Intel P965: Mid-Range Performance Sector Roundup

General System Performance

We devised a script that would compress our standard test folder consisting of 444 files, ten subfolders, and 602MB worth of data, convert a 137MB High Definition QuickTime movie clip to a 37MB MPEG-4 format, play back the first two chapters of OfficeSpace with PowerDVD, and run our AVG anti-virus program in the background. We stop the script when the file compression and video conversion are complete. This is a very taxing script for the CPU, Memory, and Storage subsystem. We also found it to be a good indicator of system stability during our overclocking testing.


The performance difference basically mirrors our PCMark 2005 tests with the ASUS P965 boards scoring about 3% better overall in our multitasking test. While a 3% margin is not earth shattering it does show the ASUS boards are better adept at handling multiple tasks with the P965 chipset. The other P965 motherboards basically scored the same with the ASUS P5NSLI making a decent showing in this test.

PCMark 2005, together with two benchmarks that use rendering to test system performance - Cinebench 9.5 and POV-Ray 3.6 - have replaced the Winstones for testing general performance. Cinebench 9.5 and POV-RAY 3.6 benchmarks both heavily stress the CPU subsystem while performing graphics modeling and rendering. We utilize the standard benchmark demos in each program along with their default settings. Cinebench 9.5 features two different benchmarks with one test utilizing a single core and the second test using the power of multiple cores to render the benchmark image. We utilize the dual core test for our results.



Returning back to normal we see the P965 motherboards grouped closely together and finishing slightly ahead of the 975X and 570SLI offerings. In this case, the Biostar board takes top honors in both tests with the Gigabyte board following closely. These test results bear out our memory test results where the Gigabyte and Biostar boards lead the other boards in our Sandra Unbuffered test results. Our Sandra Unbuffered test results generally inidicate which system will perform best in CPU or Memory intensive tasks.