ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus: NVIDIA's 650i goes Dual x16
by Gary Key on April 2, 2007 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Disk Controller Performance
The AnandTech iPeak test is designed to measure "pure" hard disk controller performance, and in this case, we keep the hard drive as consistent as possible while varying the hard drive controller. The idea is to measure the performance of each hard drive controller with the same hard drive.
We played back our raw files that are recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPeak utility was then used to play back the trace file of all I/O operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. The drive is formatted before each test run and a composite average of three tests on each controller interface is tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.
iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each I/O operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of I/O operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance. This number is meaningless as far as hard disk performance is concerned, as it is just the number of I/O operations completed in a second. However, the scores are useful for comparing "pure" performance of the storage controllers in this case.
The performance patterns hold steady across both Multimedia Content I/O and Business I/O with the SB600 outperforming the Intel ICH7R, Intel ICH8R, and NVIDIA 680i/650i chipsets in our non-Raid tests. The Promise controller on the DFI board is the slowest of all solutions with the Marvell controller on the Intel 975X performing only slightly better. The 680i and 650i MCP chipsets are different but their disk performance in our tests is basically alike. We also ran RAID 0 and RAID 5 tests on each controller with the results being in favor of the 680i MCP by around 2% over the 680i LT and 650i MCP in these particular benchmarks. Although our NVIDIA boards generally score lower in these "pure" throughput tests, we find their actual performance in disk intensive applications are generally equal to or better than the other solutions.
Power Consumption
Our power consumption numbers are based on our test setup for this article that consists of the MSI 8800GTX video card and our boards have C1E/EIST turned off. The 680i boards lead all in power consumption but the ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus is right behind indicating that the 570 SLI MCP draws slightly more power than the 430 MCP on the true 650i boards. The P965 consumes the least amount of power at idle but around 10% more than the RD600 at load. The 975X still offers a decent level of power conservation compared to the other chipsets even though it is getting long in the tooth.
FSB Overclocking
While the ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus offers very good overclocking capabilities, it quickly runs out of headroom near the 500FSB level. We believe this is a limitation of the 650i SPP based upon our results with other 650i boards. ASUS has extracted just about every ounce of performance out of this particular chipset. While it may not satisfy the extreme overclocker, the overclocking levels should be fine for a majority of users.
We found during overclocking that we had to set the CPU voltages a little higher than on the other boards to attain the same or better overclocks. We experienced this with the MSI 650i and EVGA 680i LT SLI boards, and it was generally due to tighter memory/chipset timings in order to improve the performance of the board at stock speeds. Overall, our overclocking experiences were very good provided we had the memory sub-timings dialed in for each memory type we utilized.
The AnandTech iPeak test is designed to measure "pure" hard disk controller performance, and in this case, we keep the hard drive as consistent as possible while varying the hard drive controller. The idea is to measure the performance of each hard drive controller with the same hard drive.
We played back our raw files that are recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPeak utility was then used to play back the trace file of all I/O operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. The drive is formatted before each test run and a composite average of three tests on each controller interface is tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.
iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each I/O operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of I/O operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance. This number is meaningless as far as hard disk performance is concerned, as it is just the number of I/O operations completed in a second. However, the scores are useful for comparing "pure" performance of the storage controllers in this case.
The performance patterns hold steady across both Multimedia Content I/O and Business I/O with the SB600 outperforming the Intel ICH7R, Intel ICH8R, and NVIDIA 680i/650i chipsets in our non-Raid tests. The Promise controller on the DFI board is the slowest of all solutions with the Marvell controller on the Intel 975X performing only slightly better. The 680i and 650i MCP chipsets are different but their disk performance in our tests is basically alike. We also ran RAID 0 and RAID 5 tests on each controller with the results being in favor of the 680i MCP by around 2% over the 680i LT and 650i MCP in these particular benchmarks. Although our NVIDIA boards generally score lower in these "pure" throughput tests, we find their actual performance in disk intensive applications are generally equal to or better than the other solutions.
Power Consumption
Our power consumption numbers are based on our test setup for this article that consists of the MSI 8800GTX video card and our boards have C1E/EIST turned off. The 680i boards lead all in power consumption but the ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus is right behind indicating that the 570 SLI MCP draws slightly more power than the 430 MCP on the true 650i boards. The P965 consumes the least amount of power at idle but around 10% more than the RD600 at load. The 975X still offers a decent level of power conservation compared to the other chipsets even though it is getting long in the tooth.
FSB Overclocking
While the ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus offers very good overclocking capabilities, it quickly runs out of headroom near the 500FSB level. We believe this is a limitation of the 650i SPP based upon our results with other 650i boards. ASUS has extracted just about every ounce of performance out of this particular chipset. While it may not satisfy the extreme overclocker, the overclocking levels should be fine for a majority of users.
We found during overclocking that we had to set the CPU voltages a little higher than on the other boards to attain the same or better overclocks. We experienced this with the MSI 650i and EVGA 680i LT SLI boards, and it was generally due to tighter memory/chipset timings in order to improve the performance of the board at stock speeds. Overall, our overclocking experiences were very good provided we had the memory sub-timings dialed in for each memory type we utilized.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
37 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Sorry - just an errant typo correction. If you look at the image, you can see it's 1T. Gary had "TT" in there and I corrected that to 2T when it should have been 1T.yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
oh awesome :)mostlyprudent - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
I think it's time for a comprehensive article to pick the best boards for Intel CPUs (P965 vs. 680i vs. 650i vs. 680i LT vs. 975X vs. RD600, etc.). I know some of this has been done in pieces, but it would sure be nice to have it all in one article. Please :)Gary Key - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
After I finally complete the opus known as uATX or "How to kill the reviewer", we will have a performance roundup that might even include a new spin of the P35. ;-)yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
It'd be awesome to see a round-up in time for the April 22nd Intel price drop and 6320/6420 release.I want to know simply: "The Best 650 SLI and 680 SLI NVidia-based Boards For 6320/6420 OverClocking" and NOT with any of that ridiculously over-priced Dominator or Flex XLC RAM. Just test with realistic RAM that actual people would buy like Corsair XMS2 or OCZ Platinum series and similar. High-end RAM but not retarded over-priced stuff with gigantic cooling mechanisms. Test RAM that's around $250 (or less) for 2GB matched pairs.
That's what I'd like to see. An actual overclocker 650/680 board round-up for the 6320/6420 c2d chips with RAM people who are looking for the best bang-for-the-buck would actually buy.
People who spend around $200-250 for the motherboard, $200-250 for quality, low-latency RAM, and $200 for the CPU.
There's a lot of us and we'd love to know which board to buy and which RAM works best with it when oc'ing.
sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
The OCZ2N1066SR2GK only costs €208 here, that's SLI ready, 1066 MHz, 5-5-5-15, 2x 1GB.The OCZ2N900SR2GK only costs €192 here, that's SLI ready, 900 MHz, 4-4-3-15, 2x 1GB.
yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
This image link on page4 is different than the actual image:http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/motherboards/a...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mot...sus/p5n3...
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/motherboards/a...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mot...sus/p5n3...
(I think one of the sample images is duplicated.)
JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Did someone fix this? They are definitely different images for me, although only minor differences.Marlowe - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Very nice review - looks like a good board! After reading the article I have some questions:Isn't the 'Plus' moniker ment to mean some kind of functionality with Vista? I think I remember when some previous Asus board got a new revision and the got the Plus moniker, it also got a small PCB riser board attached below the IO area.. ReadyBoost or something? Does this board have that? It's not that copper square behind the LAN/USB connections? Or maby it's just a new name for their mid-range boards.
Isn't that a 6-phase power circuit in the pics? I know the Asus site claims 8-phase, but they also have a wrong power circuit pic. The site also says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz," about the memory speed and doesn't mention support for EPP at all, so that must be wrong as well according to your article?
In the expansion slot area you write "two PCI Express x1" but that's not so? Isn't the top slot for the "SupremeFX" audio riser board?
In the Dual Core OC page, the E6300 has 2MB L2 not 4MB :)
And a question: I have the Tuniq120 as well, and the fan is placed ~7 cm over the board and placed in an angle so I guess there aren't much airflow going to those heatpipe sinks. Did you have to use an additional fan over the cpu area while using the Tuniq120 heatsink and overclocking? So if overclocking you *have* to hang some fan with zip ties or something over that area? Thats a bit of a hassle isn't it :P
Anyways very nice performing board :D Looks physically totally identical to the Asus P5N32-E SLI tho :D But
sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
The E Plus is ment as an upgrade to the E, it has all solid caps just as the Striker.The E, E Plus and Striker all use the same PCB (just look under the white sticker) and all have a 8 phase power design.
All three have EPP and SLI Ready support up the 1200 (and the 1250 works as well).
The top one can only be used for the riser.
True.
The Northbridge does get very hot, however using the heatpipes should be enough to reach 450. Any busspeed above 400 isn't recommended anyway because of the reduction of timing from the strap selection.
True, they share the same PCB, this one has the same caps as the Striker.