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.

The Big Bang Marshal did very well in our Modern Warfare testing. The minimum FPS is right around 100. This almost puts it up there where it can keep up with the 120Hz monitors. Of course none of the boards really does poorly, it is just that this one does much better.

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.

In FarCry 2 the Big Bang is way out in front again. This is very nice to see as we were concerned with our two other real world tests.

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.

For Bad Company 2 we see that the Big Bang Marshal is right behind the leader which is oddly enough an AMD board. When we kicked the Marshal into high gear we manage to pull ahead by 2 FPS. Not much of a margin, but enough.

Gaming wrap-up -
I was really impressed with the gaming quality on the Big Bang Marshal. When you play these games over and over (and over) like we do during testing you tend to see these tests are very repetitive. They almost get boring. However, we noticed a slight difference when we were playing on the Big Bang Marshal. The games seemed a little more responsive and the audio was a little fuller (more alive) than we are used to. It was a nice break from the monotony. We are considering setting this up with multiple GPUs just to see what we can get out of it at a later time.