CPUZ
We have been using the current test platform for the last six months so setup on another Intel motherboard is like business as usual around here. That said I had no relative problems getting a first BOOT post on the system from the initial time I hit the power button. Usually we just plug in a VGA card and a single stick of memory, but this time I went ahead and just setup the system in it's ready to rock-n-roll state and hit the button. I know I am a silicon cowboy and should follow procedure, but damn the powers that be anyways. XFX included the SATA drivers on a floppy disc bless their hearts, so after hitting the F6 Key when prompted in XP I was able to easily install them and get XP to recognize my drives in a RAID Array.
Installing Windows Vista does not require a driver for the OS to recognize the RAID array as that OS has native support within the installation app. The board was tested fully with the entire spectrum of tests in the Win XP environment. Windows Vista testing was all real world and hands on gaming as the current tests most reviewers use are not Vista ready as of yet. The board comes fully Vista compatible, and we had no issues while using the 680i LT SLI motherboard from a user's perspective that would negate the use of Vista and this series of motherboard.
We will transfer the entire test platform over to Vista by the end of summer as by that time all the software that we use in our tests will work in that OS. I did not encounter any random or unknown system errors using either OS. Just as I finished this review up we received a new copy of SYSmark 2007 and will begin implementing it into our current test platform immediately. Test scores vary a bit from test to test so we test everything three times and then balance out the scores and then average them for better accuracy of the results. This is a very time consuming process to undertake, and for those who think the reviewer's life is a cozy one think again as this is lots and lots of work just to get the score not to mention all the other aspects of testing and writing the review itself. NVIDIA has done a good job with the drivers for this platform and we were able to run the board for weeks with different OS environments without any blue screens or unrecognized drives/devices in the device manager.
Test System
- XFX 680i LT SLI Motherboard
- Intel Pentium 670 3.8GHz CPU
- Standard Retail Cooler
- 2GB Corsair DDR2 800MHz memory
- XFX 7900GT video card running 520MHz/720MHz core/memory
- ASUS 16X DVD-ROM Drive
- Ultra X-Finity 650W PSU
- Windows XP SP2 /Windows Vista
Test Software
- FEAR 1024x768 max settings Performance demo
- Doom 3 1024x768 HQ settings Timedemo demo1
- Aquamark 3 1024x768 no AA 4x AF, Default demo
- 3DMark06 Default run 1280x1024
- 3DMark05 Default run 1024x768
- PCMark04 Memory test
- Sisoft Sandra 2005 SR2 Memory test
- PCMark05
- SuperPi
- Sysmark 2004 Patch 2
