Gaming Performance:

As the cards we've used for multi-GPU testing on the previous page are not directly comparable on price or performance, we've not included multi-GPU performance comparisons here. As a result, we've just included single card performance using a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. We included them on the previous page to show how the boards react to multi-GPU mode and whether it results in a performance drop.




Before we start, let's remember that the MA790FX-DQ6 takes advantage of PCI-Express 2.0, while the M2N32-SLI Deluxe only uses PCI-Express 1.0 slots.

The MA790FX-DQ6 is within a single frame per second of the M2N32-SLI Deluxe in Crysis, somewhere where we'd expect to see a faster board with more PCI-Express bandwidth to take advantage of. In fact, it's only in Company of Heroes where we see the extra bandwidth actually make a bit of difference.

Power Consumption

For our power consumption tests, we used the configuration listed on the test setup page of this review with a single GeForce 8800 GT 512MB installed. All BIOS options were left set at their default values.


The major advantage of the MA790FX-DQ6 comes from the improvements in power regulation, solid capped aluminium capacitors and far lower chipset power use. The Gigabyte board will save you some 50W when idle and 20W under load, however these numbers are still far greater than we've seen from current Intel boards which have previously topped out at around ~200W for a dual-core system.