Section IV Performance – Gaming
Gaming as a test of motherboard performance is sort of a joke these days. The big player in the gaming arena is the GPU. Everyone but a few hardcore PR teams know this. However, it is important to run at least a few (one from each current DX version) to see if there are any issues with the combination of components on a motherboard. These are items like Audio lag, memory lag and of course problems with the PCIe lanes and signal traces. If there are issues in design, drivers or BIOS then you can have odd gaming performance. So without much more preamble let’s dive into the three games we currently use; Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for DX9 FarCry 2 for DX10 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 for DX11.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 DX9 -
As the third installment in the Modern Warfare franchise you are picking up some old roles while adding a couple of new ones as well. The game play is almost identical to what you are used to in Modern Warfare 2 as are the graphical settings. The AI is a little different thought it is still similar to the bar fight style AI we like in the Call of Duty series. For our testing we run the first mission (Black Tuesday) from start to finish.  Settings are shown below

Modern Warfare 3 is one of the only modern FPS (First Person Shooter) games that plays very well on the GMA 4000 iGPU. We have actually played through the entire game with just this and found that it is not a bad experience at all. This is good for some casual gamers that might want to step out of the less graphically intense games and hit up something a little more aggressive. With the EAH5870 V.2 the frame rates only continued to improve.

FarCry2 DX10 -
Although not one of my favorite games this tedious game does have some good graphics. The large sandbox style of the game lends to mission based play. The only problem is that the AI is rather low grade. Still the more CPU power the more the bad guys try to do. Over all the game was a little bit of a disappointment to play, but still not a bad DX10 representation. Our testing run starts right after you get your first mission to clean out the safe-house and ends after the hostage rescue. Settings and performance numbers are shown below.

Well,… if you are looking to play FarCry2 all we can say is make sure you get an Add-in card. Once you do you will find that the P8Z77-V Deluxe does a solid job of running FarCry2 for you.

Crysis 2 DX11 –
Another sequel Crysis 2 follows up on two other Crysis games (making the title a little misleading). You take the role of a Force Recon Marine who is given a battle suit by a character named Profit (you will remember him from the other two Crysis games). From there you run around an Infected and Invaded New York City trying to survive and, of course, save the planet. For our testing we ran through the first “mission”. Settings are shown below.

As with FarCry2 do not try to play Crysis 2 with just the iGPU on the P8Z77-V Deluxe or any Z77 board for that matter. Once you do get your GPU in the system you should still have pretty solid performance.

Gaming wrap-up -
The Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe is a good board if you are looking to game. Although it was not at the top of our list in many cases the difference in frame rate was around 5FPS max. This means that you would not be able to see the difference on the monitor. What you will notice is slightly faster level loads, better audio (than many of the other systems) and a very smooth feel to the games overall.