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 2 DX9 -
This is an excellent but short game that put you right into the action from the beginning and does not let up the pressure until the very end. The graphics are a little better; most notably the night and thermal imaging have been improved. The AI is still the typical COD “bar fight” style AI, with maybe a tad more finesse. All in all it is not a bad game to play and a decent one to use for testing. Our testing run starts at the bridge and ends after you clear the school in the first level of the game. Settings are shown below as are the performance numbers.

Our Modern Warfare testing finds the RIIIB doing well. We found solid frame rates (although not the best but still around 90FPS minimum) in our stock testing and outstanding frame rates when overclocked.  Of course all of our boards give more than playable results with this game with even the slowest at over 70 FPS minimum.

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.

FarCry2 shows us almost the exact same thing. We see solid, but not outstanding numbers at stock speeds and top notch when overclocked.  


Battlefield Bad Company2 DX11 –
I have liked many of the Battlefield games. They usually tend to be fast paced and fun. With Battlefield Bad Company 2 you do get some of that, but there is something about the graphics and the movement that just does not sit right. The AI is a less sophisticated form of the bar fight AI, but it gets the job done. Still, the game is good for testing as it can put a strain on the components of the board. Out testing run is the entire first level, from beginning to end. Settings are shown below along with the raw numbers.

With Bad Company 2 the RIIIB really shines during both our overclocked and stock testing it comes out at the top of the heap. Granted any of these boards would be playable as they all exceed our minimum 32FPS for full motion gaming, but it is still nice to see some of our boards pull ahead in the pack.

Gaming wrap-up -
We have mentioned this more than once in our review. The Rampage III Black appears to be setup to bridge multiple market segments. It has many of the features that an overclocker would desire while also having some serious gaming options with the Xonar Audio and KillerNIC in it. As a gaming board we were quite happy with it. The Xonar Audio really brings the gaming experience home with clean and crisp sounds if you tweak the audio just right (and use a nice Tube AMP) you can not only hear the explosions and gunfire but feel them. It was quite impressive.