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

DDR2 Memory Testbed

• CPU: Retail Intel E6600
• CPU Cooler: Intel stock + additional 12cm fan
• Memory: 2x1GB Crucial PC2-8000 (1067MHz @ 5-5-5-15-2T-2.25V)
• VGA: MSI 7600GT Silent with Nvidia 163.71 installed
• HDD: WD 80GB SATAI (primary)
• HDD: Seagate 80GB SATAII (secondary)
• Operating system: Windows XP SP2 with all latest updates installed

We used a variety of benchmarking software to measure the performance of each motherboard:

• Sisoft Sandra XII
• Everest Lavasys Ultimated Edition 2007
• SuperPI Mod v1.5XS
• PC Mark05 v1.2.0
• 3D Mark06 v1.2.0
• ScienceMark 2
• POV 3.70 beta15
• CineBench R9.5
• CineBench R10
• SysMark 2007 Preview
• WorldBench 6 Beta 2
• x264 Benchmark
• Lost Planet Demo

Note that for the Asus Maximus Formula SE, we used BIOS 0503 revision, while for Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 we used F3 for all tests. We updated the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 with a newer version (F4) but the performance was worse in all CPU tests. Gigabyte provided another revision (F5D) which was released after this review was completed.