ABIT AA8 DuraMAX and ASUS P5AD2 Premium- New Alderwoods From The Big Dogs

Our test system specifications are as follows.  We would like to point out that for all testing in this review, we set timings on our DDR2 memory to 3,3,3,8, which is significantly better than the 4,4,4,12 timings we could hit with our Intel reference board back in June.  These settings allowed the i925X-based ABIT and ASUS boards a much more equal footing versus our i875 test bed at SPD detect settings with the standard CAS 2 DDR memory we used.

HotHardware Test Setup LGA775 Prescott and the i925XX

Overclocking With The AA8 DuraMAX and P54AD2 Premium A heated competition

4GHz solid and stable, with a 250MHz FSB and 1GHz system bus, along with DDR2 667 memory speeds: You've got to love that.  Both our ABIT and ASUS boards were able to hit this speed and neither would prove stable at any higher clock speed.  This was probably more of a function of our CPU because no matter what memory timings we set (some even lower than a standard 533MHz DDR2 clock), the systems became unstable at anything higher than 250MHz.

ASUS P5AD2 Premium Overclocking Results:

CPU @ 4GHz Stable

Memory @ DDR667 CAS4

ABIT AA8 DuraMAX Overclocking Results:

CPU @ 4GHz Stable

Memory @ DDR667 CAS4

Nearly identical scores are posted for both the ABIT and ASUS board, in both the CPU and Memory tests here.  Notably, DDR2 memory and the i925X chipset, at 667MHz, absolutely smokes DDR400 CAS2 memory, as you can see in the Sandra Memory test. Unfortunately, CAS3 settings would not boot on either board at a 667MHz memory speed.  We're waiting for the day when the likes of Kingston or Corsair bestow upon us a couple of sticks of DDR2 CAS3 667MHz-capable memory. We have a couple of Corsair XMS2 sticks in the lab right now, actually, that we haven't tested yet, and those may or may not do the trick. Stay tuned here for details.