Asus Maximus V Gene (Z77) Motherboard Sandy Bridge Review

3DMark 11

3DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online.

3DMark 11 is one of a few tests of which we can see how well a motherboard brings everything together. Whilst the overclocking gains are not that beneficial, under Z77 alone we can see gains of around 800 points at performance levels over the Maximus IV Gene-Z

Unigine Heaven 2.5

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine™ engine. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies and utilises the full effect of DirectX 11 and allows you to configure shaders, tessellation and quality settings to your own personal choice.

Heaven is in a similar region with very little gains to be had from overclocking, but that said this is a predominantly GPU based benchmark.

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game based in the Russian metro system. Metro 2033 is very similar to the much loved game STALKER as it is developed by the same programmers. The game utilises DirectX 11 and relies heavily on tessellation features and is considered to be one of the most graphics intense games on the market.

Metro showed some impressing results with the board pushing past the 100fps barrier at 1680×1050.