Gaming tests and overclocking
Due to the use of different graphics cards - Radeon X1900 XTs on Intel and GeForce 7900 GTXs on the sole NVIDIA board - there is little sense comparing result, except between boards that used the same card.
What we see here is that the P35's x4 PCIe CrossFire-forming slot doesn't impinge on performance - the Splinter Cell multi-GPU benchmark result is, for all intents and purposes, identical.
Overclocking
So what does X38 really provide over P35 in terms of performance, then? Our benchmarks have shown that there's precious little difference in terms of straight-line performance.We subjected the P5E3 to some basic overclocking action and the results were encouraging. Without pushing the board to the limit and using stock components, we managed a rock-solid 475MHZ (1900MHz QDR) with excellent stability, hinting at the X38's FSB-overclocking prowess and possible support for upcoming 1600MHz CPUs.