a modification of a tom's hardware and ars technica rig

Get a P35 mobo w/DDR2 and a Q6600 after the price drop, which is in a few days.

See the goodness
http://anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989

P35 clocks a little higher but doesn't perform noticeably better. The board he picked is a proven top performer.

The board he picked is also a mediocre FSB overclocker, but with the processors he's considering he doesn't need to add much bus speed to get a good overclock.

It is a noteworthy advantage with the P35 chipset motherboards that every Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processor we tested on the P35 boards ran at 1333 FSB speeds at the stock multiplier without the need to increase voltage. This is a significant, free, and pain-free overclock provided courtesy of the new 1333 bus speed option. The only exception to this was our top-line X6800 which did require a mild voltage boost to run at 333x11 (3.67GHz).

All of the CPUs listed above in our table are 1066 FSB processors, but all ran fine at 1333 FSB at default multiplier and default voltage. Of course this is the FSB frequency Intel will be introducing on their soon-to-be-announced processors. This little side effect will make the P35 with DDR2 a favorite overclockers' board with current Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. A $189 E6420 can perform even better than an E6700 just by selecting a 1333 bus on P35 and leaving everything else at default. Likewise, a $500 Q6600 will outperform the ~$1000 QX6700 with just a bus speed change.

This little side effect will certainly be noticed by Intel. We have to wonder how fast the 1066 processors may start disappearing with this kind of free, painless overclocking available with the new P35 boards.

While the purpose of this review was to compare DDR3 and DDR2 performance, something completely different emerged from the memory bandwidth tests. Namely, the memory controller on the P35 is definitely an improvement over the P965 memory controller. This is evident whether the P35 is running DDR2 or DDR3 memory.

In Standard/Buffered memory bandwidth, the P35 (Bearlake) chipset is providing a 16% to 18% improvement in memory bandwidth compared to the P965. This is a significant improvement. The Unbuffered improvement is smaller, in the range of 4% to 8%. These bandwidth improvements may or may not translate into improved system performance. We will examine that in the SuperPi and Gaming benchmarks.

With pure number crunching, the P35 yields a 2% to 3% improvement in SuperPi results. While this is a small improvement, it is consistent across speeds and test results. As seen in the memory bandwidth results, the performance difference is the P35 chipset, and not the DDR3. It really doesn't matter if you run DDR2 or DDR3 on the P35; you will get slightly better number crunching performance with P35.

We were really surprised at the gaming test results. We really did not expect the bandwidth improvement of P35 to have much impact on gaming results, but Far Cry showed a 2% to 5% improvement in performance just comparing P35 to P965 under the same conditions. It really didn't matter whether P35 was running DDR2 or DDR3; the improvement was essentially the same.

That means the real performance surprise in these tests is that the revised memory controller in the Bearlake chipset improves buffered memory bandwidth by 16% to 18%, with a real-world improvement in gaming and application performance of 2 to 5%. This is a pretty impressive improvement for a memory controller update. To repeat an old saying please remember that memory is just one small part of the system, so a 2% to 5% increase in gaming from the memory controller alone means the P35 memory controller is significantly improved over the P965 chipset.

That brings up the more difficult question: what to buy today? That is a much more complicated question. If you are looking for a new system, definitely choose the new P35 chipset over the P965, as it is a better memory performer.At launch we are told DDR3 will be much more expensive than DDR2. Prices are expected to be about $480 for a 2GB DDR3 kit. At that lofty price it is difficult to recommend DDR3 over DDR2, when DDR2 performs just the same on the P35 chipset and decent 2GB kits can be had for under $150 now.

The winner for now is the P35 chipset, whether you feed it DDR2 with fast timings or higher speed DDR3. The 1333 bus speed introduced by P35 is also a winner - at least in terms of overclocking. As stated in the review, almost every Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad we tried in the P35 ASUS P5K and P5K3 ran at 1333 FSB at the default multiplier and default voltage. The only processors that required any voltage increase were the top line Core 2 Extreme processors. This free 25% overclock, which still allows everything else in the system to run at default values, is exciting. It is so exciting we have to wonder how long Intel will allow this in the marketplace.