System setup and notes
| Motherboard | ASUS P5E3 Deluxe WiFi AP Edition (Intel X38 + ICH9R) | Foxconn X38A (Intel X38 + ICH9R) DDR3 | ASUS P5K3 Deluxe WiFi AP Edition (Intel P35 + ICH9R) | abit IN9 32X-MAX WiFi (NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB, LGA775) | Actual CPU frequency | 2940.3MHz | 2933.7MHz | 2940.3MHz | 2933.7MHz |
| BIOS revision | 0503 (10/05/2007) | 723F1B17 | 0301 | 11 |
| Memory | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair PC8500 DDR3 | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair XMS2 EPP | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair PC8500 DDR3 | 2GBytes (2 x 1GByte) Corsair XMS2 EPP |
| Memory timings and speed | 7-7-7-20 2T @ DDR3-1069.2 | 4-4-4-12 2T @ DDR2-800 | 7-7-7-21 2T @ DDR3-1069.2 | 4-4-4-12 2T @ DDR2-800 |
| Graphics card(s) | HIS X1900 CrossFire Edition + Sapphire 1900XTX | 2 x ASUS GeForce 7800GTX 512MiB | ||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 6.10 BETA (single-card) + CATALYST 7.5 beta (CrossFire) | ForceWare 91.47 | ||
| Chipset driver | Intel Inf 8.4.0.1016 | 8.3.0.1013 | NVIDIA ForceWare 9.53 | |
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||
| Operating system | Windows XP Professional 32-bit with SP2 |
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Tests
| Benchmarks |
ScienceMark 2.0 memory bandwidth
HD Tach 3.0.1.0 - SATA average read speed
Far Cry v1.33 - 1024x768 |
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Testing notes
We're comparing the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe against the P35 chipset-based motherboard which also ships with DDR3 support - the P5K3 Deluxe. We've also added in Foxconn's X38A, run with DDR2 memory, to see what effect, if any, having slower speeds but tighter timings has on performance. Representing NVIDIA's nForce 680i SLI is abit's decent IN9 32-MAX.We've noted the actual CPU speeds on the boards. ASUS, as normal, runs with a slightly inflated FSB, so bear this in mind when comparing results.