Memory Performance

Synthetic tests are showing us that unbuffered memory performance is actually lower with the newer chipset, despite optimisations for Core 2. The new board is on a fresh BIOS which only allowed us to run a maximum stable 3-4-4-9. This will undoubtedly mature over time, but that's not much slower than the usual 3-3-3-9 we aim to run every board at. There seems to be no significant improvements in the memory engine of the P35.

Disk Performance

The SATA read tests were conducted with a 74GB Western Digital Raptor using HD Tach 3.0.1.0's 8MB zone test. The USB 2.0 tests were done using an ATA133 160GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 hard drive (model number: 6L160PO) using the same 8MB zone test enclosed in an Icy Box USB 2.0 hard drive caddy. We recorded the average read speeds in all cases.




Overall the performance is very much the same between ICH8 and 9. The USB performance has improved slightly, but that's not to say we've also haven't seen 33MB/s from other boards and chipsets. The SATA performance is a fraction slower than the usual 65MB/s but it's nothing to really stress about.