Intel P965: MSI P965 Platinum and ECS PX1 Extreme
by Gary Key on December 6, 2006 4:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Systems: Benchmark Setup
Both of our test units fully support the current range of socket 775 Intel processors. We chose an E6300 for testing as we feel this will be a very popular Core 2 Duo CPU choice with the P965 motherboards.
A 2GB memory configuration is now standard in the AT test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of memory. Our choice of DDR2-800 memory from GEIL offers a very wide range of memory settings during our stock and overclocked test runs. Our memory timings are set based upon determining the best memory bandwidth via our test application results.
We are utilizing the MSI X1950 XTX video card to ensure our 1280x1024 resolutions are not completely GPU bound for our motherboard test results. We did find in testing that applying a 4xAA/8xAF setting in most of today's latest games created a situation where the performance of the system starts becoming GPU limited. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolution for this article at standard settings. Our CrossFire results are run at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. Our games are basically GPU limited at that setting so the differences in performance between the P965 motherboards will be minimal but provide for an excellent comparison with CrossFire performance on the 975X chipset.
Both of our test units fully support the current range of socket 775 Intel processors. We chose an E6300 for testing as we feel this will be a very popular Core 2 Duo CPU choice with the P965 motherboards.
| Standard Test Bed Performance Test Configuration |
|
| Processor: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz, 2MB Unified Cache) |
| RAM: | GEIL PC2-6400 800MHz Plus (2x1GB - GX22GB6400PDC), 2.20V (Micron Memory Chips) |
| Hard Drive: | Seagate 320GB 7200RPM SATA2 16MB Buffer |
| System Platform Drivers: | Intel - 8.1.1.1001 NVIDIA - 8.22 |
| Video Cards: | 1 x MSI X1950XTX , 1 x ASUS X1950CF for CrossFire testing |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.10 |
| CPU Cooling: | Scythe Infinity |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GameXstream 700W |
| Optical Drive: | Sony 18X AW-Q170A-B2 |
| Case: | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Motherboards: | ASUS P5B-E (Intel P965 C2, 1.01G) - BIOS 0601 - Memory at 2.10V ASUS P5B-Deluxe (Intel P965 C2) - BIOS 0804 ASUS P5B-E (Intel P965 C2, 1.02G) - BIOS 0601 Abit AB9-Pro (Intel P965 C1) - BIOS 1.5 Biostar T-Force 965 Deluxe (Intel P965 C1) - BIOS IP96a803 Biostar T-Force 965PT (Intel P965 C1) - BIOS P96CA914BS ECS PX1 Extreme (Intel P965 C2) - BIOS B14 Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 (Intel P965 C2) - BIOS F6 Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 (Intel P965 C2) - BIOS F7 Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (Intel P965 C2) - BIOS F6 MSI P965 Platinum (Intel P965 C2) - BIOS 1.2 ASUS P5NSLI (NVIDIA 570SLI) - BIOS 0601 ASUS P5W-Deluxe (Intel 975X) - BIOS 1407 |
| Operating System: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| . | |
A 2GB memory configuration is now standard in the AT test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of memory. Our choice of DDR2-800 memory from GEIL offers a very wide range of memory settings during our stock and overclocked test runs. Our memory timings are set based upon determining the best memory bandwidth via our test application results.
We are utilizing the MSI X1950 XTX video card to ensure our 1280x1024 resolutions are not completely GPU bound for our motherboard test results. We did find in testing that applying a 4xAA/8xAF setting in most of today's latest games created a situation where the performance of the system starts becoming GPU limited. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolution for this article at standard settings. Our CrossFire results are run at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. Our games are basically GPU limited at that setting so the differences in performance between the P965 motherboards will be minimal but provide for an excellent comparison with CrossFire performance on the 975X chipset.
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mostlyprudent - Wednesday, December 6, 2006 - link
I had been looking forward to the review of the MSI board. I can understand some OC limitation at the price, but then don't call it a "Platinum" board. I really don't do very much OCing, but always view the ability to reach high overclocks as a sign of a more well engineered board.Anyway, thanks for the review.
Beachspree - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
I was wondering why the Firewire performance is so poor in these reviews:Firewire 400 gets a best throughput of 230.6Mb/s
It is known that Macs have poor USB 2 performance but look at the Firewire results by Barefeats:
http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html">http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html
http://www.barefeats.com/hard70.html">http://www.barefeats.com/hard70.html
Without the perfect conditions of a RAM disk and no cacheing they get real world performance of up to:
Firewire 400: 304 Mb/s (31% faster)
Firewire 800: 464 Mb/s (41% faster)
For comparison, Macs are getting lousy USB 2 performance. Intel Macs have improved it but that takes it from around 136Mb/s to 168Mb/s. That's 75% slower.
Given the importance of Firewire in critical multimedia applications and it's likely use for HD video camcorders does this poor performance not warrant a mention?
Beachspree - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
To be clearer:Can we please have some real world figures for USB 2.0, eSATA and Firewire 400/800 transfers?
That should take the form of transfers of:
a) Many small files
b) One large file
under default settings and off an internal 7200 HDD you standardize on. That's what most people actually do when the backup, so that's what we need to see in order to make informed choices. I suspect these data rates you keep publishing are ones we will actually never see.
I suggest, also, that poor Firewire performance in Windows is more important than poor USB on Macs. They always have Firewire built in and tend to it on peripherals, while Windows users often make do with USB until they get into music or video editing when they then find the need for Firewire and hit this poor performance just when they start needing mission critical performance. I'm talking about dropped frames and music latency.
Why is that ignored in all your motherboard reviews?
Thanks.