MSI A88X-G45 Gaming Motherboard Review
Testing Procedure
| Test Systems Configuration | |||
| Test System #1 | Test System #2 | ||
| Case | Cooler Master Cosmos II SE | Cooler Master Cosmos II SE | |
| Motherboard | MSI A88X-G45 Gaming | Gigabyte GA-G1.Sniper A88X | |
| CPU | AMD A10-7850K | AMD A10-7850K | |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Glacier 240L | Cooler Master Glacier 240L | |
| RAM | Kingston Hyper X Beast DDR3 2133 MHz 8 GB | Kingston Hyper X Beast DDR3 2133 MHz 8 GB | |
| GPU | Internal/VisionTek R9 280X | Internal/VisionTek R9 280X | |
| Hard Drives | Samsung 840 EVO 256gb SSD | Samsung 840 EVO 256gb SSD | |
| Western Digital black 500 gb 7200 RPM HDD | Western Digital black 500 gb 7200 RPM HDD | ||
| Power Supply | NXZT Hale v2 1000 Watt power supply | NXZT Hale v2 1000 Watt power supply | |
To test the MSI A88X-G45 Gaming Motherboard, the CMOS was cleared and used the default values, except for a few options. Memory was set to 2133 MHz and TDP was set to 95 watts. The time and date were set accordingly.
Testing Software:
- Aida64 Engineer
- Crystal Disk Mark
- CineBench R15
- PCMark
- WinRAR
- Handbrake
- Performance Test 8.0
- RightMark Audio Analyzer
Windows 7 Professional was installed on the SSD with all the latest patches available from Microsoft.
A reboot was performed between each benchmark run.
All applications
were run at their default values unless specified otherwise.
Integrated Graphics: All games were run in full screen at 1920×1080 with the in game performance settings set to medium quality settings. AA & AF were set to off, or the lowest setting if off wasn’t an option. Bioshock infinite, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Dirt 3, and Dirt Showdown were benchmarked using the respective Adrenaline benchmarking tool with the medium quality preset used for the test. DirectX 11 was chosen for all graphics tests if available.
VisionTek Radeon R9 280X: All games were run in full screen at 1920×1080 with the in game performance settings set to ultra quality settings. AA & AF were set to the maximum available. Bioshock infinite, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Dirt 3, and Dirt Showdown were benchmarked using the respective Adrenaline benchmarking tool with the ultra quality preset used for the test. DirectX 11 was chosen for all graphics tests if available.
All tests were taken a total of three times and the results were averaged together to get the final results.
For 3D Mark 11, we used performance settings. 3D Mark was left at the default settings and did not use the extreme settings.
AMD beta Catalyst 14.3 drivers were used for testing.
The motherboard BIOS was updated to the latest available from the manufacture’s website.
