Ok, here's the deal. I like AMD more than what I like Intel. But, when a system is handicapped tested, I get irritated.
According to, hexus.net/content/item.php?item=10133&page=2 , the P5 Intel board has a NVidia chipset. The AM2+ board has a ATI (now AMD) chipset. In the review, an ASUS GeForce 8800GTX 768MB card was used. This is relevant because the AM2+ board is not completely compatible with the card. Sure, it will work, but not at the efficiancy that it should. Thus, taking system performance down. It is pure logic - NVidia works well with NVidia, not AMD. And ATI works well with AMD, not NVidia. They are competitors. They don't want their products to be mixed. I know this, because I had a Winfast motherboard with a NVidia chipset and a Winfast GeForce 6800GS. My friend had the Biostar 6800GS. We swopped cards to see if there is any difference in the type of motherboard used for the card. My oh my, were we amazed. There was a difference. A HUGE one!!! Where my rig got 34fps on Crysis (medium to low settings), we only got 21fps on the other card in my rig with the same settins. At least they got it right to test a board and graphics card from the same manufacturer. That's a plus.
As for the fact of testing a DDR2 system against a DDR3 system, the speed of the memory is a huge factor. Don't believe me? Try this - Boot a PC using DDR2 533MHz memory. Time the boot. Start a game. Time the startup of the game. Now, shutdown. Replace the memory with DDR2 800MHz. Repeat the above steps. Do you notice that he PC booted quicker with the 800MHz memory? And that the game started quicker too? Memory does, in fact, have an impact on system performance. The DDR3 system obviously has ugraded memory controllers in order to handle that speeds. According to the review, the AM2+ still uses DDR2. So, no improvement on that.
Ok, so when you test the CPU, and when you test the memory, they are independantly tested. No interferance from the other components. And yes, Intel does kick AMD up the backside. But only in office work. In games, AMD is king. I see that in the review, only a few benchmark tools were used. But, 3DMark wasn't used. Why is that? PCMark was used. They are from the same publisher. And 3DMark is more commonly used. Where are those results? Surely a reviewer would have used that program as well.
Another influance is the speed of the processor. A person can't pit a 3.00GHz processor against a 2.3GHz processor. It's like pitting a thorough-bred agianst a half-bred. The thorough-bred will be victorious. Now, if a 2.3GHz can almost stand it's ground against a 3.00GHz, then I would like to see how the Intel 3.00GHz puts up against a AMD 3.00GHz. Oh, right, AMD don't go that high. Pity. Or, should I say, lucky for Intel.
So, in closing, a computer system is only as good as its slowest component. In this case it's the memory. I would like to see how well the Q6600 does if it is put onto a DDR2 system. That would be interesting.
Please, don't take this wrong. I like AMD, and it was disadvantaged in this review. But it did well for that fact. Intel gave some impressive numbers here to, but you can't say that Intel is beter than it's counterpart because of this test. The Intel chip had an unfair advantage. And, if it was the other way round? Woldn't you have complained too?