In 2004 when the integrated GeForce 4 MX was reviewed as part of the nForce 2 platform, the hot title on the PC was Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo was especially taxing on hardware as it took a couple generations of GPUs before we could enjoy playing the game at high resolutions with high quality graphics. In that review, we took the integrated GeForce 4 MX for a test in Halo and ended up receiving an average frame rate of 50 frames per second and a minimum frame rate of 24 - all at the resolution of 640x480 with high texture quality and particles enabled, although shadows and specular lighting were disabled.
Halo: Combat Evolved - 2004
In 2008, we have Crysis, which is a top contender for today's most stressful PC game. As we did with Halo, we played through the first level in Crysis using only the GeForce 8300 mGPU and averaged a respectable 32 frames per second at a resolution of 800x600 with low quality settings. Even with low quality settings, Crysis looks amazing.
Crysis - 2008
NVIDIA's mGPUs are close to delivering playable frame rates at 720p, which is a popular resolution supported by most high-definition LCD televisions.
VIDEO PLAYBACK
Video playback was conducted using the 720p Windows Media Version (WMV) of Step Into Liquid. Playback with Windows Media Player under Windows XP was fluid as the GeForce 8300 mGPU took over most of the processing. CPU utilization ranged from 8-10%.
Playing back 1080p or higher quality content, such as AVC or VC-1, will likely cause CPU utilization to increase.
CONCLUSION
The Asus M3N78 Pro is a full-featured motherboard for the AMD platform and performed without incident during the three weeks that our test system was up and running. With leading-edge features like Express Gate and Hybrid SLI, the M3N78 Pro is suited for the budget-conscious consumer and earns our Home Run award.
Unfortunately, that the Phenom is not the recommended processor to keep a high-end GPU occupied as depicted in the benchmark results below. In this test, the performance of the Phenom 9850 X4 and Intel's Core 2 Duo E8500 is compared in Crysis using a GeForce 280 GTX.
Crysis - Phenom 9850 X4 vs. Core 2 Duo E8500
Similar results from Crysis were obtained by bit-tech.net in their review of the Phenom 9850 X4. Both processors are comparitively priced and were selling around $200 at the time this review was published.
Note that overclocking tests were not conducted due to having damaged the processor by accident while removing the heatsink from the motherboard.
Other reviews of the Asus M3N78 Pro and NVIDIA's GeForce 8300 chipset can be found at silentpcreview and The Tech Report.
