ASUS P6T Deluxe X58 Motherboard Review

Page 4 - Testing Methods

For the purpose of the review we choose components that adequately match the platform we're testing. We included tests of Core i7 965 on default frequency of 3.2GHz with 3x1GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory, in this way comparing it to Intel Q9550 Quad Core + DDR3 1600MHz @ 333x8.5 and 400x8 (3.2GHz) and also tested Intel Dual Core E8500 @ 400x8 (3.2GHz) with DDR3 1600MHz.

Common components

• Video card: MSI N280GTX 1GB
• Hard drive 1: Western Digital Raptor 10 000rpm 36GB
• Hard drive 2: Seagate Barracuda 9 7200rpm 300GB
• Optical drive: ASUS DVD+/-RW 24x Ligthscribe SATA
• PSU: Raptoxx 1200W
• Cooler: Noctua NH-C12P + original mounting brackets for LGA1366
• Monitor: Belinea o.display 4_24" LCD 1920x1200

Configuration 1 (in benchmarks you'll see two columns for it, Core i7 965 XE @ default (133x25 = 3.2GHz, DDR3 1600MHz memory) and Core i7 @ 160x24 (3.84GHz) DDR3 1600MHz)

• Motherboard ASUS P6T Deluxe (Intel X58 Chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core i7 Nehalem 965 XE [default 3.2GHz (133x25)]; >>>> [3.84GHz (160x24)]
• Memory: 3x1GB A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR3 1600MHz (9-9-9-24)

Configuration 1 (in benchmarks you'll see two columns for it, Core i7 965 XE @ default (133x25 = 3.2GHz, DDR3 1600MHz memory) and Core i7 @ 160x24 (3.84GHz) DDR3 1600MHz)

• Motherboard ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (Intel P35 Chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9550 [default 2.83GHz (333x8.5)]; >>>> [3.2GHz 400x8]
• Memory: 2x1GB A-DATA DDR3 Extreme Edition 1600MHz (9-9-9-24)

Configuration 3

• Motherboard ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (Intel P35 Chipset)
• CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8500 3200MHz (400x8)
• Memory: 2x1GB A-DATA DDR3 Extreme Edition 1600MHz (9-9-9-24)

Tests were conducted under Windows Vista x64, since this is the only modern OS capable of handling all the capabilities of the platform and running 4 or more GB of memory with no problem.

Here is the list of tests:

• HDTach for SATA, E-Sata and USB 2.0 performance
• Cinebench 10
• WPrime (32MB & 1024MB)
• SuperPI (32MB)
• Everest Ultimate (memory copy, read, write & latency)
• SiSoft Sandra Lite XII.SP2c (memory bandwidth & memory latency)
• DivX compression
• Paint.NET image operations
• WinRAR & 7-zip
• 3DMark Vantage
• Crysis
• Crysis Warhead
• Far Cry 2
• Enemy Territory Quake Wars
• World in Conflict

The tests included in the review are of various types - from purely synthetic, single & multi thread, to fully functional as compression of video files, image processing, WinRAR & 7-Zip compression and even a wide array of games - after all the motherboard is not intended for the mass of common users. No, it is aiming for the hearts (pockets actually) of the hardcore gamers and hardware enthusiasts. Well, time to see the results.