Intel P965: The Double Mint Twins Gone Wild
by Gary Key on November 9, 2006 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
General System Performance
We devised a script that would compress our standard test folder consisting of 444 files, ten subfolders, and 602MB worth of data, convert a 137MB High Definition QuickTime movie clip to a 37MB MPEG-4 format, play back the first two chapters of Office Space with PowerDVD, and run our AVG anti-virus program in the background. We stop the script when the file compression and video conversion are complete. This is a very taxing script for the CPU, Memory, and Storage subsystem. We also found it to be a good indicator of system stability during our overclocking testing.
The performance difference basically mirrors our PCMark 2005 tests with the ASUS P965 boards scoring about 3% better overall in our multitasking test. We also see our Biostar 965PT board nipping on the heels of the ASUS boards and showing the results in PCMark 2005 were repeatable in this multitasking test. Both Gigabyte boards finish last which is surprising given their strength in our other benchmarks. As with our PCMark 2005 test both Gigabyte boards had issues with the virus scanning tests. We noticed in this test that our AVG anti-virus scan would stutter severely at various times during the tests.
PCMark 2005, together with two benchmarks that use rendering to test system performance - Cinebench 9.5 and POV-Ray 3.6 - has replaced Winstones for testing general performance. The Cinebench 9.5 and POV-RAY 3.6 benchmarks both heavily stress the CPU subsystem while performing graphics modeling and rendering. We utilize the standard benchmark demos in each program along with their default settings. Cinebench 9.5 features two different benchmarks with one test utilizing a single core and the second test using the power of multiple cores to render the benchmark image. We utilize the dual core test for our results.
We see our collection of Biostar and Gigabyte boards taking top honors in these benchmarks although all of the scores are extremely close. We continue to see a pattern where the P965 boards at stock speeds are scoring slightly better than our 975X and NVIDIA 570SLI offerings.
We devised a script that would compress our standard test folder consisting of 444 files, ten subfolders, and 602MB worth of data, convert a 137MB High Definition QuickTime movie clip to a 37MB MPEG-4 format, play back the first two chapters of Office Space with PowerDVD, and run our AVG anti-virus program in the background. We stop the script when the file compression and video conversion are complete. This is a very taxing script for the CPU, Memory, and Storage subsystem. We also found it to be a good indicator of system stability during our overclocking testing.
The performance difference basically mirrors our PCMark 2005 tests with the ASUS P965 boards scoring about 3% better overall in our multitasking test. We also see our Biostar 965PT board nipping on the heels of the ASUS boards and showing the results in PCMark 2005 were repeatable in this multitasking test. Both Gigabyte boards finish last which is surprising given their strength in our other benchmarks. As with our PCMark 2005 test both Gigabyte boards had issues with the virus scanning tests. We noticed in this test that our AVG anti-virus scan would stutter severely at various times during the tests.
PCMark 2005, together with two benchmarks that use rendering to test system performance - Cinebench 9.5 and POV-Ray 3.6 - has replaced Winstones for testing general performance. The Cinebench 9.5 and POV-RAY 3.6 benchmarks both heavily stress the CPU subsystem while performing graphics modeling and rendering. We utilize the standard benchmark demos in each program along with their default settings. Cinebench 9.5 features two different benchmarks with one test utilizing a single core and the second test using the power of multiple cores to render the benchmark image. We utilize the dual core test for our results.
We see our collection of Biostar and Gigabyte boards taking top honors in these benchmarks although all of the scores are extremely close. We continue to see a pattern where the P965 boards at stock speeds are scoring slightly better than our 975X and NVIDIA 570SLI offerings.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
23 Comments
View All Comments
Marlin1975 - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The biggest problem I, and seems like most, have with 965 chipsets is the JMicron JMB363 IDE. You said there is a driver problem for the newwest driver but did not say what driver that is? Like 13.03, 15, etc... I think I have a new driver then someone in the forums has one that is 2 whole numbers newwer.I have a hard time trying to find a decent driver so I just get what I can for the JMicron JMB363. My DVD burner just comes up in windows as a reg. drive and I can;t get windows to see that it is a burner. Mind you Nero sees it as a burner. So I am guessing that is a JMicron JMB363.
I like my Gigabyte board, better then the Asus I had. But the lack of IDE support by Intel makes me want to get a Nvidia 600i board even more.
jackylman - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
The Biostar 965PT (and, I assume, the Deluxe) includes a VIA VT6401 IDE controller instead of the Jmicron. I had no problems seeing the controller in the BIOS or getting my optical drive to run in DMA.Just another reason that this board rules.
Viditor - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The biggest problem I have encountered seems like a small one, but it's getting annoying.It seems that none of the 965 boards allow for 2 x PATA connectors...I don't know for sure, but I assume this is a limitation of the chipset.
The problem I keep running into is the reuse of existing components for an upgrade. Obviously you need one of the PATAs for the optical drives, which means that unless you get a PATA controller card you can't reuse your existing PATA drives...
Sho - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The P965 chipset doesn't have any PATA support by itself, so the mobo makers need to include a seperate controller.BladeVenom - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Nice to see the less expensive models getting a thorough review. Everyone reviews the Biostar Deluxe, even though it's almost impossible to find, unless you're a reviewer.Also nice to see that model of Crucial RAM used. Next time you do a budget review could you also test the cheapest memory available, and 1:1 ratio for overclocking be damned.
Gary Key - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
We are still testing lower priced memory. I will add some addtional overclocking results to these two boards tomorrow. :)
BladeVenom - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Thanks.DaveLessnau - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
I might have missed the reason for this in the write-ups. If so, I apologize. But, why aren't you reviewing any Intel boards? I'd have thought that they'd provide a decent baseline for comparison to see if the other manufacturers can do any better/different.Gary Key - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The Intel board we originally received has been pulled from retail availability. We have a BLKDP965LTCK coming next week to take its place. I believe this board currently retails for $110~$115. I will do my best to at least get performance numbers from this board in our charts before the final article goes up.Sho - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
... where's that high-end board roundup hiding? IIRC an Anandtech staffer had announced it for last Friday in a comment to another article about two weeks back.