Big changes to our test platforms include the use of Intel’s latest "High-Value" E6300 model Core 2 Duo processor, which many enthusiasts will choose for its good overclock potential. We also went with the overall performance winner from our last hard drive round-up, Hitachi’s T7K250 Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s hard drive, and our top-performing Super Talent PC2-6400 CAS4 RAM.

Compared is the only other board we’ve tested that supports the new processor, Foxconn’s value-priced P9657AA-8KS2H. Don’t let the pricing difference fool you: Both these boards use Intel’s latest P965 chipset, for better or worse!

Sandra 2005’s Memory Bandwidth Benchmark gave us a big surprise: Even though the Foxconn board supported tRAS only as low as 9 while the P5B-Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition supported our memory’s rated tRAS of 8, we didn’t expect to see this much performance increase!

Sandra’s most basic performance test (Arithmetic) shows little difference between boards, which is expected since the same CPU and chipset were used without any notable difference in clock rate. Asus’s win here is barely noticeable.

Once again we see the processor keeping scores fairly even, with Asus taking only the slightest lead. At least this shows the boards on a level playing field!

You wouldn’t expect any performance difference between two boards using similar controllers with the same drive, and indeed we didn’t see one.

Asus started off with superior memory performance and par CPU performance, so we’d expect the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition to win a few benchmarks in memory-intensive applications. And sure enough, it cleaned house, winning every DirectX benchmark. OK, so maybe it was a little more than expected!

OK, so the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition cleaned house first in DirectX, and now in SPECviewperf OpenGL. We’re starting to see a pattern here, and we really have to say that anyone who craves performance will definitely want this board!