Performance:
We’re going to be testing the P35 Platinum using our normal OzHardware test suite, which includes PCMark05, 3DMark06, SiSoft Sanda CPU Tests as well as the game Prey. We will be comparing the MSI P35 Platinum to our OzHardware test board - the ASUS P5N32-E SLI with the nVidia nForce 680i chipset, as well as the ASUS P5KR motherboard, with the same Intel P35 chipset as the P35 Platinum.
We wanted to test the MSI P35 Platinum board in two modes, one running the memory at the standard 800MHz, and the other with the memory running at 1066MHz, which MSI state is supported by the board (though not by the chipset, so it’s actually an overclock). When we tried to run the memory at 1066MHz Windows XP would constantly blue screen and crash on startup. After fiddling with the timing and voltages a bit, we managed to get it to boot in all the way, but it would always crash soon after, so we abandoned the idea altogether and ran the tests in 800MHz mode only. Both other boards had their tests run with the memory at 800MHz.
The Test Setup:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU
- ASUS P5N32-E SLI, ASUS P5KR, MSI P35 Platinum Motherboards
- Corsair TWIN2X 2GB PC2-8500 1066MHz Memory Kit (2 x 1GB) (@800MHz only)
- XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB PCI-Ex16 Video Card
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II Hard Drive
- Antec Basiq 500W ATX Power Supply
- Windows XP Pro SP2
Read on for the results...
