Asus P7H57D-V EVO; Poked, Prodded and Tested

Real-World Gaming
Gamming performance is a lot more than how fast frames are rendered. Today there are many items that never touch the GPU. These range from Positional Audio, to AI to Physics [not PhysX] calculations to weather and traffic information.  We use FRAPS to capture frame rates while in game.  We will also cover any noticeable lags, sluggish AI or audio issues that occur during game play that might not be apparent from the frame rates shown. For IGP testing we use a resolution of 1280x960 while for testing with the GTX 285 we push back to 1920x1200. The actual settings used for each game are shown below.


SIMS3
The SIMS is, as you probably know by now, is a simulation game that attempts to put you into a life like role in a typical town. You have many options for customizing your character including personality, clothing, looks, goals and even dreams. It is an interesting game that does allow for a wide range of freedoms.  As you take on life in the game you have to make sure you perform all the usual mundane tasks to keep your SIM happy and healthy. While not truly visually demanding the number of rendered objects can sometimes overwhelm a mainstream graphics card. For this reason we have added this in for all of our IGP testing.  For testing we ran our SIM around Sunset Valley for 20 minutes [Following the same path each time] and recorded the frame rates.

IGP Test Settings 1280x960


GTX 285 Test Settings 1920x1200

The Intel HD GMA does a good job on the Asus P7H57D-V EVO with the SIMS 3. We were able to get very smooth game play at 1280x960. When we dropped in the GTX 285, the SIMS 3 we were able to max out the SIM3 video quality and still get frame rates over 100.

FarCry 2 [DX10]
FarCry 2 is an interesting game in that it is not made up of levels but is one large “sandbox” style game. You can freely move around the small island that the game is set on. In the game you take on the role of a mercenary sent to kill “The Jackal” unfortunately you succumb to your malaria and get caught. You end up running errands for a local middle man. For our testing we played through the first two errands.

IGP Test Settings 1280x960



GTX 285 Test Settings 1920x1200

As you can imagine the mainstream gaming based HD GMA does not do so well with a high-end first person shooter like FarCry 2. This is not a true hindrance though as people interested in playing this type of game will usually want the best GPU they can get.

Power and Heat
Power consumption and heat generation are becoming more important. Consumers are demanding more power and ecofriendly components for their systems.  Heat generation is important as with improper cooling components can fail and prematurely die.  For our power testing we test the power draw in Watts from the wall using a P3 Kill-A-Watt.  For heat generation we use a Fluke Laser Thermometer and read the heat on the “Southbridge” heatsink.  Readings for Idle and Load are recorded.

As we talked about above in the features section the Asus P7H57D-V EVO has an EPU built into the board. This is controlled by their EPU-6 software.  For this reason we see excellent power usage when we let the EPU-6 software run the show. However once we overclock the system we see power draw that matches other H5x boards.  

Heat is a little bit of a different story. The star like design of the heatsink over the X57 chipset and other SB components actually allows for a little better cooling than we see on other boards.