Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Motherboard Review

The Tests: Overall System Performance and Memory Bandwidth

PCMark05:

PCMark05 is an application-based benchmark and a premium tool for measuring overall PC performance. It uses portions of real applications instead of including very large applications or using specifically created code. This allows PCMark05 to be a smaller installation as well as to report very accurate results.

As we move on to the next set of tests, we can see right off the bat that the Gigabyte board is certainly outperforming in the area of PCMark. Certainly the DS3 has an advantage over the Asrock because of the difference in available bandwidth. Remember, both boards are running ram timings of 4-4-4-12, but the Asrock is running at a bandwidth of DDR2 667 wile the Gigabyte is running DDR2-800.

Everest Version 2.20:

Everst 2.20 is a professional system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program for Win32 platforms. It extracts details of all components of the PC. It also tests the actual read and write speeds of your memory giving a fairly accurate look of true memory performance.

Sisoft; Sandra 2005 SR3a:

Sisoft Sandra 2005 is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are, again, purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Higher numbers represent better performance in memory bandwidth. The chart was based off of the unbuffered bandwidth scores.

ScienceMark 2.0 Final:

Science Mark 2.0 is an attempt to put the truth behind benchmarking. In an attempt to model real world demands and performance, ScienceMark 2.0 is a suite of high-performance benchmarks that realistically stress system performance without architectural bias. All of our testing was completed on the 32 Bit Final benchmark version that is dated March 21st 2005.

The trend continues all the way through our memory testing as well. It is clear that the extra bandwidth is a huge help in these benches.

Super PI Mod v1.5:

Super PI is a program a lot of enthusiasts use to benchmark overall system performance, as the program is capable of calculating pi up to 33.55 million digits on a timer. Many overclockers and enthusiasts are in a battle to get the lowest Super Pi times possible. We use the 2MB test this time, as it demands quite a bit more stability than a 1MB test. Of course, most believe using the 32MB test is a must to prove stability.

Same thing in SuperPi. Bandwidth is huge. Although, in the big picture, it is only 5 seconds.

Hd Tach 3

HD Tach will test the sequential read, random access and interface burst speeds of your attached storage device (hard drive, flash drive, removable drive, etc). All drive technologies such as SCSI, IDE/ATA, 1394, USB, SATA and RAID are supported. Test results from HD Tach can be used to confirm manufacturer specs, analyze your system for proper performance, and compare your performance with others. HD Tach is very easy to use, quick, and presents data in easy to read graphs, including the ability to compare two storage devices on screen at the same time for easy analysis.

Testing the hard drives shows us that there is very little difference performance wise, even though the Gigabyte does do slightly better.

Let’s move on to gaming!