The new PCMark Vantage program simulates the use of real-world applications and gives scores for the following categories:

• PCMark
• Memories
• TV and Movies
• Gaming
• Music
• Communications
• Productivity
• HDD

For a detailed description of each one of these tests, please download and read the PCMark Vantage Reviewer’s Guide.

You can see the results for each category below. We are not going to compare the results for the Memories and HDD suites.

This benchmarking was done using the motherboard on-board video. Usually the motherboard with the fastest graphics engine achieves the highest score on this program. See the results below.

ECS GF9300T-A achieved an overall score similar to all motherboards based on Intel chipsets (G45, G33 and G31) we included in our review. The only significant difference was to GeForce 7100, where GeForce 9300 achieved a score 12% higher than ECS GF7100PVT-M3.

ECS GF9300T-A achieved a TV and Movies score between 5% and 7% lower than the score achieved by motherboards used Intel chipsets (G45, G33 and G31). On the other hand ECS GF9300T-A achieved a score 20% higher than the one achieved by ECS GF7100PVT-M3 (GeForce 7100) on this test.

On the Gaming test ECS GF9300T-A achieved the highest score among the motherboards we included in our comparison. It achieved a score 23% higher than the one achieved by Intel DG45ID (Intel G45), 40% higher than the one achieved by ECS GF7100PVT-M3 (GeForce 7100), 76% higher than the one achieved by MSI G31M3-F (Intel G31) and 82% higher than the one achieved by MSI G33M-FI (Intel G33).

On the Music test all motherboards included in our comparison achieved similar results.

On the Communications test all motherboards included in our comparison achieved similar results as well.

On the Productivity test motherboards based on Intel G33 and G31 chipsets achieved the highest scores. MSI G31M3-F (Intel G31) achieved a score 8% higher than the one achieved by ECS GF7100PVT-M3 (GeForce 7100), 9% higher than the one achieved by ECS GF9300T-A (GeForce 9300) and 17% higher than the one achieved by Intel DG45ID (Intel G45). ECS GF9300T-A (GeForce 9300) achieved a score similar to ECS GF7100PVT-M3 (GeForce 7100), which was 7% higher than the one achieved by Intel DG45ID (Intel G45).