Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11 And MediaEspresso 6.5
This is more of a spot check than anything. Lucidlogix claims you should be getting native performance from discrete cards in discrete mode. Indeed, with a GeForce GTX 580 installed and using the latest drivers, we’re getting 100% of our performance before and after installing Virtu.
While we initially had trouble launching MediaEspresso with a pair of Radeon HD 6970s in CrossFire installed (this has since been fixed), the two graphics cards still handled their 3D workload without a problem. This is one huge benefit of running natively from a discrete card: if compatibility bites you, media transcoding is affected, not gaming.
Drop in a single Radeon HD 6970 or GeForce GTX 580 into Z68 and you won’t have any trouble at all with Virtu. Even virtualized, transcoding performance is near-native. We lose one second from our previously 17-second workload. That compares to a 1:12 task if we’re using the Radeon HD 6970’s acceleration.
Lucidlogix recommends against running in this configuration, since it doesn’t impart any power-saving benefits. However, this is exactly the way an enthusiast is going to want to use Z68. Kudos to Lucidlogix for turning around so quickly to address our most critical feedback.
