Asus P5WDG2-WS and P5WD2-E Premium - 975X Motherboard Showcase

To start our in-game testing, we did some low-resolution benchmarking with Half Life 2.  When testing a processor with HL 2, we use a specific set of game engine initialization settings that ensure all of the systems are being benchmarked with the exact same in-game settings and graphical options.  Like the other in-game tests in this review, we used low-quality graphical settings and a low screen resolution to isolate CPU and memory performance.

Benchmarks with Half Life 2: Low-Res / Low Quality DirectX 9 Gaming Performance

The AMD powered system was clearly the fastest in our custom Half Life 2 benchmark, outpacing all of the Intel based rigs by roughly 30 frames per second. If we look past the AMD result though, we see the Asus P5WD2-E Premium finished with the highest framerate when compared to the other Intel-powered rigs, followed by the other Asus board once again.

Benchmarks with Quake 4 v1.05: Low Quality OpenGL Gaming Performance

For our next game test, we benchmarked all of the test systems using a custom single-player Quake 4 timedemo. Here, we installed the v1.05 patch which is SMP capable, cranked the resolution down to 640 x 480, and configured the game to run at its "Low-Quality" graphics setting. Although Quake 4 typically taxes today's high-end GPUs, when it's configured at these minimal settings it too is more CPU and memory-bound than anything else.

The results from our custom Quake 4 benchmark mirrored those of the Half Life 2 tests.  The AMD rig was again the fastest, with the Intel based systems finishing in the same order as before -- P52D2-E Premium, P5WDG2-WS, and then the Intel D075XBX.