ASUS F2A85-V Pro Review: A Look at FM2 with A85X

As part of the ever evolving motherboard benchmark suite, it has been suggested that we add in a few new benchmarks.  In this case, we have added Portal 2 using the same timedemo from our GPU and Notebook reviews, and Batman: Arkham Asylum using the in game benchmark.

Portal 2

A stalwart of the Source engine, Portal 2 is the big hit of 2011 following on from the original award-winning Portal.  In our testing suite, Portal 2 performance should be indicative of CS:GO performance to a certain extent.  Here we test Portal 2 at 2560x1440 with maximum graphical setting using the same timedemo used in our GPU and notebook reviews.

Portal 2 seems to enjoy the GPU power, and CPU power does not matter as much.  Scaling beyond 2 AMD GPUs on Trinity seems non-existant.

Dirt 3

Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters.  Using the in game benchmark, Dirt 3 is run at 2560x1440 with full graphical settings.  Results are reported as the average frame rate across four runs.

As seen in the past, Dirt3 on AMD loves CPU MHz, GPU horsepower, everything.  In the case of Trinity, the lack of grunt by the CPU does give it a lower result than the rest of our testing.  Three-way GPU is crippled by that 4x PCIe 2.0 port at the bottom of the board.

In contrast, using an NVIDIA GPU means that the GPU becomes the limiting factor rather than the CPU.

Metro2033

Metro2033 is a DX11 benchmark that challenges every system that tries to run it at any high-end settings.  Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 2560x1440 with full graphical settings.  Results are given as the average frame rate from 4 runs.

With Metro2033 we see similar results to Dirt3 - on AMD scaling is not that great and the GPU needs some CPU power to keep being fed. On AMD the results are better, making the GPU the limiting factor.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Made in 2009, Batman:AA uses the Unreal Engine 3 to create what was called “the Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever”, awarded in the Guinness World Record books with an average score of 91.67 from reviewers.  The game boasts several awards including a BAFTA.  Here we use the in-game benchmark while at the highest specification settings without PhysX at 2560x1440.  Results are reported to the nearest FPS, and as such we take 4 runs and take the average value of the final three, as the first result is sometimes +33% more than normal.

Our Batman results are highly odd.  On one card it seems that the CPU holds the frame rate back, but in a three-way GPU setup the frame rate decreases - this may due to the 4x PCIe 2.0 port is restricting data flow needed by other GPUs.