V. Performance Testing and Overclocking

It's time to put the motherboard to the test*. Since it's targetted at the value segment, I will try to put value parts to the system. However, for the purpose of testing, I decided to add a twist to it in that I added a 1GB Kingston DDR400, just to check if the motherboard can handle the size. I also added a 256MB Kingston DDR400, to simulate an almost totally unmatched memory sticks, and see if there will be any issues with stability and usability.

• Processor: IntelŪ PentiumŪ 4 510
• Motherboard: IntelŪ Desktop Board D101GGC
• Memory: 1.256GB Kingston DDR400 (1x1024MB, 1x256MB)
• Hard Disk: Seagate Barracude 80GB 7200rpm SATA
• Video Card: On-board, 64MB shared
• Optical Drive: LD DVD Drive
• Floppy Drive: Generic
• Chassis: Mars 722 Orbit
• Power Supply: Delta Electronics 320W
• Operating System: Windows XP SP2

::Subsystem Test::

PCMark02

PCMark04

PCMark05

Sandra-CPU

Sandra-Multimedia

Sandra-RAM Bandwidth

::3D Test::

3DMark01SE

3DMark03

3DMark05

3DMark06

::Overclocking::

The motherboard does not offer any overclocking options in the BIOS. Users who plan to buy this and overclock from the BIOS will find it lacking and not fitting for their use. There's also no settings about RAM timing, frequency, and ratio. Again, the consideration is that this board is targetted for the value segment. But never under estimate the capability of this board for overclocking, as it's been an old secret until I revealed recently, that IntelŪ branded boards are overclockable. Take a look, for example, with the not-famous IntelŪ D875PBZ that can hit 300FSB with ease. Not yet convinced that IntelŪ branded boards are overclockable? How about another not famous motherboard in the incarnation of IntelŪ D925XEBC2, reaching 250FSB without any hard effort. How about IntelŪ's Executive series motherboard, targetted for mainstream office computing, the IntelŪ D945GTP that hits a whooping 250FSB?

In any case, I will share my overclocking experience with this board on another article, for the time being, don't try to judge the overclocking capabilities of IntelŪ branded boards, they are "like a box of chocolates, you'll never know what you're gonna get".

_{*: In the tests, I am not be able to provide links to submissions due to the fact that I only use the shareware version. For example, Futuremark's PCMark04 only allows one active publication of score, though users can have as much as five(5) entries, but only one can be made public. And in the future reviews and article, providing a link will make older link obsolete. To circumvent this, I will just use screenshots of the results}