Cinebench 9.5; SPECapc^SM for 3ds Max™ 8; SPECviewperf® 9.0.3 Benchmarks and Conclusions

Cinebench 9.5

SPECapc^SM for 3ds Max™ 8

SPECviewperf® 9.0.3

Conclusions

Overall this review has been a cracker to say the least with results galore for all to get their teeth into!   The platforms produced by MSI have huge amounts of potential with many upgrade paths that have yet to be explored.   Notwithstanding all these parts should be seriously thought about if you are looking for a good entry level range workstation.   Oh yeah overclockers you will have fun!  Acoustics we all here you shout, honestly both boxes sat here purring away not off putting the daily usage of other equipment in the background. 

We would however seriously recommend that you opt for the modified variant of both mainboards were they are available as the extra cost of approx $10 is really well worth it.   Again, hopefully MSI will sit up and take note, especially at the temperature differences shown and for the future produce mainboards of this nature incorporating heatpipe cooling throughout the North and Southbridge chipsets.   The copper heatsinks strategically placed upon the VRM’s around the CPU have made substantial differences too.   This will benefit all concerned for complete longevity of peripherals in a stressful environment.

The 2 Western Digital Caviar® SE16 250GB SATA Hard Drives supplied by Western Digital most certainly have shown resounding results.   These are only too apparent throughout the benchmarks but especially in the burst outputs shown in Hard Drive Tach 3 tests.   Once more seriously consider these hard drives for your system build as its going to take a lot to move them out of our test system.  

The new memory supplied to us swiftly from Corsair certainly packs a punch as this too has a direct reflection upon all the results shown above.   We found that on the MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition that the board ran without fault when the enhanced settings of the memory were applied in the bios to take into account this type of memory and its high speed ratios.     Over a 48 hour period throughout the same tests above not once did it faultier.   As this review is aimed properly within the fair play rules we are afraid that the reader will have to tweak for themselves to find out just how much higher the benchmark scores really are!   MSI 965 Platinum automatically detected the memory within the bios applying the correct settings and voltage for the memory.   Sadly we did not have the time to test it out in the same environment as with the above, though on saying this we did note many tweaks that can be applied and will make this an exceptional overclocking board.

In the peripheral hardware parts of this review, one must think on the back to the basics.   Akasa now are a force seriously to be at the forefront of your thoughts when it comes down to Chassis and Cooling.   We have seen many types of chassis, heatsink fans, pastes and PSU’s.   It goes without saying that for serious reviews of this magnitude we use in our opinion the best that Akasa has to offer.   This ensures as near as possible - the failsafe environment.

The results speak clearly for themselves; these are some of the fastest render outputs we have seen in sometime, especially using hardware outputs within this type of solution.      Not only 1 month ago were we all aghast at seeing the 40 minute barrier being broken in Radiosity by an software render, now we see the same with a hardware solution.   How improvements have made life so much easier for the time restrained studio that has to meet the ever demanding stress of the client wanting their final scenes now.   Theoretically speaking the software has improved with the advent of 3D Studio Max 9 as too the hardware, realistic time frames can be given to clients to meet their tight deadlines.   With this aside could the client in turn become unrealistic in expecting more?

The SPECviewperf® 9.0.3 and SPECapc^SM for 3ds Max™ 8 results shown are some of the fastest we have ever produced online and NVIDIA should be extremely proud of the execution of these results from a single solution system.  One must remember that these WHQL drivers now are nearly 6 months old it shows how well NVIDIA have forward planned taking into consideration the new chipsets.

At going to print current SRP pricing of the MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition is approximately £105.00p including Vat and for the MSI 965 Platinum £85.00p including Vat.    Both items are available now from companies such as dabs.com.   The new modified variants of each mainboard will be available soon, keep in touch with your local supplier for news of their arrival.

Finally what more has to be said that these mainboards have to be taken seriously from MSI.  The fight for those exclusive workstation orders is becoming tighter now and over the last year we have seen major improvements upon what MSI can actually produce.   With all that has been written and the factual results shown these mainboards are most certainly class acts and its going to take something really special to beat them.   Bearing these points in mind; this now brings MSI formally into the league of the High Class players in this lucrative and specialised market.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - MSI 975 and MSI 965 Mainboard Pictures
Page 3 - System Configurations, Software and Benchmarks Used
Page 4 - SiSoftware 2007 SP1- MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition – Modified Mainboard
Page 5 - SiSoftware 2007 SP1- MSI 965X Platinum Edition – Modified Mainboard
**Page 6 - Hard Drive Tach 3.0.1.0 - Journalists Edition
Page 7 - PCMark 2005 Advanced with build 1.2.0 and 3D Mark 2006 Advanced with build 1.1.0
Page 8 - Autodesk® 3ds Max® 8 with SP3
Page 9 - Cinebench, SPEC Benchmarks and Conclusions