Asus P5WDG2-WS: Intel 975X goes to Work
by Gary Key on December 6, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The Asus P5WDG2-WS deserves serious consideration if you are an Intel user needing to build a workstation or office platform. The ability to fully utilize your existing PCI based cards is definitely a plus as the current market for PCI-E based peripherals is minimal. The performance and stability of the board was outstanding in all testing phases and should be an indicator of the quality of this board. However, we see this board having a limited market and anxiously await the arrival of the Asus P5WD2-E enthusiast board.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.
In the graphics area, the inclusion of two physical PCI Express x16 slots that fully support x8 bandwidth operation for two graphics cards is an important step for Intel with this chipset. The board fully supports ATI CrossFire mode in our testing and can unofficially support NVIDIA SLI with the proper BIOS and graphics driver set. However, we have our doubts that NVIDIA will license, certify, and sanction SLI operation on the Intel platform anytime soon.
In the on-board audio area, this board has an excellent implementation of the Realtek ALC882 High Definition Audio codec. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and gaming areas is very good while performance in certain games has improved tremendously with the R1.27 driver release. 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 a wide variety of storage options with additional SATA RAID ports. The board fully offers Intel's excellent Matrix RAID system and offers Hot Swap, NCQ, and 3Gb/s capability. Asus supplements the Intel SATA II capability with the Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II chipset featuring support for Hot Swap, NCQ, and 3Gb/s operation. The board offers the standard eight Intel USB ports and two IEEE 1394a ports utilizing the TI TSB43AB22 chipset. However, we believe that Firewire 800 should have been offered on the Asus P5WDG-WS board, since it is their premium offering.
In the performance area, the Asus P5WDG-WS consistently offered excellent performance while exceeding the Gigabyte GA-G1 975x and the P5N32-SLI at times. Asus offers their HyperPath3 BIOS option that effectively reduces memory latencies even further on the Intel 975X chipset. The board's performance with the Presler CPU was excellent and is an indication of a well engineered solution.
We have to give Asus credit for bringing an Intel based workstation board to market at this time, considering the performance advantages that AMD holds in this area currently. The Intel 975X chipset is on a level playing field in performance with the NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition SLI in most areas based upon our current testing. The NVIDIA platform is still the preferred choice for gaming if you are interested in SLI capability. However, once ATI launches their X1800 CrossFire Edition solution, then the Intel 975X based boards will deserve a second look for those needing multi-GPU capabilities. Or, if our idea of sanctioning SLI on the Intel 975X platform comes as a revelation to NVIDIA, then we can have the best of both worlds.
The Asus P5WDG2-WS deserves serious consideration if you are an Intel user needing to build a workstation or office platform. The ability to fully utilize your existing PCI based cards is definitely a plus as the current market for PCI-E based peripherals is minimal. The performance and stability of the board was outstanding in all testing phases and should be an indicator of the quality of this board. However, we see this board having a limited market and anxiously await the arrival of the Asus P5WD2-E enthusiast board.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.
In the graphics area, the inclusion of two physical PCI Express x16 slots that fully support x8 bandwidth operation for two graphics cards is an important step for Intel with this chipset. The board fully supports ATI CrossFire mode in our testing and can unofficially support NVIDIA SLI with the proper BIOS and graphics driver set. However, we have our doubts that NVIDIA will license, certify, and sanction SLI operation on the Intel platform anytime soon.
In the on-board audio area, this board has an excellent implementation of the Realtek ALC882 High Definition Audio codec. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and gaming areas is very good while performance in certain games has improved tremendously with the R1.27 driver release. 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 a wide variety of storage options with additional SATA RAID ports. The board fully offers Intel's excellent Matrix RAID system and offers Hot Swap, NCQ, and 3Gb/s capability. Asus supplements the Intel SATA II capability with the Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II chipset featuring support for Hot Swap, NCQ, and 3Gb/s operation. The board offers the standard eight Intel USB ports and two IEEE 1394a ports utilizing the TI TSB43AB22 chipset. However, we believe that Firewire 800 should have been offered on the Asus P5WDG-WS board, since it is their premium offering.
In the performance area, the Asus P5WDG-WS consistently offered excellent performance while exceeding the Gigabyte GA-G1 975x and the P5N32-SLI at times. Asus offers their HyperPath3 BIOS option that effectively reduces memory latencies even further on the Intel 975X chipset. The board's performance with the Presler CPU was excellent and is an indication of a well engineered solution.
We have to give Asus credit for bringing an Intel based workstation board to market at this time, considering the performance advantages that AMD holds in this area currently. The Intel 975X chipset is on a level playing field in performance with the NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition SLI in most areas based upon our current testing. The NVIDIA platform is still the preferred choice for gaming if you are interested in SLI capability. However, once ATI launches their X1800 CrossFire Edition solution, then the Intel 975X based boards will deserve a second look for those needing multi-GPU capabilities. Or, if our idea of sanctioning SLI on the Intel 975X platform comes as a revelation to NVIDIA, then we can have the best of both worlds.
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Pirks - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
So data centers are built with floppies, COM mice and LPT printers. Great! Very nice that I don't run one, thank you for enlightening me.
FYI I've got ABIT AT7 mobo (the _ONLY_ legacy free mobo ever created) very cheap a couple of years ago and it was running all my 4-5 year old hardware like cheap USB kbd and old second hand USB mouse. And I still DON'T even consider wasting my money on Athlon 64 or any fancy PCIe stuff, and with all this I still sound Bleeding Edge Hardware Freak for you? Are you from a PC museum or what? Can you even find COM mice these days? I'm not buying anything that's above lower 30% of price range, so I won't even consider mainstream stuff these days. You seriously overestimate my financial abilities and more important my will to upgrade (I won't fix my PC unless it's broken)
XP SP2 here :P
I'd do that by patching my XP install CD or by using USB floppy (if it works, not sure about this), or if it doesn't work I'd replace my boot HDD with PATA one, given that it's not any slower than SATA these days :P So floppy is still not necessary WHILE every mobo out there includes PATA, and please note that I didn't include PATA in my Stupid Obsolete Interfaces list :) PATA is obsolete, yes, but it's still widely used everywhere (in almost every DVD burner, jeez, that's what I call LONGEVITY!) unlike LPT and COM and floppy and other museum stuff.
I'd say stick those LPT plugs onto the cheap "business" mobos, but please let us breathe fresher air with the "advanced", overclocker or whatever you call 'em mobos. There is a place for the old mobos with legacy stuff, but including them on those ubercool silver/gold advanced P4 975X or nForce4 SLI Ultra Extra boards? Do you seriously think the guy with dual 7800GTX setup uses COM mouse, LPT printer and other "data center" accessories? Hahahahahaaaa
Never tried that. I only run XP SP2 and never ever run into issues with its bootloader and my USB kbd, maybe 98/95 one has issues, dunno. Anyway, if you still use 95/98 then ok, you need COM and LPT as well.
It would be hard to persuade me someone still uses COM mice, their mechanics must be ground into dust by now :) And even if there are some ancient PDAs that don't have USB 1.x then there are USB-COM adapters, so COM is not needed too (btw there are USB-LPT adapters as well, for your data centers :P)
New computers are only 5% of the market? All these Dells, Compacs, HPs and many more, they are only 5%? OK, so 95% of the market are what? Retrofitted IBM PC XTs? Hahahahaaa...
Man you have no idea about my budget, really really! I run ABIT KW7, and looks like Socket A is my choice for at least 12 months from now if not more, depending on how things will turn out with Vista. You wanna know my top list of mobos I'd buy right now if I had the money? Number one - Chaintech S1689, dirt cheap 939 mobo, only 50 bucks or so, just stick cheapest Venice 3000 in there and fly away. Number two - ABIT AN8-V. Expensive bad boy, whole 80 bucks!... but it's from ABIT and so it's again ALMOST legacy free (damn I hate you floppy and PS/2!) so this one I'd take if I had BIG money to swap my old AGP video with some cheap PCIe 6600GT or somethin'... and you call me a Big Budget Guy. Hahahaaa... can't stop laughing, sorry :)
OK, if you really insist, I'd agree that legacy stuff has its place in PCs and will have place for many many years to come, but including these 20-year old COM and LPT plugs on the so called "advanced" nForce4 SLI Ultra Extra whatever boards? Hahahahahaaaa.... sorry again, just can't stop laughing...