Mini-ITX motherboard shootout

Written by Paul Goodhead

September 5, 2012 | 10:06

Tags: #htpc #itx #itx-motherboard #mini-itx #overclocking

Companies: #asrock #asus #bit-tech

Media Benchmarks

Download from: bit-tech.net

We've developed our own suite of benchmarks using real-world and open-source applications to simulate how PCs are actually used. The suite comprises an image editing test using Gimp, a video encoding test using Handbrake, and a multi-tasking test using 7-Zip to archive and encrypt a large batch of files while an HD movie plays in mplayer.

A score of 1,000 means that the test system is as fast as our reference PC, which used a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 at stock speed, 2GB of Corsair 1,066MHz DDR2 memory, a 250GB Samsung SpinPoint P120S hard disk and an Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP motherboard. The scoring system is linear, so a system scoring 1,200 points is 20 per cent faster than our reference system. Equally, a system scoring 1,200 is 4 per cent faster than a system scoring 1,150.

GIMP Image Editing

Website: GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

Far from being some kind of pr0n-filtering tool, Gimp is an open source image editing application - Gimp is an acronym of GNU Image Manipulation Program. Our test simulates how well a PC can manipulate a collection of large digital photos, and to achieve a low time requires a PC with a powerful CPU, plenty of quick memory and efficient hard disk drive access.

Image Editing

Gimp

  • Asus Maximus V Gene
  • Gigabyte GA-Z77-UD5H
  • ASRock Fatal1ty Professional-M
  • Intel DZ77GA-70K
  • Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
  • MSI Z77A-G43
  • ASRock Z77E-ITX
    • 1916
    • 2308
    • 1900
    • 2281
    • 1855
    • 2329
    • 1844
    • 2317
    • 1824
    • 2379
    • 1787
    • 2125
    • 1775
    • 2330
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
Points, higher is better
  • Stock
  • Overclocked

Read our performance analysis.

Handbrake H.264 Encoding

Website: HandBrake

We use the open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video encoder Handbrake to encode a HD video using the H.264 codec. This primarily tests multi-threaded CPU and memory subsystem performance.

Video Encoding

Handbrake

  • Asus Maximus V Gene
  • Gigabyte GA-Z77-UD5H
  • Intel DZ77GA-70K
  • ASRock Fatal1ty Professional-M
  • Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
  • MSI Z77A-G43
  • ASRock Z77E-ITX
    • 3461
    • 4229
    • 3453
    • 4033
    • 3428
    • 4180
    • 3248
    • 4274
    • 3241
    • 4249
    • 3190
    • 3751
    • 3079
    • 4250
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
Points, higher is better
  • Stock
  • Overclocked

Read our performance analysis.
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