Gigabyte G1 Assassin and Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Review – 5ghz

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte G1 Assassin (Bundle)3. Gigabyte G1 Assassin (Board)4. Gigabyte G1 Assassin (Bios)5. Intel Core i7 990x6. Testing Methodology7. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra8. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit9. Synthetic: 3dMark 1110. Synthetic: SSD Performance (6Gbit)11. Real World: Flash HD Performance12. Real WOrld: BluRay Playback with Cyberlink Powerdvd 10 Ultra13. Real World: Video Encoding14. Real World: File Copying with Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 15. Image Quality: Nvidia GTX58016. Image Quality: AMD HD697017. Single screen gaming: Alien V Predator18. Single screen gaming: Lost Planet 219. Single screen gaming: Far Cry 220. Single screen gaming: Resident Evil 521. Single screen gaming: Mafia 222. Single screen gaming: Tom Clancy Hawx 223. Single screen gaming: Dead Space 224. 3 screen gaming: F1 201025. 3 screen gaming: Colin McRae Dirt 226. 3 screen gaming: Crysis Warhead27. 3 screen gaming: Metro 203328. 3 screen gaming: Left4Dead 229. 3 screen gaming: Battleforge30. 3 screen gaming: Media Of Honor SP31. 3 screen gaming: Devil May Cry 432. Killer Nic Performance33. 2 way CrossfireX Testing34. 3 way CrossfireX Testing35. SLI Testing36. Overclocking37. Closing Thoughts38. View All Pages

Enthusiast customers are spoilt for choice when buying a new motherboard. Asus, MSI and Gigabyte are all going head to head to create the most eye catching, feature packed, overclocking friendly boards to suit those with deeper than average pockets.

One such product which caught our eye recently was the G1 Assassin from Gigabyte, which on paper is one of the most impressive motherboards they have ever produced. The G1 Assassin is based around the X58 chipset, Intel's high end LGA1366 socket which is due to be replaced near the end of this year.

There are three products in this G1 range. The Guerilla, The Sniper and the Assassin – all of which have received ‘characterisation' from the Gigabyte team (see image below), almost as if you were picking a person for a computer game. The G1 Assassin we are looking at today will make a considerable dent in your bank balance, costing in excess of £400. You need to be a serious, wealthy enthusiast to be contemplating a purchase of this board.

As you can see from the image above, this board can support up to 24GB of DDR3 at timings to 2200mhz. It can also accept four graphics cards (2×16 and 2×8). There is also a Creative HW Audio 20K2 sound card on board and a Killer E2100 Nic for all your networking demands. It even has support for 16 power phase and delivers USB 3.0 and Sata 6GBps connectivity. It also supports Quad CrossfireX and three way SLI, out of the box.

Today KitGuru will find out if this board is worth your time and money, and thanks to Intel we have their latest Core i7 990x Extreme Edition to partner up Gigabyte's latest and greatest X58 board. Our goal is to hit 5.0ghz on modest liquid cooling, a rather tall order for the hot running 12 core flagship processor. Getting 4.8ghz stable with a 980x was a challenge, outside the realms of exotic watercooling or phase change anyway, so we hope the 990x allows us a little more headroom today.

Gigabyte have wrapped up their G1 Assassin motherboard in a huge box, twice the depth we are used to seeing in our labs. The artwork is also extremely impressive, giving the indication that you will find some very cool army related kit inside.

Our box didn't have any sata cables bundled, but we would assume that a previous reviewer has decided he needed a few spares. There is a three way SLI connector included, as well as a standard 2 way SLI connector, and a crossfire connector. They include a backplate, stickers, software disc, poster, misc literature, manual, screws and other goodies.

For good measure they throw in a USB 3.0 and eSATA/USB Front Access Control Panel. On the far left there is a ‘Quick Boost' button which overclocks the system with a single button press.

The Gigabyte G1 Assassin is a stunning showcase of the highest engineering standards, even to rival industry leaders Asus.

The G1 board features a new heatpipe design which was created to deal with excessive temperatures. We love the green and black colour scheme, its very distinctive. There is a lot of attention to detail, such as little ‘bullets' visible on the heatsink areas, to make it look like the clip of a machine gun.

The heatsink takes heat from critically important parts of the motherboard, such as the CPU VRM section and pushes it across the fins. Gigabyte claim that the heatpipe design utilises a ‘unique fluting technology, similar to a rifle barrel fluting, which allows for maximum heat dispersion'.

The board is also loaded with smart fan pin headers and is exactly how we like it. Regardless of case fan positions, this board allows for cables to be connected in all corners of the PCB layout.

Gigabyte are using high quality Nichicon MUSE ES series and MW Series Bi polarised audio capacitors at each channel layout. These are professional grade audio capacitors which deliver very high levels of sound resolution. there is even a built in front audio headphone amplifier which can drive high loads (up to 150ohms). The amplifier also features a wide band width, low noise, high skew rate with low distortion for great quality output. There are also 4 additional amplifiers onboard for the center/sub woofer, rear speaker and side surround and line out connectors.

The image above left shows the 16 phase power capabilities of this board. This dual power switching and Power phase boost with multi gear switching can help with overclocking and stability, when pushing processors higher. Gigabyte recommend that 1366 Extreme Edition users populate both phase power ports, so you will need a capable power supply.

The motherboard features a Killer E2100, dedicated NPU with 1GB of DDR onboard. This will take the networking load from the main processor, freeing up CPU cycles for more important tasks, such as gaming. KitGuru really loves the Bigfoot technology and we have reviewed their products in the past, but we will delve into the networking performance again later in the review.

Gigabyte populate this board with Japanese Solid Capacitors which have a 50,000 hour operation time. The 2x Copper PCBs, Ferrite core chokes offer higher energy efficiency when compared to the common iron core chokes and lower RDS(on) MOSFETs that feature lower resistance.

The board supports up to 8 SATA devices, 2x Sata 2 (3GBps – white) connectors, and 6x Sata 3 capable connectors (6GBps – black).

Rear connectivity is strong with support for older PS2 connectors. Coaxial out. 4 x USB 2.0 ports, 4x USB 3.0 ports. Gigabit Lan, optical and full surround out.

Our final system build, which is liquid cooled by the new Antec Kuhler H20 620.

It is important to point out that this board is classed as an ‘XL-ATX' board measuring 345x262mm. This is larger than the ATX standard, which is 305x244mm.

While we didn't run into fitting issues in an Antec Twelve Hundred Chassis, it proved impossible to use the secondary Molex connector ( image above). There are two of these optional molex connectors on the PCB which aid PCIE stability when fully loaded in CrossfireX or SLI configurations. We actually found that we didn't need either of them connected throughout testing, but the power supply may block the lower molex connector, depending on the length of the chassis.

The Gigabyte Bios is an AWARD software design and is simple to navigate while offering all the settings you will ever need, especially when it comes to overclocking. We have included some images below for you to look through. We will get into the overclocking later in the review.

Intel were kind enough to send us one of the first 990x processors available to reviewers. Our sample is so new, the box artwork hasn't even been printed yet.

Inside, Intel include a small tube of thermal paste, and an upgraded ‘reference' Intel cooler, which is actually a huge step up from previous designs, a few years ago. We would assume that a large portion of the audience spending £800 on a processor will be using their own cooler, but at reference speeds we found this to be actually pretty good.

The Core i7 990x is Intel's new flagship processor to replace the 980x, which served KitGuru for a long time in one of our high end test beds. The chip is clocked at 3.46ghz with a maximum turbo frequency of 3.73ghz. It has a 12mb smart cache with 6 physical cores and 6 logical cores. A full list of specifications is available over here.

System validation is available over here.

For our review today we built a new system around the Gigabyte G1 Assassin motherboard. We are using the new Antec liquid cooler and 6GB of high performance Kingston DDR3- 2000mhz memory. As always, special thanks to all our partners for supplying the hardware today.

Gigabyte G1 Assassin Test system:
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Antec Kuhler H20 620 (full review forthcoming)
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB @ 2000mhz 9-10-9-31
Graphics : Sapphire HD6970 x 3, Inno3D GTX 580 x 2 (gaming tests) / Sapphire HD5870 Flex Edition CFx/MSI GTX 560 ti (productivity tests)
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB & Kingston HyperX Max 3.0
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay SBC-06d1S-U
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred (review forthcoming)
Monitors: 2 Prolite B2712HDS & Dell U2410 and Dell U3011 Ultrasharp.

Intel Core i5-2500k System:
Processor: Core i5-2500k
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600mhz
Power Supply: Antec High Current Pro 850W
Motherboard: ASRock P67 Extreme4
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Thermal Paste: Noctua NT H1
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Graphics: Gigabyte GTX460 OC
Drive: Intel X25-M SSD (160GB)
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit

Intel Core i7-2600k System:
Processor: Core i7-2600k
Memory: GSkill Ripjaws 4GB 2133mhz
Power Supply: Antec High Current Pro 850W
Motherboard: ASRock P67 Fatal1ty Pro
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Thermal Paste: Noctua NT H1
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Graphics: Inno3D GTX570
Drive: Intel X25-M SSD (160GB)
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit

Intel Core i5-655k System:
Processor: Intel Core i5 655k
Memory: Kingston 4GB DDR3 1600mhz
Motherboard: AsRock P55 Deluxe 3
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD6850
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower Grand 750W
Chassis: Antec Dark Fleet DF-85
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Drive: Kingston 128GB SSD

Intel Core i5-760 System:
Processor: Intel Core i5 760
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB 1600mhz
Motherboard: AsRock P55 Extreme4
Graphics Card: AMD HD6870
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower Grand 750W
Chassis: Antec Dark Fleet DF-85
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Drive: Kingston 128GB SSD

Intel Core i7 950 System
Processor: Intel Core i7 950
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB 1600mhz
Motherboard: AsRock X58 Extreme6
Graphics Card: AMD HD6850
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower Grand 750W
Chassis: Antec Dark Fleet DF-85
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Drive: Kingston 128GB SSD

Software:
Windows 7 64 Bit Enterprise Edition
Catalyst 11.2
Forceware 266.58
Fraps Professional
SiSoft Sandra
CPUz
GPUz
CPUID Hardware Monitor Professional
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
CyberLink PowerDvd 10 Ultra
Cyberlink Media Espresso
CrystalMark
HDTach
HQV Benchmark V 2.0
3DMark 11
Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Games:
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Far Cry 2
Resident Evil 5
Mafia 2
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Dead Space 2
F1 2010
Colin McRae Dirt 2
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Left4Dead 2
Battleforge
Media Of Honor SP
Devil May Cry 4

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

The Gigabyte Assassin and Intel Core i7 990x combination delivers class leading performance ‘out of the box', even outperforming the Sandybridge 2600k Core i7 processor by a considerable margin.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

The Intel Core i7 990x is a rendering powerhouse, scoring 9.21 points as a reference ‘out of the box' figure. The i7-2600k puts in a good showing, scoring 6.87 points.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

Graphics performance from both Nvidia and AMD solutions is class leading scoring 5873 and 5278 points respectively.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance so we used two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach. We are using a 6Gb/s capable connector which is controlled by the Marvel 9128 chipset.

Sata 6Gb throughput is fantastic, especially when used in combination with the 256gb Crucial C300 SSD, averaging well over 300MB/s from a single drive.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

As we have said before Flash isnt an ideal platform for video content as it is quite CPU intensive. Regardless, the 990x is hardly tasked, even at reference clock speeds with HD content.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 is one of the finest solutions for the Blu-Ray experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the Bluray Disc of Avatar, one of our favourite sci-fi films in recent years.

Average load with our bluray disc was around 10 percent. The CPU has a huge percentage of free cycles left for multitasking.

We recorded CPU demand over a specific period of time to get a ‘real world’ rolling scale of activity. The reference clocked Core i7 990x Extreme Edition processor is barely being pushed, ensuring a first class HD media experience.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favorite movies, songs and photos not just on your on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

We are using a 3.3gb MKV file today at 2 hours and 12 minutes in length. We are converting to a final output for an Apple Media Player, a real world situation facing many people.

Graphics card acceleration is disabled, so we are solely weighing in processor performance. We are using the latest beta which has optimisations for the Sandybridge architecture.

Espresso doesn't entirely use 100% across all the cores on the 990x, however the speed benefits, even when compared to a 2600k are clearly noticeable. The additional cores might not be fully utilised, but they certainly help with the final result.

We are now going to test the USB 3.0 and 2.0 speed, so we used the fastest drive we have, the Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB, which is an Toshiba based SSD product within a USB 3.0 capable enclosure.

Today for testing we first copied a 3.9GB MKV file to and from the Kingston HyperX USB 3.0 drive.

USB 3.0 performance is as good as we have seen with this particular external drive, reading at over 140MB/s. USB 2.0 performance is also class leading, although it really is starting to look dated when compared to the new standard.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	GTX580
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	3
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	5
Total	192

The last three or four sets of Forceware drivers have delivered high levels of image quality with the GTX580. A score of 192 points is exceptionally good.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	AMD HD6970
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	7
Total	196

We couldn’t see any image differences between Catalyst 11.2 and 11.1. Not really a bad thing mind you as the IQ is exceptionally good anyway. The HD6970 is really as good as it gets right now.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so cards are comparible throughout reviews.

Great results from both graphics solutions, especially for this demanding Direct X 11 engine. Both cards are capable of maintaining a positive 35+ frame rate at all times.

Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates.

After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. Lost Planet 2 runs on the MT-Framework 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in several Capcom-developed games.

We are testing in DX11 mode with all settings on the highest. Direct X 11 features are on high.

Everytime we benchmark Lost Planet 2, the urge to have a nap always strikes. This is one very boring game, but its a good Direct X 11 test of modern day hardware. The engine at these settings will drive a lot of hardware into the ‘unplayable' zone, but both GTX580 and HD6970 when paired up with the Intel 990x and Gigabyte Assassin motherboard deliver great frame rates.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 1920×1200, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

The Nvidia high end solutions outperform the AMD cards with this engine, however both cards are able to power through this game with relative ease.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

AMD hardware has always performed well with this engine, but the GTX580 powers ahead significantly, helped by the fantastic performance from the Gigabyte Assassin and Intel 990x combination.

Mafia II is a gritty drama which chronicles the rise of World War II veteran Vito Scaletta, the son of Sicilian immigrants. As the game progresses, Vito will join the Falcone Crime Family and become a made man. There are 15 chapters in the game, connected into one storyline.

We tested at 2560×1600 with fullscreen: on, antialiasing:on , Anisotrophic filtering: 16x, Shadow Quality: High, Ambient Occlusion: on, Geometry Detail: High and APEX PhysX: medium.

The AMD HD6970 takes a bigger performance hit when physX is enabled, causing juddering frame rates at our chosen resolution. The GTX580 is perfectly playable at these settings, but the image quality would need to be dialled down a little for the HD6970.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft. After the events of the first game, the H.A.W.X squadron is sent to Middle East, where a high level of violence is being registered, and the appearance of various insurgents leaders in various hotspots. The team also has to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Russian nuclear weapons. The player will be controlling three groups: one American (Hunter), one British (Munro) and one Russian (Sokov), each with its own pilots and supporting characters. There will also be references to other characters in the Tom Clancy universe.

We are testing in full DX11 mode with all settings to maximum.

Performance with HAWX 2 is incredibly favourable to Nvidia hardware, although the HD6970 still puts in a good showing, with perfectly playable frame rates throughout.

Dead Space 2 is a survival horror third-person shooter. The player controls Isaac Clarke from a third-person point of view, looking over the character’s right shoulder. The game features no HUD elements, relying on holograms projected from the player character and his weapons to show information such as messages and ammunition count, respectively. Player health and stasis is shown by a visual indicators located on Isaac’s back. Isaac must fight an alien organism that infects and takes control of human corpses, turning them into “Necromorphs”, mutating their bodies.

Necromorphs must be dismembered as the alien organism controls host bodies via tentacles extending into their limbs. Other, larger types of Necromorphs that cannot be dismembered will often have yellow, glowing pustules, indicating weak spots. Occasionally, when an enemy gets close enough to Isaac, they will grab a hold of him, and the player must repeatedly press a key to fend off the enemy, with failure to do so leading to death of the player character.

Since Dead Space 2 was released, it has been a favourite among the KitGuru staff members. It doesn't prove to be a problem for either the GTX580 or HD6970, even at the native resolution of our 30 inch screen.

F1 2010 is a video game based on the 2010 season of the Formula One world championship. It is the sequel to the 2009 video game based on the same series. It was released in September 2010 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows platforms. The game was confirmed by Codemasters on 23 April 2009. The game engine is based on the new EGO 1.5 engine, an unofficially titled evolution of the EGO 1.0 engine that was created specially for the title.

We are testing across three screens with 2aa and 8af enabled and ultra quality settings in DX11 mode.

A very good result for the non overclocked system, averaging 36 fps across three panels. We were able to increase the anti aliasing to 4x with similar hardware before, but only in a highly overclocked state.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (known as Dirt 2 outside Europe and stylised, DiRT) is a racing game released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series since McRae’s death in 2007. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and features Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust, and Dave Mirra. The game includes many new race-events, including stadium events. Along with the player, an RV travels from one event to another, and serves as ‘headquarters’ for the player. It features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. The game takes place across four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The game includes five different event types: Rally, Rallycross, ‘Trailblazer,’ ‘Land Rush’ and ‘Raid.’ The World Tour mode sees players competing in multi-car and solo races at new locations, and also includes a new multiplayer mode.

We are testing across three screens in Direct X 11 mode with 4aa and 16af enabled. All settings are switched to high.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 was perfectly playable across three screens, even with 4aa and 16af enabled. Very impressive results indeed.

Crysis Warhead, like the original Crysis, is set in the near future when an ancient alien spacecraft is discovered on an island east of the Philippines. The single-player campaign has the player assume the role of former SAS Delta Force operator Sergeant Michael Sykes, referred to in-game by his call sign, Psycho. Psycho’s arsenal of futuristic weapons builds on those showcased in Crysis, with the introduction of Mini-SMGs which can be dual-wielded, a six-shot grenade launcher equipped with EMP grenades, and the destructive, short ranged Plasma Accumulator Cannon (PAX). The highly versatile Nanosuit returns. In Crysis Warhead, the player fights North Korean and extraterrestrial enemies, in many different locations, such as a tropical island jungle, inside an “Ice Sphere”, an underground mining complex, which is followed by a convoy train transporting an unknown alien object held by the North Koreans, and finally, to an airfield.

The engine is still a system killer, all these years later, but modern day hardware can finally generate the frame rates we wanted when it was released !

Crysis Warhead proves to be a bit much for the HD6970 across three screens. The image quality would need to be lowered to improve the frame rates. Overclocking the system would help squeeze more performance from the engine.

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.

The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine, running on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. There is some contention regarding whether the engine is based on the pre-release X-Ray engine (as claimed by Sergiy Grygorovych, the founder of GSC Game World, as well as users who have seen the 4A Engine SDK screenshots, citing visual similarities, shared resources, and technical evaluation of the pre-release 4A Engine demo conducted at the request of GSC Game World), or whether the engine is an original development (as claimed by 4A Games and Oles’ Shiskovtsov in particular) who claims it would have been impractical to retrofit the X-ray engine with console support). The PC version includes exclusive features such as DirectX 11 support and has been described as “a love letter to PC gamers” because of the developers’ choice “to make the PC version [especially] phenomenal”.

By lowering a few of the settings to medium we were able to improve the minimum frame rates, getting the engine playable at all times, with only one drop below the sweet spot of 25 fps.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead.

Like the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence engine dubbed the “Director” that monitors the players’ performance and adjust the scenario to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapons, and a story-arc that connects the game’s five campaigns together.

Valve’s Source engine doesn’t prove a problem for the high end AMD hardware, with the HD6970 able to power through the engine, even with anti aliasing enabled.

BattleForge is a video game developed by EA Phenomic and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on Windows in March 2009. A demo was released in the same month. BattleForge is a card based RTS. It revolves around trading, buying and winning through means of micro-transactions. Micro-transactions are not required for playing the game, only for buying new cards.

It supports DirectX 11 providing full support for hardware tesselation.

At our high settings, the Intel/Gigabyte and AMD combination deliver a great gaming experience, keeping the frame rates above 25 at all times.

Medal of Honor’s single-player campaign uses a heavily-modified version of Unreal Engine 3, and its multiplayer uses the Frostbite Engine. The single player campaign takes place in 2002 in Afghanistan.

For half of the game, players assume the role of a DEVGRU operator codenamed “Rabbit”, of AFO Neptune. For the remainder, the player alternates between the roles of a Delta Force sniper code-named “Deuce”, of AFO Wolfpack, as well as Army Ranger Specialist Dante Adams of the 75th Ranger Regiment, and AH-64 Apache gunner Captain Brad “Hawk” Hawkins.

Another great result for the Assassin/990x and HD6970 configuration, maintaining a solid frame rate over 30 at all times.

Devil May Cry 4 is an action game that was published and developed by Capcom in 2008 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows platforms. The game is the fourth installment to the Devil May Cry series.

In the game, the player controls both Nero and Dante, the game’s protagonist and the series’ title character as they fight enemies in close combat using firearms, swords, and other weapons. The characters Lady and Trish from previous games in the series makes an appearance, along with new characters Nero, Kyrie, Credo, Gloria, and Agnus. The game is set after Devil May Cry but before Devil May Cry 2.

We used Super high settings with HDR on high and 8aa and 16af to improve the image quality as much as possible.

Devil May Cry 4 is a great game to play across three screens and with this system today we experienced no performance related problems.

The Killer Nic drivers and software are installed from the Gigabyte CD which is supplied in the box.

Firstly, we need to discuss Latency V Throughput. Latency is commonly refered to as ‘Lag’. This is a measurement of delay for a network packet or series of packets. Latency is a good measure of the real speed of your network or Internet connection – low numbers indicate fast networking.

Throughput is different, because this is a measure of bandwidth, basically how much data can be delivered to its destination. This is often the system by which consumer Internet connections are classified and priced.

It is important to understand that Latency does not measure Throughput. 30Mbps might seem like its a service ‘speed’ but in actuality its explaining what bandwidth is available to a connection. Standard networking devices are designed to maximise throughput. They are not however designed or optimised to lower latency for online games.

When you play a game online you might think its using 8mbit of your bandwidth, but in reality you will often find its hovering around 25-100kbps. Sometimes if you are playing a game and you notice lagging, its not that your connection isn’t handling massive amounts of data its that the packet delays are causing lag and therefore game responsiveness.

The Game Networking DNA Technology that is utilised in the BigFoot Killer Nic product is tuned to reduce latency, therefore optimising the gaming connection you experience when online. Subsequently it would make sense that with this technology you could experience smoother game play while the machine is multitasking in the background.

The Bigfoot software suite is very capable and offers functionality to check your speeds, as well as monitoring network traffic and CPU load.

The first test we decided to use was the Game Network Efficiency (GANE) Test, which is in place to simulate real world network performance for online PC games. This test is used to create a gaming load on a Windows PC as well as transmission of gaming network traffic over a local network. This test is also designed to test two network cards at once making direct comparisons between both at the same time.

The setup is a little complex, but ill describe it in a step by step manner.

Firstly you connect the host (listen/server) PC to a gigabit switch through a standard gigabit ethernet connection. The Killer Nic is then used on the other test PC and it is connected to the gigabit switch via both the Killer Network gaming card and a standard Intel NIC.

On the server PC we then configure the properties of the onboard network card to have a static IP address. We then adjust the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. The test PC is then configured in a similar manner, but we assign different static IP’s to both the Intel NIC and the Killer . Again the subnet mask is set to 255.255.255.0.

On the main test PC we then go into advanced via the IPv3 properties window.  We then uncheck the ‘Automatic Metric” box and set the metric value to “1″. Both cards need this applied as the NIC uses it to send network traffic. If we leave this setting at ‘automatic’, Windows does not alternate between the NICs and instead will send all the traffic through one card rendering the test useless.

The next stage is to run GANE on both the server/listen PC and the main test rig. GANE measures then compares latency between two network cards installed on any PC. This is handled by a procedure of sending 100 byte packets over the local network on a round trip, every 50ms. Kitguru has selected 100bytes as the packet size because this is a good real world representation of a standard network packet. We want to run this size specifically to test Bigfoot’s claims that many network cards are not optimised for this ‘game’ related data packet size.

While we set up the server PC we also need to run a game benchmark on the main PC and in this case we will use Resident Evil 5 in DX10 mode with the built in benchmark at maximum settings on our screen at 1920×1200 resolution. While we are running this, we are sending packets between both NICs on the main PC to the receiving (listening) PC. This mirrors a real life situation of playing a game online while transmitting data back and forward.

Adapter 1 is the Killer Nic and Adapter 2 is the Intel solution. The results above show that the Killer Nic is 4.0 faster than the Intel solution and delivers a result with almost 25 times less jitter. On a lesser solution this can actually be as high as 35 times faster with 120 times less jitter!

Our average UDP ping was 0.000287643 on the Killer nic and it was 0.003075006 with the Intel solution. Our average mean ping was 0.232525 on the Killer Nic and 0.921490 on the Intel Nic. The worst case scenario is more critical as it could cause lag online. The onboard solution is 5.287735 while it is 0.355063 on the Killer Nic … massive differences. Bear in mind this is obviously over a very tight local network, but when heading online to game on a server thousands of miles away this will increase, exponentially.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We test at 1080p so that all video cards can be compared throughout our reviews. Obviously driver updates might enhance performance slightly over time, but as a rule, its a useful way for us to present the findings.

Scoring an average of 93 frames per second is detailing serious performance levels from the hardware on test today.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 1920×1200, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

Performance levels are very good, scoring over 120 fps at these settings with two HD6970's in CFx.

Finally, to finish our HD6970 testing we connected up three HD6970's in CFx. The system would get rather loud due to having three powerful cards in such close proximity, but we have experienced this before in prior testing with an MSI board.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

Staggering performance levels with this Direct X 10 engine with three HD6970's running in CFx. The frame rate never dropped under 120fps.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so cards are comparible throughout reviews.

When you factor in that a GTX580 scores around 60 fps in the same test it gives an indication of the power on tap from three HD6970's.

We will now test two GTX580's in SLI with the Gigabyte Assassin and Intel Core i7 990x system.

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.

The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine, running on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. There is some contention regarding whether the engine is based on the pre-release X-Ray engine (as claimed by Sergiy Grygorovych, the founder of GSC Game World, as well as users who have seen the 4A Engine SDK screenshots, citing visual similarities, shared resources, and technical evaluation of the pre-release 4A Engine demo conducted at the request of GSC Game World), or whether the engine is an original development (as claimed by 4A Games and Oles’ Shiskovtsov in particular) who claims it would have been impractical to retrofit the X-ray engine with console support). The PC version includes exclusive features such as DirectX 11 support and has been described as “a love letter to PC gamers” because of the developers’ choice “to make the PC version [especially] phenomenal”.

Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates.

After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. Lost Planet 2 runs on the MT-Framework 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in several Capcom-developed games.

We are testing in DX11 mode with all settings on the highest. Direct X 11 features are on high.

Great scaling from the GTX580 system in SLI, averaging 105 fps at these very high settings.

Overclocking the board proved to be a painless experience and there are many options in the bios to help increase stability of the system. We slowly increased the system speeds, to 4.4ghz then onwards checking for stability with every multiplier increase.

Settling on a final figure just above 5ghz, we managed to get 100% stability by changing the load line calibration to Level 2, which is classed as a moderate VDroop adjustment. Voltage needed to be cranked to 1.5volts which is a borderline figure for long term use. Core temperatures only rose to 73c under extended load, so we feel it would be safe enough. QPT/VTT Voltage was increased to 1.215volts and the CPU PLL was also increased to 1.860 volts.

System validation is available over here

We did manage to the get the system booting at up to 5.3ghz, but we weren't willing to push the core voltage any higher without something more exotic to cool the processor. Still we achieved our own goals set out before the system build, which was to reach a stable clock speed of 5.0ghz from a mainstream cooler. This is certainly a testament to the new Antec Kuhler H20 620 cooler, and our full review of the product will be published in the coming weeks.

The overclock to 5ghz reaps massive rewards when it comes to multithreaded rendering – as shown by the Cinema 4D engine tests above. The score rises from 9.21 to 12.13, which is an incredible increase.

There is no doubting that the Gigabyte G1 Assassin is an expensive product. Priced at £450 in the United Kingdom it will certainly prove to be only for those people with deep pockets. On first impressions there is no doubting that something very special lies within the gargantuan box.

To be fair, the price of this board is actually more reasonable that it might first appear. For a start the build quality and component selection is possibly the finest we have seen in our labs to date, no corners have been cut, nothing is missing.

The inclusion of professional grade audio capacitors and multi channel amplifiers ensures that the Gigabyte G1 Assassin will appeal to the audience who are unhappy with ‘run of the mill' onboard solutions. Including the Killer E2100 as a dedicated network processor is an informed choice and really does enhance the overall networking speeds and latencies.

The design of the motherboard is almost without fault, the military theme is perfectly executed and attention to detail throughout is exceptional. The heatsink construction is inspired and certainly helps to keep the thermal dynamics well within safe parameters, even when overclocking a flagship 12 core processor to over 5ghz.

While this is our first experience with the Intel Core i7 990x Extreme Edition processor, our overclocking results are much better than those we achieved with the 980x. We have had two of these chips and both were limited to around 4.8ghz, even with high end watercooling. The 990x happily sits just past 5ghz with a mainstream liquid cooler from Antec. Some of the credit has to go to the excellent Gigabyte G1 Assassin bios configuration and 16 phase power circuitry to ensure the most stable, dynamic overclocks.

Today we tried to test the board to reflect real world conditions of the target gaming audience. With multiple high end AMD and Nvidia graphics cards running in CrossfireX x2/3 and Sli configurations. It would be safe to say that performance is certainly not lacking.

When everything is considered, a system configuration like this will be out of reach for most people, even most of the enthusiast audience who read KitGuru. If however you can afford the Gigabyte G1 Assassin and the new Intel Core i7 990x then we can only feel envious. This is without question the ‘ultimate' high end enthusiast system of choice.

KitGuru says: Expensive products, but the performance available is incredible. Well worth the money. Both products earn our highest award, if you have the disposable budget then this should be your next system.

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