In order to test the board, we used the following setup:

• CPU: Intel XE6800 @ 2.93GHz
• Memory: Crucial Ballistix 2x1GB PC2-8000 @ 5-5-5-15-30 (1:2 setting)
• PSU: OCZ GameXStream GXS600 SLI-Ready
• VGA: MSI 7600GT Silent (stock memory/core timings)
• HDD: WD 800JB
• Monitor: Viewsonic 19" LCD VP930b (1280x1024 resolution)
• Windows XP SP2 with all latest updates installed
• Nvidia Forceware v92.91 (beta)
• HDD: WD 800JB

For comparison, we post results from a reference Core2Duo motherboard, Intel's D975XBX rev00 with 1351 BIOS and the Foxconn 945G7AD. In all cases, the same components were used. We tried to set the same memory timing/voltages where it was possible. Most of the tests were done with 706 beta BIOS, while the latest release 804 build may offer slightly higher performance.

- Everest Ultimate Edition 2006

EVEREST Ultimate Edition, is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiast PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking, it provides essential system and overclocking information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes EVEREST Ultimate Edition a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC.

The software has several built-in tests for both memory and CPU/FPU. The Asus P5B Deluxe provided impressive results in the memory tests:

In the FPU/CPU tests, the ASUS motherboard was again the top performer:

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCIe, ODBC Connections, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

We notice that the P5B Deluxe has a clear advantage in the Cache and Memory Index, while Foxconn 945G7AD seems slightly faster in the CPU tests.