Intel P965: The Double Mint Twins Gone Wild
by Gary Key on November 9, 2006 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Overclocking Performance
We have already reviewed the overclocking capabilities of each board in detail during our review of the boards' feature sets if additional information is required about the results. The ASUS P5B-E 1.02G is still the best overclocking board in our review to date but we were pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Biostar TForce 965PT. Actually, we were amazed as we had figured Biostar would have neutered the BIOS since the board is designed for the budget sector. We feel like the Biostar boards would have no issue matching the ASUS boards if they had memory voltage options up to 2.4V. The Gigabyte boards will be very competitive once the Micron D9 issues are resolved but until that time we hesitate to recommend them if you plan on overclocking an E6300 past 450 FSB.
Our results have not really changed since the first roundup although we see the Biostar 965PT nipping at the heels of the ASUS P5B-E 1.02G due to its overclocking capability. In our application benchmarks that tend to be very CPU intensive we see the benefits of overclocking as our Nero Recode test shows an improvement of 16% on average with our WinRAR tests showing upwards of a 36% increase in performance. Our audio encoding test only showed an improvement of 11% but this is due to the fact that the CPU was waiting on the optical drive during the encoding process as it takes two minutes and three seconds to extract the audio files.
In our Sandra memory results we see the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 having the highest unbuffered results which directly translates to its class leading performance in most of our benchmarks. We also have to commend Biostar for very consistent performance from their boards with the second highest memory scores. ASUS is close behind but they generally run relaxed timings to a certain degree in order to improve overclocking at the high end.
In our gaming benchmarks we see differences of 7% in Quake 4, up to 38% in Battlefield 2, and 59% in the older Serious Sam II title when overclocking. This trend shows a definite improvement in the CPU/GPU balanced titles with little improvement in a title like Quake 4 that can become GPU limited at 1280x1024. We implemented 4xAA in Quake 4 and as expected the game shows no real differences in performance once it becomes GPU limited. This basically holds true for the balance of our games as overclocking will improve performance to a certain degree but the GPU is the biggest factor in most games today.
We have already reviewed the overclocking capabilities of each board in detail during our review of the boards' feature sets if additional information is required about the results. The ASUS P5B-E 1.02G is still the best overclocking board in our review to date but we were pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Biostar TForce 965PT. Actually, we were amazed as we had figured Biostar would have neutered the BIOS since the board is designed for the budget sector. We feel like the Biostar boards would have no issue matching the ASUS boards if they had memory voltage options up to 2.4V. The Gigabyte boards will be very competitive once the Micron D9 issues are resolved but until that time we hesitate to recommend them if you plan on overclocking an E6300 past 450 FSB.
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Our results have not really changed since the first roundup although we see the Biostar 965PT nipping at the heels of the ASUS P5B-E 1.02G due to its overclocking capability. In our application benchmarks that tend to be very CPU intensive we see the benefits of overclocking as our Nero Recode test shows an improvement of 16% on average with our WinRAR tests showing upwards of a 36% increase in performance. Our audio encoding test only showed an improvement of 11% but this is due to the fact that the CPU was waiting on the optical drive during the encoding process as it takes two minutes and three seconds to extract the audio files.
In our Sandra memory results we see the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 having the highest unbuffered results which directly translates to its class leading performance in most of our benchmarks. We also have to commend Biostar for very consistent performance from their boards with the second highest memory scores. ASUS is close behind but they generally run relaxed timings to a certain degree in order to improve overclocking at the high end.
In our gaming benchmarks we see differences of 7% in Quake 4, up to 38% in Battlefield 2, and 59% in the older Serious Sam II title when overclocking. This trend shows a definite improvement in the CPU/GPU balanced titles with little improvement in a title like Quake 4 that can become GPU limited at 1280x1024. We implemented 4xAA in Quake 4 and as expected the game shows no real differences in performance once it becomes GPU limited. This basically holds true for the balance of our games as overclocking will improve performance to a certain degree but the GPU is the biggest factor in most games today.
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Marlin1975 - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The biggest problem I, and seems like most, have with 965 chipsets is the JMicron JMB363 IDE. You said there is a driver problem for the newwest driver but did not say what driver that is? Like 13.03, 15, etc... I think I have a new driver then someone in the forums has one that is 2 whole numbers newwer.I have a hard time trying to find a decent driver so I just get what I can for the JMicron JMB363. My DVD burner just comes up in windows as a reg. drive and I can;t get windows to see that it is a burner. Mind you Nero sees it as a burner. So I am guessing that is a JMicron JMB363.
I like my Gigabyte board, better then the Asus I had. But the lack of IDE support by Intel makes me want to get a Nvidia 600i board even more.
jackylman - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
The Biostar 965PT (and, I assume, the Deluxe) includes a VIA VT6401 IDE controller instead of the Jmicron. I had no problems seeing the controller in the BIOS or getting my optical drive to run in DMA.Just another reason that this board rules.
Viditor - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The biggest problem I have encountered seems like a small one, but it's getting annoying.It seems that none of the 965 boards allow for 2 x PATA connectors...I don't know for sure, but I assume this is a limitation of the chipset.
The problem I keep running into is the reuse of existing components for an upgrade. Obviously you need one of the PATAs for the optical drives, which means that unless you get a PATA controller card you can't reuse your existing PATA drives...
Sho - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The P965 chipset doesn't have any PATA support by itself, so the mobo makers need to include a seperate controller.BladeVenom - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Nice to see the less expensive models getting a thorough review. Everyone reviews the Biostar Deluxe, even though it's almost impossible to find, unless you're a reviewer.Also nice to see that model of Crucial RAM used. Next time you do a budget review could you also test the cheapest memory available, and 1:1 ratio for overclocking be damned.
Gary Key - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
We are still testing lower priced memory. I will add some addtional overclocking results to these two boards tomorrow. :)
BladeVenom - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Thanks.DaveLessnau - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
I might have missed the reason for this in the write-ups. If so, I apologize. But, why aren't you reviewing any Intel boards? I'd have thought that they'd provide a decent baseline for comparison to see if the other manufacturers can do any better/different.Gary Key - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
The Intel board we originally received has been pulled from retail availability. We have a BLKDP965LTCK coming next week to take its place. I believe this board currently retails for $110~$115. I will do my best to at least get performance numbers from this board in our charts before the final article goes up.Sho - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
... where's that high-end board roundup hiding? IIRC an Anandtech staffer had announced it for last Friday in a comment to another article about two weeks back.