Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on July 19, 2006 6:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ASUS P5N32-SLI SE
Basic Features
We reviewed the ASUS P5N32-SLI back in October 2005 in its initial release to the market. At that time the board revision and BIOS we tested with offered excellent performance, stability, and compatibility across the board. It was also the first Intel board to offer dual X16 support for NVIDIA SLI and with the right Pentium 4 or Pentium D processor the P5N32-SLI offered very good gaming performance.
Since that time the original board has either been loved or hated by its owners. Over the course of time the board was revised with changes to the resistors to improve VRM performance along with numerous BIOS revisions that just never lived up to the results of our pre-release 0047. Issues ranged from poorer than normally accepted FSB overclocking results with premium components, memory incompatibilities with 4GB installations, RAID issues with various BIOS releases, and other items that generally tarnished the reputation of the board.
ASUS did listen to the user complaints and additional component changes were made on the board to improve stability - but the most significant changes occurred in the BIOS. While the options generally remain the same, the overall performance of the board (along with stability) has improved over the previous 1.02 version of the board with the 0310 BIOS.
We are still testing the board with a wide array of components but we are glad - actually relieved - to report that the majority of user issues reported to us have been solved. The differences between the two boards are of course compatibility for the Core 2 Duo series, a couple of minor layout changes with the 4-pin 12V Molex connector being removed, and additional capacitors being added to the board for improved stability. The SATA ports are still in the same location which means SLI users will want to plug in their drives before installing the second video card. The basic features and layout of the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE remain nearly the same as the original board.
Basic Performance
Overall, the performance of the P5N32-SLI was excellent. It is also the only board in our Buyers Guide to officially support NVIDIA SLI. It not only supports SLI but offers full dual X16 capability to each PCIe graphics slot. The board was very stable with our X6800, E6700, and E6600 Core 2 Duo processors while providing asynchronous operation between the front side bus and memory controllers. This ability allowed us to dial in extremely low memory latencies at specific speeds in order to maximize the bandwidth of our Corsair DDR2 modules. Like the 975X boards, the nForce4 Intel Edition chipset allows the user to adjust the X6800 CPU ratios up or down.
This ASUS board had a tendency to get very warm during testing and requires a case with good air circulation to operate at normally accepted temperatures. Although the board never failed during overclocking or extended testing, our fingers on more than one occasion wanted to be iced down after touching the passive heatsinks on either the MCP or SPP.
We anxiously await the production release of the nForce 500 Intel Edition chipsets in a few weeks that will mainly bring benefits to the MCP such as additional SATA ports, improved networking features, HD Audio, and some general refinement. Users need to realize that the nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition will still use the C19A SPP will be used that is on this board. Although the chipset is now at a revision C1 and has undergone several months of fine tuning, do not expect the performance or overclocking results to be improved greatly with the nForce 590 SLI boards. In our internal testing we have noticed some minor but measurable improvements, but nothing revolutionary.
Overclocking
This is not the board to own if you expect or require high FSB overclocks with fixed multiplier Intel CPUs. While the FSB results are in alignment with other NVIDIA chipset boards they do not match overclocking results with Intel chipset boards at this time. We expect to see this change when NVIDIA releases their revised chipsets in several months. However, the board did match the overclock ranges of the Intel 975X board when increasing the multiplier on the X6800, and that allowed far greater control/tuning of the memory speeds due to the asynchronous operation of the controllers.
Although we wish the board provided additional memory voltage settings, we were able to run our memory timings at higher speeds with lower latencies than on the Intel chipset boards. That resulted in improved performance of the board when overclocked. Our only issue with the memory controller at this time is that the BIOS does not fully support memory timings over DDR2-1000 - although this should change before release. We will provide overclocked performance results in an upcoming article along with a comparison to the AM2 SLI boards. This board should sell in the $190 range, significantly lower than the first available Intel 975X boards with stock performance that matches or exceeds those boards. If dual X16 SLI is important to you and high FSB overclocks are not, then this is currently the board to have.
Basic Features
| ASUS P5N32-SLI SE | |
| Market Segment: | High-End/Enthusiast |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium XE, Celeron D, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo |
| Chipset: | nForce4 Intel SLI Intel Edition (C19 revC1) nForce4 Intel SLI Edition (CK-804) |
| Thermal Design: | 8-phase power Fan-less Heatpipe Cooling ASUS Stack Cool 2 for OC |
| Bus Speed Support: | 1066/800/533MHz |
| Bus Speeds: | 533 to 1600 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Speeds: | 400 to 1600 in 1MHz Increments |
| PCIe Speeds: | 100 to 148.4375 in 1.5625MHz Increments |
| PCI: | Fixed at 33 |
| AI Tuning: | Manual, Auto, Overclock Profile, AI N.O.S. |
| Core Voltage: | Auto, 1.2250V to 1.7000V in 0.0625V increments |
| PEG Link Mode: | Auto, Disabled, Normal, Fast, Faster |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-20x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked |
| DRAM Voltage: | 1.8V to 2.4V in .05V or .10V increments |
| 1T/2T Memory: | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| DRAM Timing Control: | Auto, 6 Options |
| NB HT: | Auto, 200MHz, 400MHz, 600MHz, 800MHz, 1000MHZ |
| SB HT: | Auto, 200MHz, 400MHz, 600MHz, 800MHz, 1000MHZ |
| NB Voltage: | Auto,1.4V, 1.5V, 1.6V |
| SB Voltage: | Auto,1.5V, 1.6V |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 16GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 2 - PCIe X16 1 - PCIe X4 2 - PCIe X1 2 - PCI Slots 2.2 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 4 SATA 3Gbps Ports - NVIDIA 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - SI3132 (RAID 0,1,0+1,JBOD) -NVIDIA (RAID 0,1) - Silicon Image 3132 |
| Onboard IDE: | 2 Standard ATA133/100/66/33 Ports (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel, Six via Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by TI TSB43AB22A |
| Onboard LAN: | Dual Gigabit Ethernet Marvell 88E1115 PHY, Marvell 88E8053 |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC850 8-channel Codec |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EATX 12V |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x Parallel 1 x S/PDIF Out (Coaxial + Optical) 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 2 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 1 x External SATA 8-Channel Audio I/O |
| BIOS Revision: | AMI 0121 |
We reviewed the ASUS P5N32-SLI back in October 2005 in its initial release to the market. At that time the board revision and BIOS we tested with offered excellent performance, stability, and compatibility across the board. It was also the first Intel board to offer dual X16 support for NVIDIA SLI and with the right Pentium 4 or Pentium D processor the P5N32-SLI offered very good gaming performance.
Since that time the original board has either been loved or hated by its owners. Over the course of time the board was revised with changes to the resistors to improve VRM performance along with numerous BIOS revisions that just never lived up to the results of our pre-release 0047. Issues ranged from poorer than normally accepted FSB overclocking results with premium components, memory incompatibilities with 4GB installations, RAID issues with various BIOS releases, and other items that generally tarnished the reputation of the board.
ASUS did listen to the user complaints and additional component changes were made on the board to improve stability - but the most significant changes occurred in the BIOS. While the options generally remain the same, the overall performance of the board (along with stability) has improved over the previous 1.02 version of the board with the 0310 BIOS.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
We are still testing the board with a wide array of components but we are glad - actually relieved - to report that the majority of user issues reported to us have been solved. The differences between the two boards are of course compatibility for the Core 2 Duo series, a couple of minor layout changes with the 4-pin 12V Molex connector being removed, and additional capacitors being added to the board for improved stability. The SATA ports are still in the same location which means SLI users will want to plug in their drives before installing the second video card. The basic features and layout of the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE remain nearly the same as the original board.
Basic Performance
Overall, the performance of the P5N32-SLI was excellent. It is also the only board in our Buyers Guide to officially support NVIDIA SLI. It not only supports SLI but offers full dual X16 capability to each PCIe graphics slot. The board was very stable with our X6800, E6700, and E6600 Core 2 Duo processors while providing asynchronous operation between the front side bus and memory controllers. This ability allowed us to dial in extremely low memory latencies at specific speeds in order to maximize the bandwidth of our Corsair DDR2 modules. Like the 975X boards, the nForce4 Intel Edition chipset allows the user to adjust the X6800 CPU ratios up or down.
This ASUS board had a tendency to get very warm during testing and requires a case with good air circulation to operate at normally accepted temperatures. Although the board never failed during overclocking or extended testing, our fingers on more than one occasion wanted to be iced down after touching the passive heatsinks on either the MCP or SPP.
We anxiously await the production release of the nForce 500 Intel Edition chipsets in a few weeks that will mainly bring benefits to the MCP such as additional SATA ports, improved networking features, HD Audio, and some general refinement. Users need to realize that the nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition will still use the C19A SPP will be used that is on this board. Although the chipset is now at a revision C1 and has undergone several months of fine tuning, do not expect the performance or overclocking results to be improved greatly with the nForce 590 SLI boards. In our internal testing we have noticed some minor but measurable improvements, but nothing revolutionary.
Overclocking
| ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Overclocking Testbed |
|
| Processor: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core, 2.67GHz, 4MB Unified Cache 1066FSB, 10x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.525V (default 1.2V) |
| Cooling: | Tuniq Tower 120 Air Cooling |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GameXStream 700W |
| Memory: | Corsair Twin2X2048-PC2-8500C5 (2x1GB) (Micron Memory Chips) |
| Hard Drive | Hitachi 250GB 7200RPM SATA2 16MB Cache |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio) |
318x10 (4x HT, 3-3-3-9 1T) 3180MHz (+19%) |
This is not the board to own if you expect or require high FSB overclocks with fixed multiplier Intel CPUs. While the FSB results are in alignment with other NVIDIA chipset boards they do not match overclocking results with Intel chipset boards at this time. We expect to see this change when NVIDIA releases their revised chipsets in several months. However, the board did match the overclock ranges of the Intel 975X board when increasing the multiplier on the X6800, and that allowed far greater control/tuning of the memory speeds due to the asynchronous operation of the controllers.
Although we wish the board provided additional memory voltage settings, we were able to run our memory timings at higher speeds with lower latencies than on the Intel chipset boards. That resulted in improved performance of the board when overclocked. Our only issue with the memory controller at this time is that the BIOS does not fully support memory timings over DDR2-1000 - although this should change before release. We will provide overclocked performance results in an upcoming article along with a comparison to the AM2 SLI boards. This board should sell in the $190 range, significantly lower than the first available Intel 975X boards with stock performance that matches or exceeds those boards. If dual X16 SLI is important to you and high FSB overclocks are not, then this is currently the board to have.
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Vidmar - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
One thing that really bugs me about some of the MB manufactures is that some never state the exact number of PCIe lanes that are actually available on that second PCIe 16x slot. Some do some don’t. Some state it while in SLI/Crossfire mode but not when in non- SLI/Crossfire mode.Right now I’ve got an nForce 4 SLI board that has two PCIe 16x slots, but when in non-SLI mode they are at 16x and 2x respectively. When in SLI mode they are both at 8x respectively.
The problem with this is that (at least on this board) you cannot install anything but a video card in the second PCIe 16x slot when in SLI mode.
I’ve got an PCIe 8x SCSI raid card (LSI 320-2e) that I’m trying to use in the second PCIe slot at 8x, but this board won’t even acknowledge that its there while in SLI mode. And when running in non-SLI it only runs at 2x and becomes a bottleneck for this workstation.
So if its possible to provide some details as to what exactly a board can do on the second PCIe 16x slot in both normal and SLI/Crossfire mode, that would be most helpful!
For example on the ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe in your review it doesn’t state this information either way. But on the Intel 975XBX you do have that information.
So what does the second PCIe slot run at in non-Crossfire mode on the ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe?
Also do you happen to have a SCSI PCIe card you can test in the second slot (or any PCIe card for that matter) and see if the BIOS can recognize the card while in SLI/Crossfire mode? That too would be helpful for people who don’t care about multiple GPUs, but want to create large array workstations.
Thanks!
PS: nice article.
supremelaw - Thursday, July 20, 2006 - link
Excellent points! Constant change is here to stay :)On our ASUS P5WD2 Premium with i955X chipset,
we are now faced with that very same problem:
we don't need 2 video cards, because we do
mostly database development. And, we want
to dedicate the second "universal" x16 slot
to a high-performance PCI-E RAID controller.
(Santa Claus is going to bring me an x1900
PCI-E video card anyway, and that should
easily last me for another 20 years, min!)
Our consultant highly recommends the Areca model,
but it only performs best in x8 mode. On the
other hand, our ASUS User Manual states that
the second "universal" x16 slot can only run
in x4 mode, maximum.
That limitation was a single line of text
in that User Manual, but it is not mentioned
in any of the other specs for our motherboard.
His recommendation: switch to a server motherboard,
so we can use the Areca RAID 6 controller (not a bad
idea, actually).
So, I think we'll have to settle for the Promise
PCI-E model EX8350, which is also limited to x4 mode,
but it now supports RAID 6 too.
It only took about 4 hours of research to confirm
this limitation, however :)
Such specs should be better documented, for sure!
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/">http://www.supremelaw.org/
Missing Ghost - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I find it weird that the pcie card does not work in 8x mode. I see no reason why it wouldn't work...the sli pcb that you flip around only redirects the lanes AFAIK.vhx - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Too bad the motherboards cost more than a decent Conroe processor. Kind of sad to see the features lacking until you get into the $250 price ranges. You can spot an AMD AM2 motherboard with the same features for around $130ish, which makes this 975X chipset rediculously expensive compared to the newer AM2's. The TForce P965 looks like a great alternative for the price, although based on the 965P. Hmm upgrading to Conroe will be more expensive than I thought.... /sigh. What to do.Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Wait, that is right, wait until the motherboard suppliers are in full production in August. There will be a large variety of motherboards available by the end of August that will make up the $50~$150 range with chipsets from the 945P to nF570SLI being sold. We will also start seeing the G965 boards in late August for those that want a mATX form factor, decent graphics,and the ability to upgrade later. If you need a board now, it will cost you. ;-)
JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Not to mention getting the Core 2 CPUs. :) I would expect prices to drop significantly within a month or so.
jonp - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
Jarred,Please say more about your comment on pricing.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3377">http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3377
says:
Thanks, Jon
multiblitz2 - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I was waiting for the 965 as HDMI/HDCP-support is a must have for my new HTPC. Does 975 support this in the same way as the 965 ?araczynski - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
great article!looking forward to additional mobo's appearing (and more importantly - prices dropping) beforei build my next rig.
i personally refuse to pay over $150 for ANY mobo, no matter the features. but i do realize that the initial price gouging is to milk the early adopters. i figure by early october prices should be just right for all the nice toys.
araczynski - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
i know this is a dead horse, by why in the world can't these manufacturers make models that throw out some of these legacy 'extras' they keep putting on the boards?onboard sound, parallel ports, floppy connectors, etc...