System setup and notes
Hardware
| Motherbords | ASUS P5K3 Deluxe WiFi | ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi |
|---|---|---|
| Chipsets | P35 + ICH9R | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, LGA775) | |
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Corsair TWIN3X2048-1066C7 | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Corsair EPP |
| Memory timings and speed | 7-7-7-21 2T @ 1066MHz (PC8528) | 4-4-4-12 2T @ 800MHz (PC6400) |
| Graphics card(s) | HIS X1900 CrossFire + Sapphire X1900 XTX | |
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |
| Optical drive(s) | Sony DW-Q30A | |
| BIOS revision | 0301 (04/23/2007) | 0201 (04/23/2007) |
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf Update 8.3.0.1013 | |
| Graphics driver | ATI CATALYST 6.10 Beta (7.5 Beta for XF) | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, w/ SP2, 32-bit | |
| PSU | OCZ GameXstream 700W | |
| 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
The BIOS section has been omitted due to it being, for intents and purposes, identical to the P5K Deluxe's, save for obvious DDR3 support. We note that the P5K3 Deluxe directly supports DDR3-1333 once you happen to ratchet the CPU's FSB to 1333MHz.We're comparing the P5K3 Deluxe WiFi against its DDR2-equipped brother. Both mainboards operate at the same speed, which makes comparisons simple. Should you wish to see where the P5K Deluxe sits in relation to its DDR2-based competition, head on over to the performance section. We can tell you that it's all much of a muchness as far as LGA775 chipsets are concerned, though.
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 P5K3 Deluxe WiFi
2940.3MHz - 267.3MHz FSB - Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 - ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi
Yup, we've confirmed them to be identical. Memory bandwidth and latency should be responsible for any performance-related differences, then.