Asus P5Q Deluxe - P45 Chipset with DDR2


How We Configured Our Test Systems: When configuring our test systems for this article, we first entered their respective system BIOSes and set each board to its "Optimized" or "High performance Defaults". We then saved the settings, re-entered the BIOS and set memory timings for either DDR2-1066 with 5,5,5,15 timings or DDR3-1333 with 7,7,7,20 timings. The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows Vista Ultimate was installed. When the Windows installation was complete, we updated the OS, and installed the drivers necessary for our components. Auto-Updating and Windows Defender were then disabled and we installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives, and ran all of the tests.


 HotHardware's Test Systems
 Intel and AMD - Head To Head 

System 1:
Core 2 Extreme QX9650
(30GHz - Quad-Core)

Asus P5Q Deulxe
(P45 Chipset w/ DDR2)

Gigabyte X48-DQ6
(X48 Chipset w/ DDR2)

Gigabyte X48T-DQ6
(X48 Chipset w/ DDR3)

2x1GB Corsair PC2-8500
CL 5-5-5-15 - DDR2-1066

2x1GB Corsair DDR3-1800
CL 7-7-7-20 - DDR3-1333

GeForce 8800 GTX
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

WD150 "Raptor" HD
10,000 RPM SATA

Windows Vista Ultimate
NVIDIA Forceware v174.16
DirectX Redist (November 2007)

System 2:
AMD Phenom X4 9850
(2.5GHz)

Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6
(AMD 790FX Chipset)

2x1GB Corsair PC2-8500
CL 5-5-5-15 - DDR2-1066

GeForce 8800 GTX
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

WD150 "Raptor" HD
10,000 RPM SATA

Windows Vista Ultimate
NVIDIA Forceware v174.16
DirectX Redist (November 2007)

 

 Preliminary Testing with SiSoft SANDRA XII
 Synthetic Benchmarks


We began our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA XII, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran three of the built-in subsystem tests that partially comprise the SANDRA XII suite with an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor installed in the Asus P5Q Deluxe motherboard (CPU Arithmetic, Memory Bandwidth, and Memory Latency).  For comparison, we also ran the same three tests on a Gigabyte X48-based motherboard equipped with DDR2 memory.  All of the scores reported below were taken with the processors running a clock speed of 3GHz, with 2GB of DDR2-1066 RAM installed.



Asus P5Q Deluxe
CPU Arithmetic

  
Asus P5Q Deluxe

Memory Bandwidth


Asus P5Q Deluxe
Memory Latency


  
 
Gigabyte X48-DQ6
CPU Arithmetic
 


 

Gigabyte X48-DQ6
Memory Bandwidth

 


Gigabyte X48-DQ6
Memory Latency
  


The SiSoft SANDRA benchmarks tell an interesting story.  According the three modules we ran, the P45 and X48 chipset perform similar in the CPU Arithmetic benchmark, which is to be expected.  The memory bandwidth and latency benchmarks, however, show marked differences between the two chipsets.  Although they were both equipped with the same CPU and memory, the X48 / DDR2 combination put up slightly better memory bandwidth and latency scores.  Whereas the P45-based Asus P5Q Deluxe offered up approximately 6.98GB/s of memory bandwidth with a random access latency of 77ns, the X48-based Gigabyte board put up 7.01GB/s of peak bandwidth with random access latency of 73ns.  How these differences play out in real world performance scenarios, however, remains to be seen.

Tags:  Asus, P45, DDR, DDR2, Chipset, Chip, P5Q, chips, P4, IPS, UX, IP
Marco Chiappetta

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

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