Intel 945P Motherboards: Going from Hopeless to Enthusiastic
by Gary Key on November 15, 2005 12:02 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The Asus P5LD2 Deluxe deserves serious consideration if you are an Intel enthusiast looking to build a very solid and feature-rich solution. The performance is equal to the 955x based boards and is close to the nForce4 Intel Edition SLI solutions for less cost than either. The board ships with an extensive accessory package and has the optional WiFi TV package that allows the setup of an inexpensive Home Theater Personal Computer system.
The Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 offers solid performance with an attractive feature set for the cost. While the board produced average results, there is certainly promise in the design if Foxconn would expend the resources to improve their BIOS settings. This board cannot be labeled "Intense" and be taken seriously by a gamer or enthusiast. The board would be a very solid purchase if the BIOS lived up to the features on the board.
The Epox 5LDA-GLI is a very interesting board as it offers performance near the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe along with matching GLI support. However, unlike the other two boards, Epox did not offer additional features in the storage or network area, but rather added a 5-phase power switching design. The placement of the 24-pin ATX power connector was unusual for a board of this caliber. However, they listened to the power users and placed a CP80P post port debug LED, digital thermometer capability, and power on and reset buttons on the board. After the latest BIOS update, the board was a pleasure to use and if Epox brings it to market at a price near the Foxconn, they will have a winner on their hands in the Intel arena.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding these boards.
In the video area, the inclusion of the Graphics Link Interface (GLI) setup on the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe and Epox 5LDA-GLI boards allow for quad display capabilities while ensuring that the performance of the first x16 PCI Express slot is not compromised. We will be doing additional graphics testing in the near future with this setup to see how well it performs against NVIDIA's x8SLI design.
In the on-board audio area, all three boards utilize the Realtek ALC88x family of High Definition Audio codecs. The audio output of these codecs in the music, video, and gaming areas is very good while performance in certain games is way below par. If you plan on playing on-line, we highly suggest a dedicated sound card at this time, but the onboard capabilities of these chipsets will satisfy the majority of users.
In the storage area, the Asus board offers the greatest amount of storage options with additional PATA and SATA ports while the Foxconn board supplements the meager PATA offerings from Intel with the ITE 8211F chipset. The Epox board, interestingly enough, only offers the standard Intel setup that we believe is a mistake in the mid-range market. Each of the boards fully support Intel's excellent Matrix RAID system and offer Hot Plug, NCQ, and 3Gb/s capability. Asus supplements the Intel SATA II capability with the Silicon Image 3132 chipset featuring support for Hot Plug, NCQ, 3Gb/s, Staggered Spin-up, and Port Multiplier devices. All three boards offer the standard eight Intel USB ports and two IEEE 1394a ports with Epox utilizing the better performing VIA VT6307 1394a chipset. However, we still believe that Firewire 800 should be a standard board feature at this time and certainly should have been offered on the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe board since it is their premium offering.
In the performance area, the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe stood out from the rest of the field by consistently offering the best overall performance of the Intel 945P boards and, at times, exceeding the Intel 955x, and closing in on the NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition offerings. Asus offers their HyperPath3 BIOS option that effectively reduces memory latencies and takes away the small performance improvement of the Intel 955x chipset. The Epox 5LDA-GLI redeemed itself with the revised BIOS and was a surprise performer in this group, offering performance near the Asus board. The Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 was a solid performer that was seriously hampered in our testing by the lack of BIOS options, especially in the voltage areas.
As stated earlier, I was not particularly excited about reviewing the Intel 945P chipset offered on these boards. Our opinion on the chipset has changed from boring to interesting as we realized just how good this chipset was performance-wise, but more importantly, how stable it was in three different board designs. In a market where the majority of buyers of this chipset are home or office users, the importance of having a system "just work" without issue is extremely important. Intel has done a masterful job in creating a chipset that harkens back to the 440BX era where you had a chipset that balanced all aspects of computer performance. In this regard, we have come to realize just how hampered Intel's current chipset offerings are with the Pentium 4 processor and how hopeless the situation seems at this time for an Intel enthusiast. However, I have to say that I am very enthusiastic about Conroe now, not because of the tremendous performance improvements that it should bring, but because it will end the Pentium 4 era.
The Asus P5LD2 Deluxe deserves serious consideration if you are an Intel enthusiast looking to build a very solid and feature-rich solution. The performance is equal to the 955x based boards and is close to the nForce4 Intel Edition SLI solutions for less cost than either. The board ships with an extensive accessory package and has the optional WiFi TV package that allows the setup of an inexpensive Home Theater Personal Computer system.
The Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 offers solid performance with an attractive feature set for the cost. While the board produced average results, there is certainly promise in the design if Foxconn would expend the resources to improve their BIOS settings. This board cannot be labeled "Intense" and be taken seriously by a gamer or enthusiast. The board would be a very solid purchase if the BIOS lived up to the features on the board.
The Epox 5LDA-GLI is a very interesting board as it offers performance near the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe along with matching GLI support. However, unlike the other two boards, Epox did not offer additional features in the storage or network area, but rather added a 5-phase power switching design. The placement of the 24-pin ATX power connector was unusual for a board of this caliber. However, they listened to the power users and placed a CP80P post port debug LED, digital thermometer capability, and power on and reset buttons on the board. After the latest BIOS update, the board was a pleasure to use and if Epox brings it to market at a price near the Foxconn, they will have a winner on their hands in the Intel arena.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding these boards.
In the video area, the inclusion of the Graphics Link Interface (GLI) setup on the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe and Epox 5LDA-GLI boards allow for quad display capabilities while ensuring that the performance of the first x16 PCI Express slot is not compromised. We will be doing additional graphics testing in the near future with this setup to see how well it performs against NVIDIA's x8SLI design.
In the on-board audio area, all three boards utilize the Realtek ALC88x family of High Definition Audio codecs. The audio output of these codecs in the music, video, and gaming areas is very good while performance in certain games is way below par. If you plan on playing on-line, we highly suggest a dedicated sound card at this time, but the onboard capabilities of these chipsets will satisfy the majority of users.
In the storage area, the Asus board offers the greatest amount of storage options with additional PATA and SATA ports while the Foxconn board supplements the meager PATA offerings from Intel with the ITE 8211F chipset. The Epox board, interestingly enough, only offers the standard Intel setup that we believe is a mistake in the mid-range market. Each of the boards fully support Intel's excellent Matrix RAID system and offer Hot Plug, NCQ, and 3Gb/s capability. Asus supplements the Intel SATA II capability with the Silicon Image 3132 chipset featuring support for Hot Plug, NCQ, 3Gb/s, Staggered Spin-up, and Port Multiplier devices. All three boards offer the standard eight Intel USB ports and two IEEE 1394a ports with Epox utilizing the better performing VIA VT6307 1394a chipset. However, we still believe that Firewire 800 should be a standard board feature at this time and certainly should have been offered on the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe board since it is their premium offering.
In the performance area, the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe stood out from the rest of the field by consistently offering the best overall performance of the Intel 945P boards and, at times, exceeding the Intel 955x, and closing in on the NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition offerings. Asus offers their HyperPath3 BIOS option that effectively reduces memory latencies and takes away the small performance improvement of the Intel 955x chipset. The Epox 5LDA-GLI redeemed itself with the revised BIOS and was a surprise performer in this group, offering performance near the Asus board. The Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 was a solid performer that was seriously hampered in our testing by the lack of BIOS options, especially in the voltage areas.
As stated earlier, I was not particularly excited about reviewing the Intel 945P chipset offered on these boards. Our opinion on the chipset has changed from boring to interesting as we realized just how good this chipset was performance-wise, but more importantly, how stable it was in three different board designs. In a market where the majority of buyers of this chipset are home or office users, the importance of having a system "just work" without issue is extremely important. Intel has done a masterful job in creating a chipset that harkens back to the 440BX era where you had a chipset that balanced all aspects of computer performance. In this regard, we have come to realize just how hampered Intel's current chipset offerings are with the Pentium 4 processor and how hopeless the situation seems at this time for an Intel enthusiast. However, I have to say that I am very enthusiastic about Conroe now, not because of the tremendous performance improvements that it should bring, but because it will end the Pentium 4 era.
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Houdani - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
My approach is not backwards in the least. It's mainstream. And I do support the status quo because it's not broken. Your argument is that you want to see how sound affects gameplay ... period. For that, you should go read soundcard reviews.If you are arguing that CardB will suffer more than CardA due to the sound solution, then clearly I've missed something significant!
yacoub - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
No, not "period". At all. I want to see real world tests of GPUs so I can see how ALL expected impacts during gaming affect the latest and greatests GPUs, especially in light of conclusions in many reviews pointing out that "buy the best GPU you can afford" is the answer for gamers and GPUs are the most expensive piece of equipment in most cases since $200 CPUs can are enough for most cases.
It's necessary to know if, in light of the real world impacts like sound processing, that X800XL that looks like it can push enough fps in the GPU-exclusive testing done on it, actually falls beneath a playable threshhold in your machine at the games/resolutions/graphical settings the review showed to be fine. A 15fps difference is clearly HUGE (especially when most cards reviewed are pushing 30-50fps in most tests) and can EASILY push a seemingly sufficient card into the slideshow/stuttering realm of "holy crap that review screwed me big time. I should have sacrificed the extra $50 to jump up to CardB". If anything these dick-waving reviews are HARMFUL to actual consumers concerned with upgrading their gaming rigs as opposed to techies simply interested in reading about the latest GPU, because many of them don't even mention that sound is off and why that can have a big impact on the actual gaming performance of the card. They might waste time and money on an upgrade because the review data was worthless compared to how it actually performed in their system.
Food for thought.
MadAd - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
This is a mobo review and OB sound is on mobos so it has a place being tested here, not on GFX cards.In the context of current reviews, you want a change to the established way of doing things so that some finite aspect of sound card performance can be included, thats your opinion and fair enough you can have it. However rather than argue that the (perfectly good for most) system should be changed, instead why dont you ask the AT reviewers for a comparitive system review including sound?
If its worthwhile doing im sure one of the reviewers would agree, perhaps a few other readers would back you up if they think it would make a difference however I'm in the 'keep the status quo' camp so am biassed thinking its really not worth the time when it can be predicted from seperate reviews.
yacoub - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
Here's a vague comparison: Measuring automobile horsepower at the crank instead of the wheels - it ignores drivetrain loss and isn't as accurate a measurement. This is why the industry recently mandated a revised rating system. Yes, most cars will now market a must lower (but more accurate) number for their horsepower rating.The GPU review industry needs to start doing the same thing. Give more accurate numbers so the consumer is better infomred and can actually use the reviews to make a solid purchase decision. After all, that's what reviews started out to do years ago - help consumers understand the features of new hardware AND how they actually performed playing the games people played, so people could decide what the best upgrade strategy would be for their system based on worthwhile data.
TheInvincibleMustard - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
I saw that graph with min/max/average framerates! Woohoo! Convince others to implement that as well, especially in video card reviews (*cough*7800 GTX 512*cough*) :DIt's a shame that the Foxconn only goes up to 1.9v, as everything else about the board seems really decent ... is there word from Foxconn that this might be possible to fix in a future BIOS upgrade, or is it a hardware-specific issue?
-TIM
Gary Key - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
The board is very solid, has an excellent price point, and we are hoping Foxconn will implement further changes in their bios in the near future. I will update the article if we receive a new one.
Furen - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
You know you don't have to throw a long quote at the beginning of each article, right? I mean, it seems a bit excessive... like you're trying too hard to link the article to the grand scope of human life. We all appreciate an article's technical merits (this is a tech site, after all) but reading a piece of philosophy or literature at the heading kind of grows old after one or two times (dare I say, it reminds me of Omid at THG and his latin-infused writings so many years ago). I'm not complaining about the article, by the way, maybe I'm just being anal...Kensei - Friday, November 18, 2005 - link
I'm way late to this party but here goes anyway. I couldn't disagree more. It makes for much more interesting reading and the linkages to literature are a very minor part of each article. As I've said before, Gary is an extremely talented writer and others should be learning from his example. I strongly feel that people with strong technical interests need to spend time in other pursuits to make them more well rounded persons. I could write a book on the people I've met who possess great technical knowledge but it does them little good because they lack the interpersonal and communication skills to convey it to any other carbon-based life form.So dust off that copy of Jane Austin's Pride & Predjudice in your sister's room and see how the other half lives..... OK.... just go see the movie.
Kensei
Gary Key - Saturday, November 19, 2005 - link
I appreciate your comments and you made my evening. My sister was named after Elizabeth although she acts more like Mr. Darcy in real life. I might just pull out the 1996 BBC rendition (reminds me of my Rendition Verite based Reactor 3D card I found recently) and view it over the holidays. :) :) :) :)
Gary Key - Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - link
I appreciate the feedback. I flip flop at times about the quotes myself but figured it would provide a difference in the article besides starting out with same, "Intel introduces the 945P, a chipset that is very good, and is in three boards today....", syndrome. However, I can see your point where it can grow old after a few times also so maybe we should mix it up at various times. ;->