We upgraded Quake 4 to version 1.3 and ran its multiplayer demo id_demo001 at 1024x768x32 with image quality settings configured at “low” four times. The first result was always discarded, and from the other three values, we discarded the highest and the lowest score, i.e. we used the middle value for our comparison. You can see the results below.

From the motherboards that support DDR2-1066 ECS PN2 SLI2+ was the one that achieved the lowest results with our memories running at 1,066 MHz: ASUS P5B was 6.18% faster, ASUS P5B Premium was 5.98% faster and MSI P35 Platinum was 5.78% faster.

When we configured our memories to run at 800 MHz, ECS PN2 SLI2+ achieved the same performance of Intel D975XBX2 (Intel 975X), ECS NF650iSLIT-A (nForce 650i), MSI P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35) and ASUS P5N-E SLI (nForce 650i), also with their memories running at 800 MHz.

Under this configuration ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) was 3.78% faster, ASUS P5B (Intel P965) was 3.61% faster and MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35) was 3.40% faster than the reviewed motherboard.