EVGA X299 Dark Motherboard Review a Core i9 Platform for Speed

EVGA X299 Dark Motherboard SPECworkstation 3.0.2

SPECworkstation 3 has been updated to 3.0.2 which measures the 3D graphics performance of systems running under the OpenGL and Direct X application programming interfaces. As a result of the new update, we cannot compare between past version 3 results so we will show the screenshot of the results here and graph them in later reviews.

In SPECworkstation 3.0.2 the X299 Dark and Intel Core i9-10980XE generates good results with the GPU test section but falls into the middle of the pack in other tests.

EVGA X299 Dark Motherboard PassMark 9

PassMark Performance Test allows you to benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests; it tests the entire PC and all its components.

Passmark 9 was a benchmark that prefers Intel-based processors, even higher core count AMD processors do not generate good results. Here, the X299 Dark and Core i9-10980XE are out-performing the 28 core and $4449 Intel Xeon W-3275. That is a big deal.

EVGA X299 Dark Motherboard PCMark 10

PCMark 10 is another system benchmark that we have not run to date but will start doing so in future reviews.

With PCMark 10 the EVGA X299 Dark and Intel Core i9-10980XE fall behind higher core count CPUs. Although the Threadripper 3970X is faster, the delta is nowhere near the percentage of the price delta.

EVGA X299 Dark Motherboard Blender Benchmark

The benchmark consists of two parts: a downloadable package which runs Blender and renders on several production files, and the Open Data portal on blender.org, where the results will be (optionally) uploaded.

Results here are about where we can expect. This is still an 18-core CPU so against higher core count CPUs it can do well due to clock speed but it only has so many cores.

Next, we are going to look at AIDA64 CPU Benchmarks.