Testing – Gaming
For gaming I chose three DX10 titles, Crysis, PT Boats: Knights of the Sea, and Call of Juarez. Again, I ran tests at stock clock on at my overclock.
Crysis:
Though it has been out over 1.5 years, I still find Crysis the best benchmark for gaming systems. I don’t know of any game that puts so much stress on the CPU and memory, and still is very VGA intensive. It will find those system instabilities not found by Prime95, Sandra Burn-in, and the Futuremark series, especially in memory. It is my favorite test for testing overclocks. I used the Crysis Benchmark Test by Boris Vergiza, settings were: CPU Benchmark, DX10, High, AA x 2, 1440 x 900.
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea:
PT Boats prefers a strong CPU and powerful video card. It has some tough camera angle changes that really raise low FPS scores. I used the standalone performance test, settings were High, AA x 2, 1440 x 900.
Call of Juarez:
Call of Juarez requires a strong system for any kind of decent frame rate. I used the standalone demo benchmark, settings were: High, AA x 2, 1440 x 900.
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I have discovered a flaw with this motherboard, and I assume other ASROCK motherboards with the x16/x8+x8 card. After a period of time the card loses its connection and you start getting random blackouts on your monitor. Remove the card, use a Q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol to clean the card’s contacts. Wet them with alcohol and reseat the card several times to clean the contacts on the motherboard.
After the first time I have had to do this again every few weeks.