We measured the overall performance of this motherboard using SYSmark2004, which is a program that simulates the use of real-world applications. Thus, we consider this the best software to measure, in practical terms, the system performance.

The benchmarks are divided into two groups:

• Internet Content Creation: Simulates the authoring of a website containing text, images, videos and animations. The following programs are used: Adobe After Effects 5.5, Adobe Photoshop 7.01, Adobe Premiere 6.5, Discreet 3ds Max 5.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Flash MX, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.
• Office Productivity: Simulates the use of an office suite, i.e., simulates sending e-mails, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. The following programs are used: Adobe Acrobat 5.05, Microsoft Office XP SP2, Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, NaturallySpeaking 6, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.

The software delivers specific results for each batch and also an overall performance result, all in a specific SYSmark2004 unit.

We compared the reviewed board to ECS NF650iSLIT-A (nForce 650i), ASUS P5N-E SLI (nForce 650i), MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35), MSI P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35), ASUS P5B (Intel P965), ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) and Intel D975XBX2 (Intel 975X). On the graphs present on this and on the following pages you will see the clock rate we configured our memories. Since we had DDR2-1066 memory modules installed, we ran our tests two times, first with our memories configured at 800 MHz and then configured at 1,066 MHz, whenever possible. Some motherboards (like the ones based on nForce 650i and Intel 975X chipsets), however, do not support DDR2-1066 and that is why you won’t find DDR2-1066 results for them.

You can see the results on the charts below.

ECS PN2 SLI2+ with our DDR2-1066 memories configured at 1,066 MHz achieved the same performance level the following motherboards, all with memories configured at 800 MHz: ASUS P5B (Intel P965), ECS NF650iSLIT-A (nForce 650i), Intel D975XBX2 (Intel 975X) and ASUS P5N-E SLI (nForce 650i). Running our memories at 1,066 MHz instead of 800 MHz produced no performance gain on this test.

With our memories running at 1,066 MHz, MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35) was 5.41% faster, ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) was 5.11% faster and ASUS P5B (Intel P965) was 4.20% faster than the reviewed motherboard.

With our memories running at 800 MHz, MSI P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35) was 5.74% faster, MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35) was 4.83% faster, ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) was 4.53% faster and ASUS P5B (Intel P965) was 3.02% faster than ECS PN2 SLI2+.

On Internet Content Creation ECS PN2 SLI2+ with memories running at 1,066 MHz achieved the same performance level of ASUS P5B (Intel P965) with memories also running at 1,066 MHz and  ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965), ASUS P5B (Intel P965), ECS NF650iSLIT-A (nForce 650i),  Intel D975XBX2 (Intel 975X) and ASUS P5N-E SLI (nForce 650i), with memories running at 800 MHz.

With our memories running at 1,066 MHz, MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35) also with DDR2-1066 was 4.17% faster, MSI P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35) with DDR2-800 was 3.70% faster and ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) with DDR2-1066 was 3.47% faster.

Running our memories at 1,066 MHz instead of 800 MHz produced no performance gain on this test.

On Office once again we saw no performance gain from using DDR2-1066 instead of DDR2-800. Here ECS PN2 SLI2+ achieved the same performance level as ASUS P5B (Intel P965), ECS NF650iSLIT-A (nForce 650i), Intel D975XBX2 (Intel 975X) and ASUS P5N-E SLI (nForce 650i), all with their memories running at 800 MHz.

With DDR2-1066 memories, MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35) was 6.61% faster, MSI P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35, with DDR2-800 memories) was 6.61% faster, ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) was also 6.61% faster and ASUS P5B (Intel P965) was 5.45% faster.