EQS M56K9-MLF Motherboard

Results Roundup:

In our SuperPI 2M calculation, the onboard IGP causes the EQS M56K9-MLF to slow slightly – the use of onboard graphics has a minimal performance deficit of one second, which is not going to be noticeable in the majority of real-world scenarios. In our MP3 encoding test with DBPowerAMP, the use of the Radeon Xpress 200 IGP also only caused a one second drop on encoding time for a three-track queue. This puts it slightly in the shadow of both ABIT’s AV8 and the Epox 9NDA3+, but it is a full eight seconds ahead of the Intel D925XCV / Pentium 4 3.4 Extreme Edition combination.

Sandra’s Unbuffered memory bandwidth test was on the low side with this board, both with and without a discrete graphics solution. The board’s BIOS lacks any memory timing configuration options, which means that the memory will only operate at its SPD. As a result of this, the memory bandwidth was a little low compared to ABIT’s AV8. In Sandra’s Multimedia Benchmark, there was a negligible performance deficit for opting to use the onboard graphics processor.

The EQS M56K9-MLF also fell behind the other AMD motherboards in PCMark04 – as expected, the use of the onboard graphics solution meant that the PCMark score was lower. The benchmark tests a wide area of the system, ranging from video encoding to 3D graphics performance, so we did expect the onboard Radeon X300 graphics to return a lower score than a GeForce 6800 GT.

In Doom 3, the IGP delivered a lacklustre gaming experience performance, and we feel that there may well be the requirement to start disabling some of the advanced quality settings in order to allow the IGP to deliver a smooth gaming experience in this title. With Doom 3 working better on NVIDIA graphics cards, the Radeon X300 IGP suffers even more when you start to shoot things, at which point it becomes almost a slideshow. Once we installed a GeForce 6800 GT PCI-Express video card, the motherboard delivered a frame rate that was comparable with other motherboards, albeit in the shadow of its competitors. When we increased the details and resolution, the EQS M56K9-MLF recorded a frame rate that was comparable to the ABIT AV8, which has been one of the faster AGP-based socket 939 motherboards to be released.

In FarCry, the IGP was able to deliver an awesome 44 frames per second at 800x600 with minimum in-game details, but when we cranked the details up, the frame rate dropped to a choppy 25 frames per second – this got progressively worse as you increased the resolution. At 1280x1024, we weren’t expecting any miracles, and we certainly didn’t see any. Without Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering enabled, we saw a wonderful 4 frames per second. In all honesty, we weren’t expecting the IGP to perform quite this well.

Once the GeForce 6800 GT was installed, we saw a similar situation to what happened with Doom 3. In CPU limited gaming, the EQS M56K9-MLF fell a fair way behind the competition, but once we placed the limitation on the video card, the motherboard delivered a very comparable frame rate.

There isn’t a great deal more to add about Valve’s Source Engine Stress Test, the IGP delivered a fairly lacklustre frame rate. Once the PCI-Express GeForce 6800 GT was installed, the motherboard delivered a very similar frame rate in scenarios where there is not a CPU limitation. Half-Life 2, and the Source Engine is fairly CPU limited on the whole, and this would explain why the EQS M56K9-MLF fell one frame per second behind the competition at high resolution in this test.

General Usage

Playing some Half-Life 2 Deathmatch online at (recommended) 1024x768 no AA/AF and with everything set to the highest settings (apart from the shadows only reflecting world, not water) it was sufficiently fast enough to play online with ease. Ok, it didn't look as good as a 6800 or X800 PCI-Express video card with full AA/AF visuals turned on, but it was still as good or better than any console or basic gaming system, which, I have to admit solely redefined my view of the whole on board graphics argument. True, ATI effectively sponsored Half-Life 2 - so you'd expect it to work well - but regardless, this makes a fantastically playable home theatre system or second gaming system.

Conclusions

The EQS board has not been designed to overclock - the BIOS and Micro ATX spec shows that - but it has been designed to be as fast as the top AMD motherboards at stock speeds. While this won't appeal to hardware enthusiasts as much, to modders for custom systems (HTPC, low profile, server applications etc) and to more general users (office, casual gaming, web surfing, music playing etc) this delivers a more than capable package, which at £75 is a total bargain considering the overall functionality and decent graphics thrown in. I understand why EQS don't offer a socket 754 version of this motherboard – the memory bandwidth would cripple the IGP even more and make games unplayable, but a cheaper AMD Sempron CPU might offer even more market to the basic office/web surfing/casual user end of the spectrum. Perhaps we shall be waiting for the socket 939 Semprons.

It would be interesting to see the RS200 paired up with the ULI M1573 southbridge that provides support for Intels High Definition Azalia sound, making it even better for a HTPC. We'd also like to see NCQ (Native Command Queuing) support in accordance with the SATA 2 spec, providing you have a hard disk that supports it.

In our opinion, for the price, you can't really go wrong with this board. Surprisingly playable onboard graphics and good performance make it easy for us to suggest this board to anyone looking for a good Athlon 64 board that doesn’t break the bank.

Many thanks to Gladiator Computers for supplying the motherboard for review.