by Ilya Gavrichenkov , Anna Filatova
06/22/2007 | 04:02 PM
If you have been following the news you should know that Intel has finally launched its new “third series” chipsets officially at the Computex show that has just finished in Taipei. We are already familiar with these chipsets. The first solutions based on them have already been discussed on our website about a month ago in our article called Meet Intel P35: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R Mainboard Review. At that time, we concluded that this chipset doesn’t have that many actual innovations despite the fact that it had just been announced. In other words, it didn’t make much sense to replace the mainboards based on previous Intel P965 chipset with the new ones on Intel P35. The manufacturer claims that one of the major advantages of the new iP35 chipset is the support of promising new processors with 1333MHz bus as well as the upcoming Penryn processors on 45nm core. However, first, these are all ephemeral advantages as there are no processors like that in the market yet, and second, the old mainboard may also work fine with the new processors, at least until they experimentally prove the opposite. Therefore, computer enthusiasts decided to take their time and wait and not to line up just yet for the new mainboards.
Moreover, the mainboards based on another chipset from the “third series”, Intel X38, are expected to start coming out in mass quantities very soon. The manufacturer positions this chipset as a higher-level solution than P35 targeted for faster and more expensive systems. Intel X38 based platforms are not available yet, so they are likely to actually demonstrate better performance and offer better features than the already selling Intel P35 based mainboards. This uncertainty, also forces advanced computer users not to rush with acquiring new platforms.
Nevertheless, the leading mainboard makers managed to design a handful of interesting solutions on the new Intel P35, which we simply couldn’t help reviewing. That is why we decided to devote a few articles to the most interesting products on Intel P35 from the leading vendors. And of course, first of all we would like to pay special attention to solutions supporting DDR2 SDRAM. The ability of the new Intel chipset to work with DDR3 SDRAM is not such an acute feature at this time, because the memory of this type is hardly selling anywhere, is extremely expensive and doesn’t offer any significant advantage over DDR2 SDRAM. Therefore, we would like to postpone our discussion of the DDR3 platforms at this time.
For the reasons mentioned above we selected Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard for one of our first articles, as this is one of the most full-featured products on Intel P35 chipset available today. With the help of this mainboard, we will see how ASUS managed to utilize the potential of the new Intel chipset. Hopefully, Asus engineers’ experience helped them to design a more impressive solution than the recently reviewed Gigabyte mainboard that upset us with its relatively low performance during our overclocking tests.
As we have already discussed in our previous article, Asus designed the entire line-up of solutions on the new Intel P35 chipset. However, Asus P5K Deluxe undoubtedly stands out for two reasons: advanced chipset cooling system and rich features typical of the solutions from the top price range. Just look at the picture of this product:
Of course, Asus P5K Deluxe is not cheap. However, for the high price you pay for it you also get a pretty extensive range of features and bonuses than any other competing solution would offer you. You can see it from the specification already:
ASUS P5K Deluxe / WiFi | |
CPUs | LGA775 processors: Celeron, Pentium 4, Pentium D, |
Chipset | Intel P35 (P35 GMCH + ICH9R) |
FSB frequencies | 200-800MHz (with 1MHz increment) |
Overclocking friendly | Adjustable Vcore, Vmem, VTT and North Bridge voltage. |
Memory | 4 DDR2 DIMM slots |
PCI Express x16 slots | 2 (the second slot works as PCI Express x1/x4) |
PCI Express x1 slots | 2 |
PCI expansion slots | 3 |
USB 2.0 ports | 10 (6 – on the rear panel) |
IEEE1394 ports | 2 (via Agere FW322 controller) |
ATA-100/133 | 1 ATA-133 channel |
Serial ATA | 6 Serial ATA-300 channel (by the chipset, with RAID support) |
ATA RAID support | RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 in the chipset |
Integrated sound | V incrementосьмиканальный HD кодек ADI AD1988B |
Integrated network | Dual Gigabit Ethernet |
Additional features | None |
BIOS | AMI BIOS v02.58 |
Form-factor | ATX, 305mm x 244mm |
Asus engineers added extra controllers onboard and thus managed to significantly increase the features list of the P5K Deluxe mainboard. The marketing specialists have also contributed to the price of this solution by adding a lot of accessories. As a result, the board comes in a slightly larger box than usual, with a convenient carry handle:
By the way, besides the specifications of the product and the list of major advantages on the reverse side of the package, there are a few very promising claims on the very front of the box as well:
As you can see, they stress that thanks to some Super Memspeed technology the P5K Deluxe board boasts 75% faster work with the memory subsystem compared to “other” products.
As for the accessories bundle, it certainly contains the usual things, such as user’s manual, CD disk with the drivers and software, I/O Shield for the back panel, FDD and Parallel ATA cables, as well as four SATA cables. Besides that there are a few additional much more interesting things. Namely you get a power cable for two SATA hard drives, an additional bracket with two USB 2.0 ports and one IEEE1394 port on it, and a set of Asus’ brand-name Q-Connector set for easy connection to the front panel of the system case. Also, since Asus P5K Deluxe comes with a WiFi controller, the package contains an omnipole antenna.
Although Asus P5K Deluxe is a pretty expensive product, the bundle doesn’t include a traditional rotor fan for the chipset that helps improve heat dissipation from the processor voltage regulator circuitry and the core logic. So, despite a long list of accessories, looks like something is still missing.
Judging from our experience with the mainboards that arrive in our lab we start noticing more and more often that most of the features these new solutions have to offer are implemented by the chipsets they are based on. This is actually not surprising at all, since contemporary chipsets features extremely rich characteristics thus saving the developers time and trouble looking for additional onboard controller-chips. Most contemporary mainboards usually take only an additional IEEE1394 controller and a sound codec and sometimes also an ATA RAID controller. However, there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, the Asus P5K Deluxe / WiFi mainboard we are talking about today differs significantly from other Intel P35 based mainboards in terms of available features.
First of all, I would like to say that this mainboard boasts extremely rich networking capabilities: besides all the usual stuff it also features two Gigabit network ports and a wireless network controller supporting 802.11b/g protocols. It is remarkable that Asus engineers decided to implement two Gigabit network ports without involving the network functions of the Intel P35 chipset and without installing an additional dual-port controller. Instead, they equipped Asus P5K Deluxe with two independent chips: Marvell 88E8056 with PCI Express x1 interface and Realtek RTL8110SC with PCI interface.
As for the WiFi controller based on Realtek RTL8187L chip, it communicates with the chipset via the USB 2.0 bus.
However, it doesn’t affect its features and the wireless network card works just fine as a station and as an access point.
Three networking interfaces is not the only peculiarity of Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard. Another remarkable thing is the availability of two PCI Express x16 graphics card slots, although the Intel P35 chipset doesn’t officially support this feature. Nevertheless, Asus engineers solved this problem by connecting the physical PCI Express x16 slot to PCI Express x1 or x4 bus. The operational mode for this bus is set in the BIOS Setup, and if the faster 4x mode is enabled, then one of the PCI Express x1 slots will be disconnected.
Thanks to the two graphics card slots, Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard supports multi-GPU configurations. Namely, ATI Crossfire technology that can work as PCI Express x16 + PCI Express x4 in this case. As for Nvidia SLI, it doesn’t work (yet?) on Asus P5K Deluxe because of the limitations set in Nvidia’s drivers.
Speaking of the advantages of the new Asus P5K Deluxe we would like to stress the fact that being based on Intel P35 chipset, the board is compatible not only with all existing processors on Core micro-architecture, but also with the upcoming CPUs from the same family. Namely, it will support processors using 1333MHz bus as well as the new Penryn models. Note that at the same time the board has limited compatibility with some older processor models. It doesn’t work with processors supporting 533MHz bus, such as Celeron CPUs on NetBurst micro-architecture, for instance.
Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard is designed to work with DDR2 SDRAM. The support for new DDR3 SDRAM is implemented in another Asus product called P5K3 Deluxe. DDR2 modules can be installed into four corresponding DIMM slots. The modules should be installed in pairs in the corresponding color-coded slots to ensure that the memory will run in dual-channel mode. Note that Asus P5K Deluxe can take maximum 8GB of memory, however, the board doesn’t support memory modules with over 2GB capacity. You can only have over 4GB of RAM available in 64-bit operating systems.
There are six SATA ports on the board for hard disk drives. These ports are implemented via the ICH9R South Bridge. The integrated Serial ATA controller of this South Bridge supports NCQ, 3Gbit/s data transfer rate, RAID arrays of types 0, 1, 0+1 and 5, and Matrix Storage Technology. As for the Parallel ATA interface, Intel P35 doesn’t offer it at all, that is why Asus P5K Deluxe uses an additional JMicron LMB363 controller for that. Besides one Parallel ATA-133 channel, this chip also provides two eSATA ports (SATA on-the-Go, according to Asus) that have been laid out to the rear panel. These external ports also support NCQ, higher interface speed, RAID0 and RAID1.
The mainboard features 10 USB 2.0 ports implemented via the chipset South Bridge. As for the two IEEE1394 ports, they are connected to the external Agere FW322 PCI controller.
The sound tract on Asus P5K Deluxe uses high-definition eight-channel ADI AD1988B codec. It is one of the best codecs available today that provides excellent sound quality and come with quality drivers. Besides, it can also send different audio streams to different playback channels at the same time and offers special technologies for efficient noise reduction when working with voice applications.
The PCB of Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard is designed in a slightly unusual way. Just look at the layout scheme:
It is not only the too few micro-chips on the PCB. The main peculiarity is the location of the PCI Express x16 and DIMM slots that have been moved closer to the lower edge of the PCB. The free space at the top of the PCB was then taken by the power components. Unfortunately, this change not only increased the free area around the CPU.
Among the drawbacks of such PCB layout we would like to mention the inconvenient location of the HDD connectors. Parallel ATA ports had to be moved to the lower edge of the PCB, which may require the corresponding cable to run through the entire system case. Serial ATA ports appeared so close to the first PCI Express x16 slot that you may find it hard to connect any cables to them with the preinstalled graphics card. Clear CMOS jumper also appeared very inconveniently hidden beneath the cooling system of the installed graphics card, which may result in certain difficulties.
However, you will have to deal with all the above mentioned drawbacks only once: during system assembly. As far as the optimal thermal conditions inside the assembled system are concerned, it would be hard to find anything to complain about. Large free area around the processor socket and chipset North Bridge should improve the cooling of these “hot spots”.
So, at first glance Asus P5K Deluxe shouldn’t have any issues with large CPU cooling solutions. There are no large electronic components around the LGA775 socket that can prevent you from installing some massive coolers. However, there still may be some cooler compatibility issues. To understand what I am talking about, look at the reverse side of the Asus P5K Deluxe PCB:
As you can see there are some MOSFET from the processor voltage regulator circuitry. However, this is not the worst thing yet. We are much more concerned with the hanging contact pins of the electronic components soldered through the PCB as they may prevent you from mounting some of the backplates.
The processor voltage regulator on Asus P5K Deluxe is designed as an eight-channel circuitry. It uses solid-state electrolytic capacitors and ferrite core chokes. So, we have no doubts about highest reliability of the CPU voltage regulator here.
Thanks to up-to-date components and eight voltage regulator channels, the CPU voltage regulator dissipates not too much heat during work. Nevertheless, Asus equipped its P5K Deluxe with a two-part cooling system. The first half of this system is covered with a simple aluminum heatsink painted with “copper” color. I doubt that it is a highly efficient heatsink, as it has very weak retention and doesn’t get pressed tight enough to the MOSFET surface. The second half of the voltage regulator cooling system makes a mode solid impression: it is of neater design and sits tighter on top of the cooled elements. However, there are heatpipes running from this second heatsink to the heatsinks on the chipset North and South Bridges thus redistributing the heat over the system and warming up the MOSFET with the heat from the core logic components.
As for the chipset itself, its cooling system featuring heatpipe design performs quite well, even though it is made of “copper-colored” aluminum. Somewhat lower heat dissipation of the new Intel P35 chipset compared with the previous generation solutions is certainly one of the reasons for that. This could be why Asus decided not to include an additional chipset fan with the Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard and stuck to the passive cooling solution. However, you shouldn’t worry about Asus P5K Deluxe North Bridge overheating because from now on Intel integrates its thermal diode not only into CPUs but also into chipsets. Intel P35 North Bridge monitors its thermal performance and will shut down in case it hits dangerous temperatures.
The mainboard rear panel has also prepared us a small surprise: there is no PS/2 port for the mouse – there are two additional USB 2.0 ports instead, so now there are six of them total there. They retained the PS/2 keyboard port at this time. Besides, there is also an IEEE1394 port, two eSATA connectors, an optical and coaxial SPDIF Outs, six analog audio jacks, two network RJ45 ports with diagnostic LEDs and a WiFi antenna connector.
In addition to the rear panel ports and connectors that I have just mentioned, Asus P5K Deluxe also features four USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE1394 port and a Serial port laid out as pin-connectors on the PCB.
We tested Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard with the BIOS version 0311 released on May 28, 2007.
BIOS Setup of Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard is based on AMIBIOS microcode but its structure and looks are very similar to those of BIOS Setups on other Asus mainboards. All sections are very well organized, and it should be very easy to work with even for unsophisticated users. Besides the standard options for configuring expansion busses and integrated onboard controllers that we hardly need to discuss here, Asus engineers as always made special effort to provide their BIOS Setup with a lot of convenient and extensive tools for enthusiasts. This is exactly what we are going to talk about in this chapter of our review.
CPU Configuration section offers all options for work with CPU technologies. Here you can also get the detailed info on the processor installed in your system.
The Chipset section will be of primary interest to those of you who intend to have two graphics cards installed onto Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard. This is where you can set the operational mode for the second PCI Express x16 slot and enable Asus C.G.I. (Cross Graphics Impeller) technology. It first appeared on i965 based mainboards. It allows to slightly increase the performance of CrossFire systems by accelerating the DMI bus (Direct Media Interface) between the chipset North and South Bridges.
However, JumperFree Configuration section is undoubtedly of biggest interest to enthusiasts and overclockers. This is where all the main system parameters are being set including processor bus frequency, memory bus frequency, memory timings and voltages. You can also adjust processor clock frequency multiplier here.
The BIOS Setup of Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard allows raising the FSB frequency up to 800MHz, change the PCI Express frequency between 100MHz and 150MHz, and set the memory frequency using a limited set of dividers depending on the selected FSB speed. If the FSB is set between 200 and 220MHz, the board will offer you only two FSB:Mem dividers – 3:5 and 1:2. With the FSB frequency set between 221 and 292MHz, you will get a variety of dividers including 4:5, 2:3, 3:5 and 1:2. And only if you set the FSB to 293MHz+ you will get access to all dividers supported by Intel P35 chipset - 1:1, 5:6, 4:5, 2:3, 5:8, 3:5 and 1:2.
In other words, if you are building a system on Asus P5K Deluxe, you should remember about two things. First, the mainboard doesn’t support reducing dividers for the memory frequency, and second, it doesn’t support slower memory than DDR2-667 SDRAM even with the FSB set to 200MHz or 266MHz.
Speaking about the memory subsystem configuration, we would like to point out that the board allows adjusting many timing settings:
Parameter | Supported range |
CAS# Latency | 3 – 6 |
RAS# to CAS# Delay | 3 – 10 |
RAS# Precharge | 3 – 10 |
RAS# Activate to Precharge | 3 – 34 |
TWR | 1 – 15 |
TRFC | 20, 25, 30, 35, 42 |
TWTR | 1 – 15 |
TRRD | 1 – 15 |
TRTP | 1 – 15 |
Besides the timings listed in the table above, Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard allows changing Command Rate. You can set it to 1T instead of the default 2T used by Intel chipsets. You can also see Transaction Booster option among the memory timings. It manages internal registers of the memory controller thus increasing the system performance a little bit. We are going to pay more attention to these particular settings later on.
The options for voltages management on Asus P5K Deluxe are also pretty impressive:
Parameter | Supported range |
CPU Voltage | 1.1 - 1.7V with 0.0125V increment |
CPU PLL Voltage | 1.5 – 1.8V with 0.1V increment |
DRAM Voltage | 1.8 – 2.55V with 0.05V increment |
FSB Termination Voltage | 1.2 – 1.5V with 0.1V increment |
North Bridge Voltage | 1.25 – 1.7V with 0.15V increment |
South Bridge Voltage | 1.05V or 1.2V |
As we see, all voltages required for successful overclocking are there, which makes Asus P5K Deluxe a very attractive overclocker’s choice. Moreover, the supported ranges are broad enough for most cases, which is also an advantage.
One of the drawbacks we saw in previous generation Asus mainboards on iP965 chipset was the significant drop of processor voltage as a result of increasing CPU utilization and, logically, power consumption. Although such behavior of the processor voltage regulator doesn’t contradict Intel’s specifications, overclockers were pretty upset that the Vcore they set in the BIOS Setup was forced down. The new P5K Deluxe mainboard doesn’t suffer from this drawback anymore thanks to a special CPU Voltage Damper option. If you enable this option, the processor Vcore will not drop down more than by 0.032V (according to our measurements taken with Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor overclocked to 3.2GHz). If the option is set to “Disabled”, the mainboard will act “typically”: the processor Vcore will drop down much more dramatically and may even hit the significant 0.08V.
All I have just said means that Asus P5K Deluxe boasts the most extensive overclocking-friendly features list possible. However, even if you are not into the whole overclocking thing, the everyday use of this mainboard in nominal mode will also hardly cause any trouble. Asus engineers also offer an alternative way of configuring this mainboard that doesn’t require adjusting all those settings. All options can be set to Auto, which will be a simple solution for inexperienced users. Moreover, the BIOS Setup of Asus P5K Deluxe also features automatic dynamic overclocking technology aka N.O.S. that offers the whole bund of preset profiles resulting in up to 30% increase of CPU performance.
The monitoring options offered by this mainboard are pretty standard. It can control two temperatures, rotation speeds of four fans out of six and four major voltages.
Note that the mainboard PCB thermal diode is located very close to MOSFET from the DDR2 SDRAM voltage regulator circuitry. As a result, the monitored temperature is actually much higher than it should be and doesn’t really represent the average mainboard PCB temperature.
The mainboard also features Q-Fan technology for fan rotation speed management of system case and processor fans depending on the temperature of the corresponding “hot spots”.
Another convenient tool that Asus engineers implemented in their new mainboard is the EZ Flash 2 utility built in the mainboard BIOS. It allows updating the BIOS from floppy disks and USB flash drives without even booting the OS.
Moreover, the board allows saving setting profiles in its own flash memory or on external storage devices. This way you can keep experimenting with settings without losing the most optimal achieved mode and also exchange user profiles with other Asus P5K Deluxe users.
In conclusion to our discussion of Asus P5K Deluxe BIOS features I would like to say that this mainboard deals very well with the situations when some parameters have been set incorrectly and the system cannot start. If the mainboard cannot pass POST because of the erroneous BIOS Setup settings, then it will reboot with default settings after system shut down and offer you to enter BIOS and fix the settings. In other words, you will hardly ever have to really use the Clear CMOS jumper.
So, from the theoretical standpoint, Asus P5K Deluxe provides overclockers with an excellent set of tools and options for successful CPU overclocking. However, we know a lot of situations when theory and practice are miles apart. Luckily, this is not the case for Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard. Our CPU overclocking experiments went on impeccably well. For example, we managed to hit the psychologically important 500MHz FSB without much trouble. We didn’t even have to raise the chipset voltage!
It is very important that that mainboard works absolutely stable at this FSB speed. By the way, Asus P5K Deluxe also works fine at lower FSB frequencies. We checked out the entire FSB frequency range between 266MHz and 500MHz and can confirm that the entire range is operational. So, we can definitely recommend this mainboard to overclockers.
Update: Today Asus engineers offer a newer BIOS version than the 0311 we used. The new BIOS version is marked as 0404 and was released on June 21, 2007. However, it is still a beta that is why we didn’t focus on it in this article. Nevertheless, we have to point out two very important things about it.
First, BIOS version 0404 allows switching Strap frequency manually. There is a corresponding option that offers you a choice of Auto, 200MHz, 266MHz and 333MHz. Thanks to this function you can now get access to the entire range of supported memory frequency dividers independent of the set FSB frequency: all you need is to set the Strap to 333MHz.
Second, the new BIOS version boasts faster work with the memory subsystem. It is achieved thanks to slightly different set of secondary timings that the mainboard adjusts automatically. Unfortunately, this improvement has another side to it as well: the system gets less stable during DDR2 SDRAM overclocking. However, we hope that they will fix this in the upcoming “non-beta” BIOS versions.
We have already tested a mainboard based on Intel P35 chipset before. However, we would still like to perform the full set of tests because Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R we tested in our previous session sometimes didn’t perform that well because of some BIOS issues.
We will compare Asus P5K Deluxe not only against Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R mainboard, but also against a few solutions from the same price range but based on the older chipsets. Namely we will take Asus P5B Deluxe on Intel P965 chipset and Asus P5N32-E SLI on Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset.
We used a Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor overclocked to 3.2GHz that was configured as 12 x 266MHz. The memory was working at 800MHz with 4-4-4-12 timings.
Our testbeds were configured as follows:
Notes:
As usual we would like to start with the performance in synthetic benchmarks working with the memory subsystem. This parameter has the biggest influence on the mainboard performance overall. For our tests we used Lavalys Everest 4.0 utility.
The first thing that catches your eye is the high performance of the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI based mainboard. But do not let these numbers deceive you: they are the result of a special DASP module integrated into this chipset. In real applications Asus P5N32-E SLI mainboard may perform not so impressive anymore.
As for the performance of our today’s hero, Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard, it is pretty close to Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R on Intel P35 chipset as well as to Asus P5B Deluxe on the previous generation Intel P965 chipset. In other words, the new core logic set doesn’t give Asus P5K Deluxe any advantages when working with the memory subsystem.
Summing up the results of our test session we can conclude that Asus P5K Deluxe performs as fast as a number of other high-speed solutions for enthusiasts based on Intel P35 chipset as well as previous-generation chipsets.
Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard proved to be an excellent product that will definitely win the overclockers’ and enthusiasts’ hearts. This mainboard is a great combination of high performance, good overclocking potential and wide range of options for flexible configuring. Besides, it is very simple to set and performs predictably and stably in any situation.
Here I have to add that it can also boast a number of advanced features. Its major trump is certainly compatibility with the upcoming processors, such as Conroe with 1333MHz bus and the promising Penryn family. And thanks to two PCI Express x16 slots it can also accommodate dual-GPU CrossFire configurations.
There are very few products today that can offer the same variety of advantages that is why the relatively high price of new Asus P5K Deluxe is absolutely justified. Even a few PCB design flaws and questionable cooling system for the chipset and processor voltage regulator do not spoil the overall impression from this solution.
Highs:
Lows:
Update: We have posted a second article devoted to Asus P5K Deluxe mainboard called Asus P5K Deluxe Mainboard: Second Encounter. We continue discussing the features and performance of this solution, will unveil the mysteries of memory subsystem fine tuning and reveal some great overclocking tricks.