Performance Summary, Continued

The Asus Maximus Formula wins again, and even if we adjust the performance difference to reflect its 0.2% overclock, it still maintains a 0.5% lead over the slowest board. Overclocked performance obviously favors the higher stable clock speeds of Gigabyte's GA-X38-DQ6.

Synthetics create something of a "bragging sheet" for competitive overclockers while testing a broader range of component capabilities than a typical benchmark set. Let's see how each board did with these

As previously noted in game benchmarks, Asus takes the "default clock" lead with the old P35 comparison motherboard following closely behind. Correcting for Asus' slight default overclock, it's still ahead of the slowest board by 0.5% before our intentional overclocking efforts were applied.

Overclockers will definitely be more satisfied with the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6's higher stable CPU speeds, as these gave it an approximate 4%performance lead at the CPU's maximum clock.

Averaging everything will help to show how much faster the fastest system "feels" in daily use.

The Asus Maximus Formula has an across-the-board lead of 1.08% over the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 at default clocks, a lead that drops to 0.9% when its slight default-setting overclock is corrected. The X38-DQ6 continues its hefty lead in overclocking, however.

Also notice that the P35 comparison motherboard held its second place position somewhat consistently, proving that performance alone is not what the X38 is about, at least not when a single PCI-Express 1.0 graphics card is used.