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 Abit IP35 Pro (Intel P35), ECS P35T-A (Intel P35), MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35), MSI P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35), ECS PN2 SLI2+ (nForce 680i), ECS NF650iSLIT-A (nForce 650i), ASUS P5N-E SLI (nForce 650i), 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. Some motherboards (like ECS P35T-A and 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.

Comparing all motherboards with their memories running at 800 MHz, Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R achieved the same overall performance level of almost all other motherboards we included in our comparison, losing only to MSI P35 Neo Combo, which was 3.86% faster.

When we set our memories to run at 1,066 MHz we saw no significant performance improvement on this test.

Comparing all motherboards with their memories running at 1,066 MHz, Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R achieved the same overall performance level of almost all other motherboards we included in our comparison, losing only to MSI P35 Platinum, which was 3.24% faster.

On Internet Content Creation batch comparing all motherboards with their memories running at 800 MHz Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R achieved the same performance level of all other motherboards we included in our comparison.

When we set our memories to run at 1,066 MHz we saw no significant performance improvement on this test.

Comparing all motherboards with their memories running at 1,066 MHz, Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R achieved the same performance level of all other motherboards we included in our comparison.

On Office Productivity batch we saw some significant differences. Comparing all motherboards with their memories running at 800 MHz, Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R achieved the same performance level of almost all other motherboards we included in our comparison, losing only to ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition (Intel P965) and MSI P35 Platinum, which were 3.65% faster, and to MSI P35 Neo Combo, which was 6.20% faster.

When we set our memories to run at 1,066 MHz we saw no significant performance improvement on this test.

Comparing all motherboards with their memories running at 1,066 MHz, MSI P35 Platinum and ASUS P5B Premium (Intel P965) were 4.98% faster and ASUS P5B (Intel P965) was 3.83% faster than the reviewed motherboard.