Ram were used for all systems in the testing.

The only tests I ran are SiSoft Sandra and Super PI for comparisons, I was more concerned about CPU, Chipset and Memory performance above all else.

All the tests were run three times each and average out to get the results shown in the charts.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

Benchmark the memory bandwidth of your computer. Shows how your memory sub-systems compare. The benchmark is based on the well-known STREAM memory benchmark. (Higher is better)

As we can see, the 975X is essentially an older chipset, at least in computer age, it doesn’t perform as well as the newer ones do.

Here we have the results for Sandra Memory Latency

Benchmark the latency (response time) of processors’ caches and memory. Shows how your processors’ caches and memory sub-systems compare. The latency of caches is measured in processor clocks (i.e. how many clocks it takes for the data to be ready) as it is dependent on the processor clock speed.

The latency of memory is measured in nanoseconds as it is typically independent on processor clock speed(lower is better)

Close to the Intel G33 chipset performance…

Next up is Sandra Multi-Core Efficiency

Benchmark the multi-core efficiency of the processors. Shows how efficient the processor cores and their inter-connects are in comparison to other types to other typical processors.

The ability of the cores to process data blocks and pass them to another core for processing (producer-consumer paradigm) of different sizes and different chain sizes is measured. The efficiency of the inter-connect between cores is thus benchmarked; however, the number of cores (and processors) also counts as more data buffers can be processed simultaneously (aka “in flight”).

True multi-core processors that have shared L2/L3 caches will thus perform much better than cores that have separate caches and are connected by the traditional FSB.

Inter-Core Bandwidth :Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Inter-Core Latency :Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better

Here we see the Foxconn board being very competitive and dominating most of the other boards in this chart.

SiSoft Sandra Processor Multi-Media

Benchmark the (W)MMX, SSE/2/3/4 processor units. Shows how your processors handle multi-media instructions and data. Such operations are used by more specialized software, e.g. image manipulation, video decoders/encoders, and games. The test involves the generation of Mandelbrot Set fractals that are used to realistically describe and generate natural objects such as mountains or clouds. By using various multi-media extensions (Wireless) MMX, 3DNow!, SSE(2/3/4) better performance is achieved. (Higher is better)

Surprisingly very close scores all around for this test.

Now we have Sandra Power Management Efficiency

Benchmark the power management efficiency of the processors. Shows how efficient the power management of your processors is. The ability of the processors to step-down in frequency and voltage at different workloads is measured. The more a processor steps down in both frequency and voltage the better the score at the specific workload. The test stops when the workload is too great the processor even at 100% efficiency.

The ALU/FPU score is a geometric mean based on the whole range of workloads; thus the power of the processor does matter in obtaining a higher score.

The Power Efficiency score is a geometric mean based on the supported workloads only. Thus the power of the processors does not matter. (Higher is better)

Pretty much all the same…

The final test is Super Pi calculated to 1 million places, of course lower score is better, meaning less time to calculate.

Not the best not the worst.. eh..

So we can see that for the price this board is not that bad really, considering how inexpensive it is it would make a nice secondary system, or even a nice kids system

Summary and Comments

The Foxconn 975X7AB is essentially the last generation chipset and can be had very inexpensively many places online, it still has some life left in it yet, and can still be a very useful motherboard depending on the situation.

For my needs the board works perfectly with no problems at all, the system runs 24/7 under full load, and I’ve had no problems at all with it.

It’s a great board to build a second system with, we’re upgrading all the time and this board could make a nice home for all those extra parts we’ve got lying around.

DragonSteelMods gives the Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Motherboard a 4.5 out of 5 score.

Pros:

• -Nice layout
• -Lots of extras
• -Crossfire support
• -Low price
• -Decent performer for the price

Cons:

• -Nothing really

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