ABIT AW8-MAX & Gigabyte GA-81955X

Test Setup:

Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz (512KB L2, 2MB L3); 2 x 512MB Corsair 5400UL DDR2 (operating at 533MHz in dual channel with 4.0-4-4-12 timings); NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT (operating at 350/1000MHz); Western Digital Raptor 74GB; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA ForceWare 71.89 WHQL.

Motherboards:

• ABIT AW8-MAX (Intel i955X & ICH7R);
  
• Gigabyte GA-81955X Royal (Intel i955X & ICH7R);
  
• MSI P4N Diamond (NForce 4 SLI Intel Edition);
  
• Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal (NForce 4 SLI Intel Edition);
  
• Intel D925XCV (Intel 925X).

We also tested the ABIT AW8-MAX and Gigabyte GA-81955X Royal with an Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz on the following system configuration:

Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz (2MB L2); 2x 512MB Corsair 5400UL DDR2 (operating at 533MHz in dual channel with 3.0-2-2-8 timings); NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCI-Express (operating at 350/1000MHz in both single card and SLI modes); Western Digital Raptor 74GB; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA Forceware 71.89 WHQL.

During testing we found the Gigabyte GA-81955X Royal wouldn’t POST using our Corsair PC2-5400UL. However, we managed to get the system stable using our OCZ PC2-4300 memory instead. We kept the timings and clock speeds the same across the respective boards at stock speeds, but in overclocking the Corsair naturally has the better headroom being PC2-5400 over the OCZ PC2-4300.

General Performance: