How We Test
We’re going to be changing things up just a smidge going forward with X470 compared to our traditional 300 series AM4 reviews. First off, we’re going to be updating all of our software to the latest drivers and tool versions that are supported by our current test image. Secondly, we will be monitoring temperatures using HWiNFO64, since we have observed inconsistencies with AIDA64 even with the latest stable versions. In future articles, we’ll be equipping our X470 bench with a GTX 1080 as well as a 2000 series AMD CPU to hopefully modernize our setup.
Today’s article, however, will be comparing apples to apples with data from throughout the previous year. Any oddities or inaccuracies in the data will be described and filtered out from the calculations where the data could potentially be skewed. X370 reviews will continue to be tested the same way they have been for the past year, but we’ll reference some of the new data collection methods accordingly.
The X470 test bench is, in essence, our X370 test bench from chassis to cooler. The Thermaltake F51 Suppressor houses our components, with a Corsair H110i All-in-one cooler fastened to the top in an exhaust configuration. G.Skill still provides our test stand with two of their 2x8GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 TridentZ kits. The Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming still powers our graphical output, and our dependable Ryzen 7 1700X provides our rig with 8 cores and 16 threads running at 3.4GHz stock speeds. Our NVMe drive of choice is a Toshiba RD400 256GB, and a Corsair AX860 provides 80 Plus Platinum-rated power for our high load tests. If there is any other hardware you want us to feature, let us know in the comments.
Test Hardware
Comparison Products
Benchmark Settings
Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings | |
PCMark 8 | Version 2.7.613 Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft) |
SiSoftware Sandra | Version 2016.03.22.21 CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography Memory Bandwidth |
Iometer | Version 1.1.0 4K Random Read, 4K Random Write 128K Sequential Read, 128K Sequential Write |
Cinebench R15 | Build RC83328DEMO OpenGL Benchmark |
CompuBench | Version 1.5.8 Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing |
3D Tests & Settings | |
3DMark 13 | Version 4.47.597.0 Test Set 1: Skydiver, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 2: Firestrike, 1920x1080, Default Preset Test Set 3: Firestrike Extreme, 2560x1440 Default Preset |
Application Tests & Settings | |
HandBrake CLI | Version: 0.9.9 Sintel Open Movie Project 4.19GB 4K mkv to x265 mp4 |
LAME MP3 | Version 3.98.3 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3 Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) |
Adobe After Effects CC | Release 2015.3.0 Version 13.8.0.144 PCMark-driven routine |
Adobe Photoshop CC | Release 2015.5.0 20160603.r.88 x64 PCMark-driven routine (light and heavy) |
Adobe InDesign CC | Release 2015.4 Build 11.4.0.90 x64 PCMark-driven routine |
Adobe Illustrator | Release 2015.3.0 Version 20.0.0 (64-bit) PCMark-driven routine |
Blender | Version 2.68a BMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark |
7-Zip | Version 16.02 THG-Workload (7.6GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9" |
Game Tests & Settings | |
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation | Version 2.50.28527 High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 1920x1080, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA High Preset - 3840x2160, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAA Crazy Preset - 3840x2160, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA |
F1 2015 | 2015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, Rain 1920x1080 - Ultra High Preset, 16x AF 3840x2160 - Ultra High Preset, 16x AF |
Metro Last Light Redux | Version 3.00 x64 High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation High Quality, 3840x2160, High Tesselation Very High Quality, 3840x2160, Very High Tesselation |
The Talos Principle | Version 301136 1920x1080 - High Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 1920x1080 - Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF 3840x2160 - High Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AF 3840x2160 - Ultra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF |
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