- Test Configuration

To test all motherboards, we used the same components to have the most consistent and fair results:

DDR2 Memory Testbed (Asus P5K3 Deluxe, P5K Premium, Gigabyte P35-DQ6)

• CPU: Retail Intel E6600
• CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7
• Memory: 2x1GB Crucial PC-8000 (1067MHz @ 5-5-5-15-2T, 2.25V)
• VGA: MSI 7600GT Silent with Nvidia 93.71 installed
• HDD: WD 80GB SATAI (primary)
• HDD: Seagate 80GB SATAII (secondary)
• Operating system: Windows XP SP2 with all latest updates installed

DDR3 Memory Testbed (Asus P5K3 Deluxe)

• CPU: Retail Intel E6600
• CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7
• Memory: 2x1GB SuperTalent PC3-1600 CL7 (1067MHz @ 5-5-5-15-1T, 1.80V)
• VGA: MSI 7600GT Silent with Nvidia 93.71 installed
• HDD: WD 80GB SATAI (primary)
• HDD: Seagate 80GB SATAII (secondary)
• Operating system: Windows XP SP2 with all latest updates installed

We tried to set the same running memory speed and of course timings, to get a direct comparison between DDR2 and DDR3 memory results. We used a variety of benchmarking software to measure the performance of each motherboard:

• Sisoft Sandra 2007 SP1
• Everest Lavasys Ultimate Edition 2006 v3.00.717 beta
• SuperPI Mod v1.5XS
• PC Mark05 v1.1.0
• 3D Mark06 v1.2.0
• Recode v2.3.1.8
• Science Mark 06
• POV 3.70 beta15
• Cinebench v9.5