MSI P67A-GD65 Intel Socket 1155 Motherboard Performance Review

MSI P67A-GD65 NVIDIA SLI Scaling

Since the Intel P67 is a brand new chipset, we decided to change a few things up in our testing. The next two pages are all about the scaling of multiple GPU’s in our systems. First off, we are going to test how well the P67 chipset scales multiple NVIDIA cards. In order to do this we contacted our friends over at GALAXY and they were kind enough to send over a pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1Gb graphics cards that are available in a two card SLI kit.

The first game that was tested was Aliens Vs. Predator. The MSI P67A-GD65 performance in Aliens Vs. Predator was nearly spot on with the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe, at 1280×1024 there was only .1 frames per second difference in single card configuration and .4 frames per second in SLI. This gives the MSI P67A-GD65 a boost in SLI of 90.14% versus the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe a boost of 90.73%, not even enough to shake a stick at! Once we cranked up the resolution to 1920×1080 there was a .4% difference in the SLI performance with the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe coming out on top.

Our second gaming test that we wanted to test NVIDIA SLI performance is Metro 2033. The results in Metro 2033 are intriguing to say the least. When running a single Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 1Gb graphics card the MSI P67A-GD65 falls to the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe by .6%. Once a second Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 1Gb is added to the mix and SLI is set up the MSI P67A-GD65 takes the lead by 1%. Looking at the scaling the MSI P67A-GD65 receives a boost of 78% while the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe improves by only 75.1%. At 1920×1080 the overall scaling dropped slightly. The MSI P67A-GD65 saw an improvement of 72% while the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe improved by 70%.

Our final test for NVIDIA SLI scaling is S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. Single card configuration performance was identical between the Sandy Bridge boards at 1280×1024. SLI performance the MSI P67A-GD65 didn’t scale quite as well as the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe. The MSI P67A-GD65 improved by 71.6% while the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe improved by 74.2%. Cranking up the resolution to 1920×1080 the MSI did have slightly lower performance, .3 frames per second in single card configuration and .4 frames per second in SLI. Though the scaling was actually better, 84.4% for the MSI P67A-GD65 versus the 84.2% for the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe.

SLI performance between our Intel P67 motherboards is extremely close. Close enough in fact, that aside from benchmarking the differences won’t be noticeable. One thing is clear though, two out of the three games we ran today show that the Intel P67 motherboards will significantly out perform the previous generation P55 systems with comparable processors!