It is my preference to get these two benchmarks done and out of the way with first. Especially since they are excruciatingly long (about 1 hour each), and for how they help in diagnosing memory stability issues. Those issues aren't anything destructive mind you, just intricacies that can cause stability issues. In fact, one issue these two benchmarks were able to sniff out involved that afore mentioned issue with regards to memory timings. Initially, the timings we would usually employ for the Corsair PC8500 XMS2 modules would be 4-4-4-12/2T. Unfortunately, this Sapphire board didn't like those figures, so we set the timings to auto in the BIOS. More on those timings later. But first, the benchmarks.

The Sapphire came close, but really didn't take any medals home.

And the same can be said for content creation.