Mainboard DPC latencies

[hyper.real]

The table below of measured mainboard DPC latencies is due to Ian Cutress of anandtech.com who AFAIK is the only reviewer of mainboards performing systematic measurements of this performance parameter .

It may be helpful to selecting a board oriented to audio/music applications. YMMV. (The table is from http://anandtech.com/show/7484/asrock-z87eitx-review/5 and includes results up to November 2013. Refer to anandtech.com's mainboard reviews for up-to-date tabulations).

The measurement methodology is as follows: "The DPC latency checker measures how much time is processing DPCs from driver invocation – the lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds and taken as the peak latency while cycling through a series of short HD videos - under 500 microseconds usually gets the green light, but the lower the better."

DPC Latency Maximum
Time in Microseconds

ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe         60
ASUS P8Z77-V Pro            60
ASUS Maximus V Gene         81
Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH        85
MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming        87
ASUS Maximus V Formula      93
Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H       93
ASROCK Z77 Extreme9         98
ASROCK Fatal1ty Z77 Professional 102
ASROCK Z77 Extreme4         103
ASROCK Z77 Extreme6         106
Biostar TZ77XE4             109
ASUS Rampage IV Gene        110
ASROCR Z77 OC Formula       114
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H       115
MSI Z77A-GD65               119
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP7        121
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme     124
ASUS Rampage IV Formula     125
ASROCK X79 Professional     126
Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3       130
ASUS P8Z77-V Premium        135
ASROCK X79 Champion         136
MSI Z77 MPower              147
1MSI Z87 XPower             148
Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3        153
ASROCK Z87M OC Formula      157
MSI Z87I                    158
ASUS Z87-Pro                159
ASROCK Z87 OC Formula/AC    160
MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming         163
Gigabyte Z8711-UD3          164
ASROCK Z87E-ITX             222
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H       239
ASROCK Z87 Extreme6AC       314

My public thanks to Ian Cutress.

[Sebastian.Gabler]

Most of the stuff in the list is z77 based, which is dated.

Certainly it helps to avoid those boards considerably north 100 us only for the integrated devices. Still in all the others you may observe considerable DPC queues with fw-based an PCI audio cards.

Not sure if the list covers network activity, and which gfx have been used. As you said, YMMV. A lot.

-S