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Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI
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PCMark Vantage
PCMark® Vantage is the first objective hardware performance benchmark for PCs running 32 and 64 bit versions of Microsoft® Windows Vista®. PCMark Vantage is perfectly suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft® Windows Vista PC from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops to dedicated workstations and hi-end gaming rigs. Regardless of whether the benchmarker is an artist or an IT Professional, PCMark Vantage shows the user where their system soars or falls flat, and how to get the most performance possible out of their hardware. PCMark Vantage is easy enough for even the most casual enthusiast to use yet supports in-depth, professional industry grade testing.
For some odd reason PC Mark Vantage would not decide to run with this current setup. If I were to add a video card, I tried the ATI Radeon 3450 and 3870 and with both PCMark Vantage decided to run. I'm not sure if this is a problem with not having enough graphical memory or maybe it doesn't recognize the onboard graphics and was confused on the graphical source.
Windows Benchmark
The Windows® Experience Index is a new feature built into Windows Vista™. It is designed to help consumers understand how well Windows Vista and the software running on it will perform on a specific PC. The index achieves this by assessing the capability of the PC and assigning a score to it. Higher scores indicate a better Vista experience on your PC.
As you can see, based off the chart below and the picture above. The current setup performs just at the bare minimum to run all of Windows Vista features fine, including Aero. Although it is the graphical interface that bottle necking our results, throwing in a ATI Radeon 3450HD to allow the system to run in Hybrid Crossfire would dramatically improve the results.
Base Score Level |
Applications and Scenarios |
Description |
1.0 – 1.9 |
Basic performance. Productivity applications, IM, web, email, simple games - like Solitaire, educational games. |
Minimum specification needed to run Windows Vista™. |
2.0 – 2.9 |
Improved responsiveness. Same applications as a base score of 1.0 – 1.9. |
PCs will run Windows Vista but in most cases will not be Aero capable. |
3.0-3.9 |
Aero graphics, Media Center with standard definition TV, basic graphical games, basic performance while running high-end graphical games. |
Minimum specification needed to run Windows Vista Premium features, including the new Aero user interface. |
4.0 – 4.9 |
Snappy performance, high definition video, high resolution monitors, dual monitors. |
Very good performing PCs. |
5.0 – 5.9 |
Fast moving games with amazingly rich graphics, 3D modeling, high-end multimedia and high performance applications. |
Top end of the PC market for the Vista time frame. |
CineBench R10
MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).
Looking at the performance of the CPU, you can see that using the single core we get 1812 points but when using all four cores we get 5292 points. The processor speedup of these tests improved by 2.92 when comparing the single core to quad core. As some of you are thinking that since it is using 4 processors compared to the one, why isn't the speed up 4x? This is most likely is a limitation in the benchmark program it self, as it may not be very multi-core efficient. As for the OpenGL test, the graphical portion of the benchmark, it received 1981 points. This is rather impressive for being onboard graphics and not using a discrete card to produce the graphics.