TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Hardware
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz) LGA775
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz) LGA775
- x2 1024MB Corsair XMS PC-8500 CAS5 Module(s)
- ASUS P5B Deluxe (Intel P965)
- ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Intel 975X)
- Gigabyte 965P-DS3P (Intel 965P)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- Seagate 250GB 7200RPM (Serial ATA II)
Software
- Microsoft Windows XP Pro (SP2)
- Intel System Drivers 7.2.2
- ATI Catalyst 6.12

The Gigabyte 965P-DS3P was tested with the E6700 processor at 2.66GHz and 3.70GHz. There is also an overclocked E6300 configuration running at 3.50GHz. As you can see the 500MHz FSB Core 2 Duo E6300 running DDR2-1000 memory had a clear advantage in the SiSoft2007 and PCmark2005 testing. The overclocked E6700 configurations were never far behind though they were only running DDR2-925. The standard E6700 configurations produced significantly less bandwidth though the 965P-DS3P was faster than both the ASUS 975X and 965P motherboards.

The MemTach results were interesting as they saw the heavily overclocked E6300 fall behind the overclocked E6700 processors. However, the reason for this is the much larger 4MB L2 cache of the E6700 which gives it a noticeable advantage in MemTach. Nevertheless, the overclocked budget processor (E6300) was still able to whip the floor with the non-overclocked E6700 processor.