A color-coded full reference signal-to-noise (FR-SNR) method is proposed as a simple and reproducible performance evaluation method for EIT systems. It will be demonstrated with a 16-electrode high-speed EIT system and a resistive phantom. The performance of the EIT system can be altered by artificially introducing non-ideal operating conditions such as low drive current, low ADC resolution, dc offset in the readout front-end and large electrode impedance. The performance under these conditions will be measured and displayed using the FR-SNR method.