Quick Performance Tests
As has been the case with most platform chipset updates over recent years, the advantages from chipset to chipset are relatively small if even noticeable at all.  In this case, we are testing a DDR3 motherboard against DDR2 motherboards, and though Intel claims the memory controller on the X38 is much more advanced than that on the P35, I tend to believe that there is more overlap than they let on.  Our tests will show us for sure.

Here is our test setup for the following benchmarks:

Hard Drive Test System Setup

CPU

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 @ 3.0 GHz

Motherboard

Asus P5E3 Deluxe X38 (DDR3)
Gigabyte X38-DQ6 (DDR2)
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 (DDR2)
Asus Blitz Formula (P35 DDR2)

Memory

Corsair CM2X2048-9136C5D
Corsair CM3X2048-1800C7D

Hard Drive

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500ADFD

Sound Card

SB Audigy 2 Value

Video Card

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX

Video Drivers

Catalyst 7.9

Power Supply Silverstone Zeus 750 watt

DirectX Version

DX10

Operating System

Windows Vista Ultimate x64


Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi Intel X38 Motherboard Review - Motherboards 59

Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi Intel X38 Motherboard Review - Motherboards 60

Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi Intel X38 Motherboard Review - Motherboards 61

Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi Intel X38 Motherboard Review - Motherboards 62

The performance results show us that the default memory speeds of 1066 MHz and 1333 MHz don’t offer much over the standard speeds of DDR2-800.  Our SiSoft Sandra memory results indicate that at DDR3-1066 the raw memory speed is actually LESS than those DDR2-800 memory systems.  At DDR3-1333 the scores are at the top, just not by much.

The application results from POV-Ray and CineBench show little difference in how those memory results add up to actually results. 

DDR3 memory CAN and WILL offer better performance than DDR2 when we hit higher frequencies.  My recent article that looked at a pair of overclocked DDR3 memory kits shows that DDR3 when it runs at 1800 MHz and higher can get us SiSoft scores of 8200+ MB/s! 

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