Test Setup

Procedures

In our tests we used two types of settings. See below. The reason for this, is to show what the P35 chipset is capable of. Since the P35 has native support for 1333MHz FSB and DDR2-1066 (1333/1066), we wanted to see if where was any real differences in terms of speed and performance over standard default settings of 1066/800.

 Setting 1. FSB: 1066MHz   RAM: DDR2-800  (1066/800) - Auto default
 Setting 2. FSB: 1333MHz   RAM: DDR2-1066 (1333/1066) - Manually selected

We did not have any 1333FSB processors for testing, that because they're not even released yet! ... So, we decided to overclock our humble E6400 to 2.66GHz (7x333). We first lowered the multiplier to x7, and increased the FSB from 266 to 333 ... quad pumped to give us 1333FSB.

As for memory, we used the OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 SLI-Ready 2Gb Kit which is rated at DDR2-1066, so there's no problem here. We also used the latest video, audio and chipset drivers. Dual channel memory mode and EPP was automatically enabled in the BIOS.

Here's a list of software/games we used for benchmarking. In all the gaming benchmarks we used a resolution of 1024x768 with maximum settings turned on (x4 AA and x16 AF )

 - CPUZ 
 - Science Mark 2
 - PC Mark 05
 - 3D Mark 2005
 - 3D Mark 2006
 - Quake 4
 - X3: Reunion
 - F.E.A.R.
 - Far Cry
 - Serious Sam

Windows XP with service pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c was used as our operating system.

For overclocking, we manually adjusted various BIOS settings including DDR ram timings, FSB, CPU and DDR voltages. (Please see article index: Overclocking)