System setup and notes
Hardware
| Motherboard | ASUS P5K Deluxe Wifi AP Edition | ASUS Commando (P965) | Foxconn 975X7AB (975x) | ECS PN2 SLI2+ (680i SLI) | EVGA nForce 680i LT SLI (680i LT) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 | |||||
| BIOS revision | 0201 | 0601 | 635F1D08 (Foxconn) 1602 (ASUS) |
691N1P19 | 721N0P01 | |
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Corsair PC8500 EPP | |||||
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12 2T @ 800MHz 5-5-5-15 @ 1066MHz |
4-4-4-12 2T @ 800MHz (PC6400) | ||||
| Graphics card(s) | HIS X1900 CROSSFIRE EDITION + Sapphire X1900XTX | 2 x ASUS GeForce 7900GTX 512MB | ||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||||
| Mainboard software | Intel INF 8.300.1013 | Intel INF 8.1.1.1010 | Intel INF 8.0.1.1002 | NVIDIA Driver package 9.53 | ||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST
6.10 BETA (CATALYST 7.5 BETA for P35 CrossFire) |
CATALYST 6.8 | Forceware 91.47 | |||
| Operating system | Windows XP Professional (SP2), 32-bit | |||||
Tests
| 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 |
|---|
Testing notes
There are a couple points that need to be taken into account when reading the testing results.
First and foremost is that testing of the 975x platform was split between the Foxconn 975X7AB and the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe due to time constraints. The board used for the tests is marked on the graphs.
Second, the CATALYST 6.10 drivers used for consistency in testing did not allow CrossFire to be enabled using the P35 chipset, so the CATALYST 7.5 beta drivers provided for the Radeon HD2900 XT launch were used instead for CrossFire testing. Single-card testing, though, was carried out using V6.10.
Some tests also include results for the P5K Deluxe with memory running at DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066.
Comparison choices
The boards selected make up the natural competitors to the P5K Deluxe, with prices ranging from around £100 for the Foxconn up to just over £160 for the 680i-based ECS.
