Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK Review (Page 10 of 12)

Page 10 - Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R15

About SuperPI

Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point—up to a maximum of 32 million. It uses Gauss–Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of the program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 2^32 digits.

Super Pi is used by many overclockers to test the performance and stability of their computers. In the overclocking community, the standard program provides a benchmark for enthusiasts to compare "world record" pi calculation times and demonstrate their overclocking abilities. The program can also be used to test the stability of a certain overclock speed. If a computer is able to calculate PI to the 32 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be moderately stable in terms of RAM and CPU. However, longer tests with other CPU/RAM intensive calculation programs will run for hours instead of minutes and may better stress system stability. While Super Pi is not the fastest program for calculating Pi, it remains very popular in the hardware and overclocking communities.

From: Wikipedia (January 22, 2011)

We have always included SuperPi in our benchmark results, because it is a quick and dirty run that always proves to be interesting. It is neither the fastest way to calculate Pi, nor is it the most challenging. But being an enthusiast at heart, this program has always provided interesting results for showing off your overclocking prowess at your favorite online forum. Any increase in clock speed will indeed make a difference in this test, and even with only an additional 300MHz from the Core i7-4790K's 4.4GHz Turbo Boost specification, the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK running the overclocked processor easily shaved off half a second off the baseline time.

About Cinebench R15

CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Life of Pi or Prometheus and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and OS X). And best of all: It's completely free.

From: Developer's Page


Cinebench R15 is separated into two tests: One tests the CPU image rendering performance, while the other benchmarks the OpenGL video rendering performance. Obviously, having a fast processor and a powerful video card, respectively, will play a much more significant role in determining these scores, so I was quite interested in what the overclocked Intel Core i7-4790K could do on the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK. In the OpenGL test, we gained about 3 FPS, which is practically gaining pocket change on big bills at best. However, the CPU test provided a more noticeable increase. At stock, it is not quite the Chinese lucky number, but overclocked, we saw a sweet 6.5% kick up from stock configuration. I am not complaining.


Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Bundle, Chipset, BIOS
3. A Closer Look, Board Layout, Test System
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
6. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
7. Benchmark: PCMark 8
8. Benchmark: 3DMark
9. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0
10.Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R15
11. Onboard Sound Frequency Analysis
12. Overclocking and Conclusion