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| Overview and Specifications | ||||||||
Intel’s latest chipset family, the P3x-series, can certainly be qualified as a hit thus far. While Intel P3x-series chipsets, like the mid-range P35 series and the budget-targeted P31 series, don’t sport any truly exciting new features in comparison to their previous generation counterparts, they’re showing themselves to be extremely reliable and very flexible thus far. While high-end (performance minded) buyers will most likely opt for Intel’s coming upcoming X38 and X48 chipsets, the P35 and P31 Express chipsets will no doubt become the base for the vast majority of Intel platforms over the next several years. Currently Intel has two chipsets in the P3x family, the Intel P35 Express and the P31 Express, both targeting slightly different markets. The P35 Express is designed for higher performance platforms, with support for DDR2 or DDR3 memory, Intel Turbo memory, and Intel’s latest ICH9 series Southbridges. The P31 Express, on the other hand, is designed for mainstream and budget systems. The P31 Express only supports DDR2 memory, works in conjunction with Intel’s older ICH7 series Southbridge, and has pared-down support for things like PCI Express slots and USB ports. The lion’s share of the P35’s features are still prevalent in the P31, but the P31 also has one major advantage - price. P31 boards are selling for well south of $100 (USD), whereas most P35 Express boards are in the $100+ range. Today at HotHardware, we’ll be looking at two budget-class Core 2 platforms based on the Intel P3x series chipsets to see if there are any differences in terms of performance between the two. Representing the P35 Express, we have the new ECS P35T-A, which retails for a little over $100 USD. In addition, we have the new Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L representing the P31 Express. This new Gigabyte motherboard is currently selling for about 20% less (around $80 USD), making it one of the cheapest P3x boards currently on the market today.
These platforms share very similar feature sets. However, a closer look showcases the differences between these two platforms. Keep in mind, the ECS platform is about $20 to $30 more expensive at this time. What does this extra money buy you? For the most part, you’re paying for the additional benefits of the Intel ICH9-DH Southbridge on the ECS platform rather than the aging ICH7 on the Gigabyte platform. This Southbridge gives the platform two additional Serial ATA-II/300 ports and four additional USB 2.0 ports. The ECS platform also comes equipped with two PCI Express x16 sized slots, although the secondary slot only runs at x4 speeds. Also thrown into them mix is an eSATA port, which the Gigabyte board does not have. The Gigabyte platform, on the other hand, scores as it offers official support for DDR2-1066 memory modules. Granted, the Intel P31 Express chipset only limits you to 4 GB (rather than 8 GB with the P35 Express), but Gigabyte’s additional memory flexibility comes in handy. The board also has a much better array of onboard audio ports compared to the ECS board. Frankly, it’s a tough call which platform is "better" in terms of their specifications, as it’s simply a matter of which features you’ll want in particular. |
| ECS P35T-A | ||||
ECS is best known for creating barebones, but functional motherboard platforms which stress low-cost elements rather than extravagant on-board features. When one first glances at this purple motherboard with brightly colored components, it looks as if it’s targeted at the enthusiast market. This is most certainly a budget motherboard, though, currently selling for sub-$100 levels.
The P35T-A uses Intel’s P35 Express Northbridge paired with the ICH9-DH (Digital Home) Southbridge. It’s unusual to see the ICH9-DH variant, as this version is typically targeted for home theater PC systems. The ICH9-DH supports all the same core features as the stock ICH9, but also supports Intel’s ViiV technology, which (in theory) allows for unique sleep states and quick system startups through new suspend modes. The ICH9-DH, however, does not support RAID functionality, which is a fairly common feature on most P35 Express platforms. ECS cools the ICH9-DH chip with a small aluminum alloy block which sits on top, whereas the P35 Express Northbridge is cooled by a fairly short aluminum alloy heatsink. This board supports all modern Intel processors, including the upcoming 45nm dual and quad-core processor variants at 1333 MHz FSB speed. ECS doesn’t leave much room around the CPU socket, with a series of capacitors lining one side of the socket fairly closely. Nevertheless, most larger coolers should fit on this board without issue. Power conversion components which sit between the CPU socket and I/O panel are passively cooled by a heatsink as well. While the P35 Express chipset supports DDR2 or DDR3 memory, ECS has gone with the more popular and less expensive DDR2 option. The board supports up to 8 GB of DDR2-800 memory in single or dual-channel configurations, allowing for peak memory bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s (6.4GB/s per dual-channel link). ECS does not allow for much memory flexibility, only offering memory divisors for DDR2-800 and DDR2-667 in the BIOS. No more, no less.
Looking down the board, you can see two PCI Express x16 sized slots, along with a single PCI Express x1 slot and three 32-bit PCI slots. The primary PCI Express x16 slot (orange) supports full x16 speeds, whereas the secondary slot only supports x4 speeds. There is no mention of ATI Crossfire support, although this is a fairly standard feature for P35 platforms, and it’s likely that it will work on this platform as well. ECS includes a 4-pin Molex connector to provide additional power if multiple graphics cards are used. To the right of the Southbridge, we see a cluster of Serial ATA-II/300 ports (six of them, in-fact), sitting alongside a JMicron controller chip. While the six SATA-II/300 ports are natively connected to the Intel Soutbridge, the JMicron controller supports the eSATA 3.0 GB/s port on the I/O panel. We also see several USB 2.0 pin headers, which support an additional six USB 2.0 ports in addition to the six on the I/O panel, for a whopping twelve native USB 2.0 ports. Sadly, no Firewire. Onboard Ethernet is controlled by a unique Intel chip, the 82566DC. This teeny-tiny chip supports Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and connects to the Southbridge via PCI Express x1. This Ethernet chip is also ViiV compliant and supports TCP offloading, so it’s actually a pretty solid little chip for a budget board. Sadly, ECS slacks on the onboard audio, opting for a Realtek ALC888 HD Audio CODEC (which is all fine and good), but only providing analog output options. Digital connectivity is not standard on this motherboard. At least one form of S/PDIF digital output connectivity would be appreciated. Instead of loading the I/O panel with useful things like S/PDIF audio or Firewire, ECS chose to include a Serial port in the mix, which is simply not needed at this point. The rest of the I/O panel is fairly standard, featuring PS/2 ports along with the aforementioned eSATA, six USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and 8-channel analog audio ports. ECS includes virtually nothing in terms of extras in their box – all you get is a driver CD, an I/O shield, a manual, an IDE and a Serial ATA cable. There are reasons why the board sells for a low-price, and this is definitely one of them.  ECS P35T-A - I/O Panel Nevertheless, considering the price, it’s got a fairly solid feature set which we don’t have any major qualms with. Sure, we would have liked digital audio, RAID, and Firewire, but these are all more high-end features which increase overall board cost. For the market which ECS is targeting, these features will not likely be missed. |
| Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L | ||||
Gigabyte’s ultra-budget Core2 platform is known as the GA-P31-DS3L. It is based on the Intel P31 Express chipset. Much like the ECS platform we just looked at, this board is based on a colorful PCB with a lot of bright components. While it looks somewhat flashy, this board is targeted at the budget market explicitly. However, its core feature set can still make for the basis of a solid mid-range workstation or gaming rig with the right components. With a price tag of well south of $100, so we have no premonitions of any breathtaking high-end features. For its price tag, however, this board isn’t as stripped down as one would expect.
As mentioned before, this board utilizes Intel’s P31 Northbridge / ICH7 Southbridge combination. Both of these chips feature gold-colored aluminum alloy heatsinks, the larger of which is used on the P31 Northbridge. Neither of these chips get extremely hot during normal operation, and having passive (silent) cooling for what little heat they do create is fine in our books. The board supports Socket-775 Core 2 / Pentium processors, and (as claimed on the box) fully supports Intel’s upcoming 45nm “Penryn” based processors. Gigabyte has “multi-core” CPU listed right on the box, although there is no direct mention of quad-core support. We would be somewhat shocked if the board didn’t support quad-core processors though, considering Intel’s push for quad-core on the desktop. Gigabyte leaves the CPU socket fairly open, so installing large coolers should not be an issue on this board. While the P31 Express is designed to be less flexible compared to the more expensive P35 Express chipset, Gigabyte has provided more flexibility with this platform than ECS has with theirs. This P31 Express board supports DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066 memory modules in dual-channel modes, allowing for theoretical peak memory bandwidth levels of 17.0 GB/s (8.5GB/s per dual-channel link). However, the P31 Express only supports 4 GB of memory compared to the P35’s 8 GB, so this might be something to keep in mind. The board supports a single PCI Express x16 slot along with three PCI Express x1 slots and three 32-bit PCI slots. There are no illusions of multi-GPU processing here, just a simple, singular graphics card slot. The graphics card slot is quite close to the bottom of the memory slots, so if you have a large graphics card you might want to check your dimensions before trying to shove it into this board.
Gigabyte opted to use the aging ICH7 Southbridge on this board, which limits the amount of USB 2.0 and Serial ATA ports which they can use. The board supports four Serial ATA-II/300 ports (non-RAID) and a total of eight USB 2.0 ports, which should be plenty for most budget systems. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting choice to opt for ICH7, as we wouldn’t have expected to see this on a new board release considering its age. Onboard Ethernet is controlled by a small Realtek 8111B chip, which like the ECS platform, connects to the Southbridge via a PCI Express x1 connection and supports TCP offloading. Gigabyte uses the same Realtek ALC888 HD Audio chip which ECS used on their board, however, Gigabyte uses it properly, providing both 8-channel analog audio along with both coaxial and optical S/PDIF digital audio connectors. Considering the board’s price tag, having multiple digital audio options is a surprising feature to see, but one which is much appreciated. Gigabyte’s I/O panel also sports PS/2 ports, quad USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, serial, and parallel ports. The retail box bundle is a little better, as Gigabyte provides two Serial ATA cables, floppy/IDE cables, a driver CD, I/O shield, and a few small manual items. Still fairly barebones, but a little more complete than ECS’s platform.  Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L - I/O Panel For its price tag, this Gigabyte platform is a better value in our eyes in comparison to the ECS board. A few ports are missing, but Gigabyte’s board feels more complete as a whole, and feels as if it received more polish in comparison to the ECS board. But how does performance of the P31 Express match up to the P35 Express? I guess we’ll just have to find out. |
| BIOS, Overclocking, and Power Consumption | ||||
As budget-level platforms, it’s unlikely that many will have preconceived notions that either of these boards will be terrific overclockers. Budget level boards rarely have the BIOS-level controls for serious overclocking, and the hardware itself is typically not optimized for such an environment. In our tests of both of these budget boards, we found this cliché to be both true and false. We tested the less-expensive Gigabyte P31 platform first. The board ships with an Award BIOS, which is quite frequent for Gigabyte platforms. The board supports Gigabyte’s M.I.T (MB Intelligent Tweaker) technology, which basically groups all of the overclocking controls into one central area. Not all of the controls are readily available though. In order to control the memory’s latencies, you have to hit CTRL-F1 to access these advanced options in the M.I.T menu. The Gigabyte board has surprisingly solid overclocking controls. Gigabyte provides full FSB controls in 1 MHz increments, the ability to adjust PCIe frequencies, CPU multipliers (downwards only on locked processors), and a whole set of over voltage controls. Gigabyte lets you control voltage levels for vCore, memory, PCIe, FSB, and MCH. While there are limits on the voltage levels, they are fairly lax and allow for solid overclocking. With this motherboard, we were able to take our 1066 MHz FSB processor up to a peak FSB speed of 399 MHz (1596 MHz FSB). Interestingly enough, the board was fully stable at bus speeds up to this level, but as soon as we bumped up the system one notch to 400 MHz FSB, the system would not boot. Gigabyte provides a wide range of memory divisors, which allow you to clock down your memory to acceptable ranges while pushing the front side bus fairly high. All in all, we were quite pleased with the overclocking controls and recovery controls for when you overclock too far. Flexible, reliable, and powerful, all things you don’t typically see in a budget-class motherboard. ECS’s P35T-A motherboard, in comparison, runs off an AMI BIOS which does not allow for much flexibility.
ECS’s P35T-A, on the other hand, has a BIOS which more commonly mirrors what we would typically expect from a budget level platform. ECS uses an AMI BIOS which strips out many of the controls which power users would typically look for, providing only a very basic menu which allows for low-level overclocking and tweaking. ECS puts all of their overclocking controls under the Frequency/Voltage Control menu. In this menu, you have control of the front side bus speed in 1 MHz increments (up to 500 MHz), although only when the CPU Overclocking Function is set to “Enabled”. ECS also gives the user control of the CPU vCore, Northbridge, and memory voltages, but at very limited levels. vCore only goes up to 1.5V, Northbridge up to 12% (why this is a percentage and not a static amount is somewhat confusing), and Memory voltage up to a mere 2.0V. ECS does not provide the user with the ability to control the CPU’s multiplier, which is a huge loss for even the most basic of overclocking. Compounding this, ECS only provides two basic memory divisors (667 MHz and 800 MHz), which limits how far you can push the front side bus without cranking up your memory speed too high. Since Intel platforms still have their front side bus and memory speeds linked, this means that you’ll have to use fairly high-speed DDR2 in order to handle any high front side bus levels. With this board, we were only able to push our Core 2 Duo E6600 processor up to 1333 MHz front side bus speed (333 MHz FSB). Even more frustrating, the board lacks any sort of real BIOS recovery system for when the user overclocks too far, so if you plan to tweak this board, you’d better remember how to use Clear CMOS jumpers. Considering how the rest of the board looks pretty solid, hardware-wise, the BIOS of the motherboard strikes us as somewhat of a letdown.
Another interesting aspect to consider is power consumption. Do these different chipsets vary much in terms of overall power usage? We set up identical platforms to find out. Our systems included Core 2 Duo E6600 processors, Radeon X1950 Pro graphics cards, 2 x 1 GB DDR2-800 memory modules, a single hard disk and optical drive, driven by a Corsair 620W power supply. Consumption numbers are for the entire system, not just the motherboard. We tested when the system was idling and with full CPU and GPU loads.   Our numbers show that the Intel P31 Express based Gigabyte platform does consume a bit less power overall in comparison to the P35 Express based and P965 platforms. The difference is not huge, but certainly substantial considering the platforms are set up with identical hardware. |
| Synthetic Tests | ||||||||
   Our first round of synthetic tests show almost no performance difference between our Intel P31 and P35 platforms. The P35 has a very (very) slight advantage in terms of memory bandwidth, but nothing that could be noticed in real-life performance scenarios. Latency between the two looks to be identical. |
| 3DMark and PCMark | ||||
  The identical numbers are showcased once again through synthetic 3DMark and PCMark tests, which show the boards on equal footing, performance wise, at least so far. |
| Half Life 2 and FEAR | ||||||||
 Almost zero difference once again in the gaming arena, as Gigabyte’s less expensive P31 Express board actually chalks up a slight victory over the more expensive P35 Express. Again, performance delta this small would be impossible to see in real-life scenarios. |
| Photoshop and Windows Media Encoder | ||||||||
 The ECS platform gives a slight performance edge in Photoshop CS3, completing our filter test less than half a second faster than our Gigabyte platform. No large performance differences here between these boards and our other boards in testing. Both boards show strong Media Encoding numbers as well, giving performance on par with the leading Nvidia 680i LT platform. |
| 7-Zip and WinRAR | ||||||||
 The Intel P35 based ECS board gets a slight edge in file compression, perhaps due to slight optimizations within its newer Southbridge. Overall, however, we see very little difference in performance between these two boards. |
| Our Conclusion | ||||||||
For a pair of budget-class platforms, both the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L and ECS P35T-A motherboards can provide the performance necessary to be the backbone of a high-speed machine. With a quad-core processor installed, at least two gigabytes of RAM, a speedy PCI Express x16 graphics card and SATA-II/300 hard drive, you can dignifiedly put together a very competent gaming or workstation class platform here. With that in mind, there are differences which set the two boards apart.  Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L:
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