Prelude to Benchmarks

For the purposes of this review, PCSTATS will be testing the GA-8I945GZME-RH motherboard with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor. However, because the Intel 945GZ Express chipset runs at most with a 800MHz FSB, the E6600 processor will be running at 1.8GHz instead of its native 2.4GHz (on a 1066MHz FSB). Please note this as you look over the benchmark results.

The details of how the Gigabyte GA-8I945GZME-RH motherboard test system was configured for benchmarking, including the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions are indicated below. In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms this Intel 945GZ Express based system is to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system reference system #1 reference system #2 reference system #3 processor: intel core 2 duo e6600 (775) amd Athlon64 X2 5000+ (AM2) Intel Pentium D 840 (775) Clock Speed: 9 x 200 MHz = 1.8 GHz* 9 x 133 MHz = 1.2 GHz 9 x 266 MHz = 2.4 GHz 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8I945GZME-RH (945GZ) *Note: Intel 945GZ chipset only supports up to a 200MHz. Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 natively runs on a 266MHz. Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H (975X) Asus P5B (P965 Express) Biostar TForce P965 DLX (P965 Express) Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 (P965 Express) Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H (P965 Express) Gigabyte GA-945GM-S2 (945G) Epox 5P945 Pro (945P) ASRock AM2V890-VSTA (VIA K8T890) Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF6150) MSI K9N SLI Platinum (NF 570 SLI) Asus M2-CROSSHAIR (NF 590 SLI) Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H (975X) Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2 (955X) Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 (945P) MSI P4N Diamond (NF4 SLI) Biostar TForce P965 DLX(P965) Videocard: MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E Memory: 2x 1024MB Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C4 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Intel EE6600 Refernece AMD Athlon64 FX-62 Refernece Thermaltake Jungle 512 Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Intel INF 7.22 nVIDIA Forceware 91.47 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 nVIDIA Forceware 9.35 nVIDIA Forceware 91.47 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Intel INF 7.22 nVIDIA Forceware 7.22 nVIDIA Forceware 91.47 Benchmarks: SYSMark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 Super Pi SiSoft Sandra 2005 PCMark05 3DMark05 3DMark06 FarCry Doom 3 Quake 4