ASUS Maximus Extreme - the Extreme Benchmarker's Choice?

Media Performance

We will take a brief look at general media performance with our test suite that includes Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0. We utilize the PC WorldBench 6.0 Test for measuring platform performance in Adobe's Photoshop CS2. The benchmark applies an extensive number of filters to the test image and heavily stresses the CPU and storage systems. The scores include the full conversion process reported in seconds, with lower numbers indicating better performance.

Our next test is one recommended by Intel, but the test itself appears to be fair and results are very repeatable. This test simply measures the amount of time required to fix and optimize 103 different photos weighing in at 63MB. We measure time in seconds, with lower times resulting in better performance.

Media Encoding Performance

We are utilizing Nero Recode 2 for our video encoding test. The scores reported include the full encoding process and are in seconds, with lower numbers indicating better performance.

Audio Encoding Performance

We will utilize iTunes 7.4 for our audio encoding tests, as it is one of the most utilized audio applications available due to the immense popularity of the iPod. As in previous articles, we are using an INXS Greatest Hits CD for testing, which contains 16 tracks totaling 606MB of songs. We use iTunes to convert our WAV files into an ACC compatible format. We utilize the 256kbps and variable bit rate option.

File Compression Performance

Another CPU crunching utility is WinRAR 3.70, which provides for computationally intensive file compression. Our test folder contains 444 files, 10 subfolders, and 602MB worth of data. The WinRAR test utilizes default settings and we defragments the hard drive before each test

Performance Summary

Yet again, the ASUS Maximus Extreme performs well in tests that do not depend on fast CPU/memory throughput. The latency/throughput penalty with DDR3 running at 1066 speeds does come into play in our Photoshop Elements and WinRAR tests. However, the overall differences between the boards are minimal.