MSI P6N Diamond - NV680i with X-Fi Audio

Futuremark 3DMark06 - CPU Test Simulated DirectX Gaming Performance

3DMark06's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded "gaming related" DirectX metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems.  This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are generated with a software renderer, which is dependant on the host CPU's performance.  This means that the calculations normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the central processor. The number of frames generated per second in each test are used to determine the final score.

In the second of our suite of synthetic tests, we found that the MSI boards trumped the Asus P5B-E, with the P6N Diamond leading the pack overall.  The two boards based on the Intel P965 architecture were much more closely paired together, with the nForce 680i powered P6N besting them both by 50-70 points.   

Futuremark PCMark05 More Synthetic CPU and Memory Benchmarks

For our next round of synthetic benchmarks, we ran the CPU and Memory performance modules built into Futuremark's PCMark05.  For those interested in more than just the graphs, however, we've got a couple of quotes directly from Futuremark that explain exactly what these tests do and how they work.

"The CPU test suite is a collection of tests that are run to isolate the performance of the CPU. The CPU Test Suite also includes multithreading: two of the test scenarios are run multithreaded; the other including two simultaneous tests and the other running four tests simultaneously. The remaining six tests are run single threaded. Operations include, File Compression/Decompression, Encryption/Decryption, Image Decompression, and Audio Compression" - Courtesy FutureMark Corp.

PCMark's CPU performance scores, however, didn't paint as lovely as a picture.  Here, the P6N Diamond placed smack dab in the middle of the two P965 boards.  As a consolation, we still see the two MSI boards leading the way over the Asus P5B-E. 

"The Memory test suite is a collection of tests that isolate the performance of the memory subsystem. The memory subsystem consists of various devices on the PC. This includes the main memory, the CPU internal cache (known as the L1 cache) and the external cache (known as the L2 cache). As it is difficult to find applications that only stress the memory, we explicitly developed a set of tests geared for this purpose. The tests are written in C++ and assembly. They include: Reading data blocks from memory, Writing data blocks to memory performing copy operations on data blocks, random access to data items and latency testing."  - Courtesy FutureMark Corp.

The memory performance scores similarly placed the P6N Diamond directly between the P965 Platinum (trailing by 36 points) and the Asus P5B-E (leading by 19 points).  It's possible we could have tinkered around in the BIOS of the P6N Diamond and possibly tweaked some of the memory timings, of which there were plenty, to gain an even better score, but we're satisfied in the performance we've seen so far.