Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on July 19, 2006 6:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
Test conditions were maintained the same, as much as possible, over the platforms tested. For better comparison standard test results (1280x1024) were run with a single NVIDIA 7900GTX on all platforms. A single ATI X1900XTX was also tested at standard resolutions on the Intel 975X boards which support CrossFire. Consider this result a sanity check for single card performance and CrossFire. It should not be directly compared to other test results. Since SLI and CrossFire are not yet interchangeable, 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF SLI was run on the single NVIDIA-based board with a pair of 7900GTX cards. 1600X1200 4xAA/8xAF CrossFire was run on the Intel 975X boards using a Master+Standard X1900XT CrossFire setup. All results are reported in our charts and color-coded for easier identification of results.
All Core 2 Duo benchmarking used Corsair PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066) 2GB kit at 3-3-3 timings at 2.2V. In recent months the memory market has moved from a 1GB kit to a 2GB kit being the common memory configuration. Our new DDR2 test standard is 2GB.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (X2, 2.67GHz, 4MB Unified Cache) |
| RAM | 2 x 1GB Corsair Twin2X2048-8500C5 Tested at DDR2-800 3-3-3 2.2V |
| Hard Drive(s) | Hitachi 250GB SATA2 enabled (16MB Buffer) |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel - 8.0.1.1002 NVIDIA - 6.86 |
| Video Cards: | 1 x EVGA 7900GTX - All Standard Tests 2 x EVGA 7900GTX - SLI on NVIDIA 1 x ATI X1900XTX - ATI Standard Tests on Intel 2 x ATI X1900XT (Master+Standard) - CrossFire on Intel |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA 91.31 ATI Catalyst 6.6 |
| CPU Cooling: | Tuniq Tower 120 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GameXstream 700W |
| Motherboards: | ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe (Intel 975X) Intel 975XBX (Intel 975X) ASUS P5B Deluxe (Intel P965) ASUS P5N32-SLI (nF4 SLIX16 Intel) Biostar TForce P965 Deluxe (Intel P965) Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (Intel P965) DFI Infinity 975X/G (Intel 975X) ASRock 775Dual-VSTA (VIA PT880 PRO) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
Test conditions were maintained the same, as much as possible, over the platforms tested. For better comparison standard test results (1280x1024) were run with a single NVIDIA 7900GTX on all platforms. A single ATI X1900XTX was also tested at standard resolutions on the Intel 975X boards which support CrossFire. Consider this result a sanity check for single card performance and CrossFire. It should not be directly compared to other test results. Since SLI and CrossFire are not yet interchangeable, 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF SLI was run on the single NVIDIA-based board with a pair of 7900GTX cards. 1600X1200 4xAA/8xAF CrossFire was run on the Intel 975X boards using a Master+Standard X1900XT CrossFire setup. All results are reported in our charts and color-coded for easier identification of results.
All Core 2 Duo benchmarking used Corsair PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066) 2GB kit at 3-3-3 timings at 2.2V. In recent months the memory market has moved from a 1GB kit to a 2GB kit being the common memory configuration. Our new DDR2 test standard is 2GB.
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Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I am surprised I did not see this posted on a news site somewhere announcing Intel has a X6600. ;-) The line was corrected this morning to (X6800, E6700, E6600) although late last night my mind was probably thinking unlocked E6600 equals X6600 for some reason. Thanks for the notice! :)
drarant - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
In recent months the memory market has moved from a 1GB kit to a 2BG kit being the common memory configuration.2GB*
Excellent article, I'm assuming the OCing results were default voltages on the chipsets and/or the cpu?
drarant - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
page 11, 2nd to last sentence*Patsoe - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
To be honest, I would say it's quite different!
The storage controllers have been changed a lot... there is now a port-multiplier type of SiI chip that connects to one of the ICH7 ports, which provides driverless (!) RAID. Also, the previous board had a Marvell SATA/PATA controller instead of the JMicron controller.
For another difference: the new board is missing the PCIe 4x slot, too.
Anyway, thanks for the great overview! And it's amazing how fast after launch you got this up.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Thanks for your comment. We added information to the P5W-DH page with a little more info on the differences from the earlier board.nicolasb - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
...is what is the actual impact on system performance of different memory speeds and timings? Possibly you guys actually derive a direct erotic thrill simply from knowing that your memory timings are 4-3-3-9 ;-) but what the rest of us care about is whether any given timings actually provide a tangible improvement to running applications. If I spend an extra £200 on memory, am I going to get an extra 10fs in a certain game, or just an extra 1fps if I'm lucky? That's what I want to know.Conroe is a new chip and it is by no means obvious (to me, anyway) whether the speed/latency of the memory will have a greater or lesser impact on the performance of the system than is the case for Netburst or A64 chips.
So, how about re-running some of your benchmarks on one particular board and producing results for different memory speeds and latencies?
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
The original plan was to publish a Conroe memory article prior to this huge motherboard and memory roundup. The move forward of the Conroe launch by two weeks shifted our schedule quite a bit, as we discussed in the Buying Guide. we have found the timings DDR2 memory can achieve give a rough idea of the performance hierarchy on Conroe. That is 1067 at 4-4-4 is a bit faster than 800 at 3-3-3 is faster than 667 3-2-3. 667 is generally faster than nything slower regardless of timings.With 13 DDR2 kits it was impossible to do proper and complete performance testing on all the memory on Conroe and still deliver an article when you want to read it. There will definitely be followup reviews of memory on Conroe anwsering your questions in detail. We knew there would be complaints from some, but we also hoped you could understnad the roundup is posting 4 days after an early Conroe launch - and you can't even buy Core 2 Duo until 7/27 or later.
We wanted to provide solid info as soon as possible for those planning a Conroe purchase. We thought our finding that almost any Elpida value DDR2 will do DDR2-800 4-3-3 at about 2.2v was big news you would want to know, we will fill in the rest of the performance data as soon as we can.
As it is the roundup is over 15,000 words and one of the largest articles ever published at AT - in word length - and we really tried to be brief in each review. We really like giving our readers exactly what they want, but sometimes the realities of time and volume shift our priorities.
Tanclearas - Thursday, July 20, 2006 - link
Although I can understand what you're saying, maybe the following should not have been included in the introductory page.I guess the only surprise was that the comparison wasn't there. :P
Honestly, I tried to jump right to that section only to find rather useless comparisons of ridiculously expensive memory (which I won't buy) and "value" (read cheap) memory (which I won't buy). Also, can you really tell me that it was much of a surprise that the expensive memory all topped out at roughly the same speed (~1100, 5-5/4-5-15)? Nor am I particularly surprised the value memory could overclock reasonably well, but how about tests of the memory that I think most of your readers are likely to buy? I've been looking at DDR2, and you can get memory rated at DDR2-800 for a little more than the DDR2-667/533 variety, and still a lot less than the DDR2-1000 modules.
I know that you were pressed for time, especially with the launch being pushed forward. I just think (and it is only an opinion) that other tests should have been given priority over the ones you've completed.
kmmatney - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Also, what motherboard was used for the DDR tests? Often, value RAM is paired with a "value" motherboard. Value RAM may not look so well when paired with a value motherboard. I'm wondering how cheap we can go for reasonable peformance :)Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
We stated at the end of page 18 that we will be publishing performance results of the value memory roundup shortly. The amount of time required to test these seven modules at four different settings in several different applications was incredible and warrants a separate article update.