FIRST LOOK: Asus P5AD2-E - 1066FSB & DDR2-711
by Wesley Fink on November 29, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Asus P5AD2 Premium: Overclocking and Stress Testing
FSB Overclocking Results
| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
| Processor: | Pentium 4EE LGA 775 (Gallatin Core) 3.46/3.2GHz |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.55V (default) |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Jungle 502 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ PowerStream 520W |
| Maximum OC at Stock Multiplier: | 300x13 - 3900MHz (+12.7%) |
| Maximum FSB OC: | 324FSBx12 (+21.8% Bus OC) |
The 3.46EE CPU Intel supplied for testing was unlocked, but the only available multipliers were a stock 13X and 12X. Since the 3.46EE is the only current 1066FSB CPU, this means that options for bus overclocking are limited. However, having said that, we were still able to reach 324FSB at 12X for a DDR2 1:1 memory overclock of 648. Asus also provides an additional memory multiplier of 711 on the P5AD2-E, so we tried out the higher memory frequency with some of the latest OCZ 1GB DDR2 DIMMs rated at 3-2-2-8. This memory ran great in the P5AD2-E and also allowed us to reach DDR2-750 with a modest overclock at the DDR711 setting.
The P5AD2-E provides the best overclocking that we've seen on an Intel 925XE/925X board, although the Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE, based on the same 925XE xhipset, reaches virtually the same levels in overclocking. The 711 multiplier for memory opens new options for memory overclocking that are unique to the P5AD2-E.
Memory Stress Test Results:
The memory stress test measures the ability of the Asus P5AD2-E to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (533MHz DDR2), at the best performing memory timings that Crucial/Micron PC2-4300U will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running DDR2 at 533MHz (stock 1:1 ratio) with 2 DIMM slots operating in Dual-Channel mode.| Stable DDR533 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 DIMMs - 1 Dual-Channel Bank) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 266MHz |
| Timing Mode: | 1:1 |
| CAS Latency: | 3.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | Auto |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 3 |
| RAS Precharge: | 3 |
| Cycle Time (tRAS): | 10* |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
The Asus P5AD2-E was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-3-3-10, at 1.8V default voltage. Intel has updated memory timings on the 925XE series boards and now specifies 3-3-3 as default timings compared to the 4-4-4 timings specified at the 925X/915 launch.
Filling all four available memory slots is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DDR2 modules on a motherboard.
| Stable DDR533 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs - 2 Dual-Channel Banks) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 266MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 4.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 3.0 |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T* |
| Precharge Delay: | 3.0 |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
As we first saw in the 925X roundup, four DDR2 DIMMs are not stable at CAS 3 as 2 DIMMs are. We required 4-3-3 timings when using 4 DDR2 DIMMs, though the 4-3-3 timings did work fine at default voltage.
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mkruer - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
I love Intel’s comment a while back when they stated that their version of dual core would be better because it “shares resource” between the cores.Monkeydonutstick - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
#22 can you not read?classy - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
LOL Dothan. Unless you can oc that bad boy extremely it will get crushed by an A64. It does better at gaming than desktop Intel chips, but performs poorly at rendering and the like. Stop with Pentium M Dothan nonsense. And by the way, the motherboards are priced in server board territory. Lets OC an Athlon 64 platform and see the scorching the Dothan will get.Monkeydonutstick - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=nav...ariafrost - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
But Dothan doesn't scale up to high clock speeds and won't compete directly with Athlon 64 procs...Monkeydonutstick - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
Try Dothan with a faster bus. preliminary benchmarks show a clock for clock intel advantageWesley Fink - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
#17 - This is a First Look review and not a full motherboard review. As we explained when we launched First Look, we will use that format to bring more motherboard reviews more quickly to AnandTech readers. PCMark 04 is used to provide a braod General Performance comparison that includes media encoding in the benchmark.We did run a full suite of benchmarks for future comparisons, but nothing really changes.
925XE/3.46EE - 925X/3.6E - nF4/FX55 - Benchmark
34.1 - 34.4 - 39.3 - MM Content Creation 04
26.7 - 26.5 - 31.1 - Business Winstone 04
73.1 - 73.4 - 69.1 - AutoGK DivX 5.1.1
danidentity - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
#13 - Ugh, Intel's answer is EM64T, which is functionally identical to AMD64 and is fully compatible with it. CPUs supporting it will be on sale before WinXP-64 is released.About the review, WHY do you have a ton of gaming benchmarks and only a single solitary non-gaming benchmark. Do you think the people who read your reviews do nothing but play games? I'd like to see an equal number of non-gaming benchmarks. Content creation, business apps, encoding, etc.
Also, why didn't you test an 800MHz FSB CPU in this board? The overclocking potential is much better because of the 1066MHz FSB support.
smn198 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
No. I didn't have a pre-production 50MHz CPU ;)I meant 550MHz
smn198 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
Haven't bought an Intel CPU since I had my K7 50Mhz a long time ago but I really did like my PII 233 @ 350. I'd switch back to Intel in an instant if they offered better price:performance.