CPU Queen
This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic "Queens problem" on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example -- with HyperThreading disabled -- the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
There is really little to separate the three boards on test here at stock settings, mainly because this benchmark is very CPU-centric with not a large amount of involvement from the various components of the motherboard that will alter the score.
The ASUS P8P67 comes out slightly on top, with the Foxconn behind, closely followed by the ECS. Overclocking the Sandy Bridge CPU does yeild tangible benefits here, as to be expected.
CPU Photoworrx
This benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than 2 processing threads used. For example, on a 8-way Pentium III Xeon system the 8 processing threads will be "fighting" over the memory, creating a serious bottleneck that would lead to as low scores as a 2-way or 4-way similar processor based system could achieve. CPU PhotoWorxx test uses only the basic x86 instructions, and it is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
The scores in this test are extermely closely matched, not much to pick and choose between for any of the boards here. This may be due to the hardware bottleneck issue described in the test description above.
CPU AES
This benchmark measures CPU performance using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) data encryption. In cryptography AES is a symmetric-key encryption standard. AES is used in several compression tools today, like 7z, RAR, WinZip, and also in disk encryption solutions like BitLocker, FileVault (Mac OS X), TrueCrypt.
CPU AES test uses only the basic x86 instructions, and it's hardware accelerated on VIA PadLock Security Engine capable VIA C3, VIA C7 and VIA Nano processors; and on Intel AES-NI instruction set extension capable processors. The test is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
CPU AES test uses only the basic x86 instructions, and it's hardware accelerated on VIA PadLock Security Engine capable VIA C3, VIA C7 and VIA Nano processors; and on Intel AES-NI instruction set extension capable processors. The test is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
For those of you who love to ZIP all your files, this is the test to look at. You can see that the overclock is the only change that brings significant gains, with the three motherboards on test all being quite closely matched in performance. There are good gains to be had in getting that Sandy Bridge CPU to 4GHz+, if the board allows. See the overclocking section for more information on that.
FPU Mandel
This benchmark measures the double precision (also known as 64-bit) floating-point performance through the computation of several frames of the popular "Mandelbrot" fractal. The code behind this benchmark method is written in Assembly, and it is extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate MMX, MMX+/SSE, SSE2, SSSE3, or AVX instruction set extension. FPU Mandel test is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
In this test, the ASUS board comes out on top again, with a decent boost in performance for the ~30% overclock. The Foxconn board actually outperforms the Asus at stock here, though I believe the figures are so close that this is within the reals of experiemental error. The ECS board follows not too far behind, but certainly far enough out of the error margin to be tangible, unlike the other two.
