System setup and notes
Hardware
| Motherbords | Foxconn P35A | ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi | ASUS COMMANDO | Foxconn 975X7AB | ECS PN2 SLI2+ - nForce 680i SLI | EVGA nForce 680i LT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chipsets | P35 + ICH9 | P35 + ICH9R | P965 + ICH8R | i975X + ICH7R | nForce 680i SLI SPP + 680i (590) SLI MCP | nForce 680i LT SPP + 570 SLI MCP |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, LGA775) | |||||
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Corsair EPP | |||||
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12 2T @ 800MHz (PC6400) | |||||
| Graphics card(s) | HIS X1900 CrossFire + Sapphire X1900 XTX | Dual ASUS GeForce 7900 GTXs in SLI | ||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||||
| Optical drive(s) | Sony DW-Q30A | |||||
| BIOS revision | P17 (05/09/2007) | 0201 (04/23/2007) | 0601 (22/12/2006) | 635F1D08 (09/08/2006) | 691N0P19 (10/31/2006) | 721N0P01 (02/22/2007) |
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf Update 8.3.0.1013 | Intel Inf Update 8.1.1.1010 | Intel Inf 8.0.1.1002 | NVIDIA platform driver 9.53 | ||
| Graphics driver | ATI CATALYST 6.10 Beta (7.5 Beta for XF) | ATI CATALYST 6.8 (6.10 Beta for XF) | NVIDIA ForceWare 91.47 | |||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, w/ SP2, 32-bit | |||||
| PSU | FSP Epsilon 600W | |||||
| Monitor | Dell 2405FPW | |||||
Software
We ran the mainboards through our usual array of benchmarks.| 2D Benchmarks |
ScienceMark Memory Bandwidth ScienceMark Memory Latency HEXUS Pifast calculation to 10M places HEXUS WAV encoding HEXUS DivX encoding POV-Ray 32-bit 3.7.0 BETA 16 - Use internal benchmark mode - biscuit.pov Cinebench 2003 v9.5 HDTach RW v3.0.1.0 |
|---|
| 3D Benchmarks |
Far Cry v1.33 Quake 4 v1.30 Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.05 |
|---|
Observational notes
We encountered a number of testing-related issues when evaluating the sample motherboard. We couldn't utilise AHCI (no NCQ), only two of the four SATA ports functioned correctly, and our optical drive, a Sony DW-Q30A, only worked in PIO mode, resulting in slow transfers and high CPU utilisation. Again, we put these issues down to the pre-production nature of the motherboard.Benchmark results from chipsets based around the same processor and supporting components tend to be almost identical. That's why we pay attention to the actual speed that the boards run the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor at, to see if anyone's gaining an artificially-induced advantage by sneakily increasing the board's FSB.
2940.3MHz - 267.3MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi
2938.0MHz - 267.1MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - Foxconn 975X7AB
2933.1MHz - 266.6MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - ECS PN2 SLI2+ nForce 680i SLI
2933.1MHz - 266.6MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - EVGA nForce 680i LT SLI
2931.5MHz - 266.5MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - Foxconn P35
2930.4MHz - 266.4MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - ASUS COMMANDO - P965
The playing field is pretty level as far as the Intel boards are concerned. On to the benchmarks!