Asus P5WD2 Premium: DDR2-1066 and the Promise of 955x SLI
by Wesley Fink on May 11, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
The new 955x fully supports dual core Pentium D processors as you would expect. So does the Asus version of the nForce4 Intel chipset. We confirmed that both boards worked as they should with an Intel 840 processor, and there were no problems with either board recognizing the two cores and four logical processors that are created with the Hyperthreading feature on this EE processor. However, dual core really makes a difference in multi-tasking, as was demonstrated in the dual core platform shootout. If you are interested in how the two chipsets perform in a multitasking set up, please take another look at that review.For this review, we were more interested in how the Asus boards compared in benchmarks of the games and applications that we have tested in other motherboard reviews. We also found memory operated at both DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 on both motherboards, so the standard single core hyperthreaded Pentium 4 that we have used in other Socket 775 reviews provided the headroom and multipliers needed for these benchmarks. The ES Pentium 4 560 runs at 3.6GHz and has the lower multipliers necessary to better test overclocking on both Asus Socket 775 motherboards.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | Intel Pentium 4 560 ES (3.6GHz, 800FSB, 1MB L2, HT) Intel 3.46EE (3.46GHz, 1066FSB, HT)-DDR2-1066 Testing Intel Pentium EE 840 (3.2GHz, 800FSB, Dual-Core, HT, 2x1MB L2)-Dual-Core Verification |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL 2 x 512MB OCZ PC2 5400 EB |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | Intel 7.0.0.1019 (4/18/2005) NVIDIA nForce Platform Driver 6.53 |
| Video Cards: | NVIDIA 6800 Ultra (PCI Express) |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 71.89 NVIDIA nForce 66.75 (Semi-SLI Verification) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | Asus P5WD2 Premium (Intel 955x) Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe (NVIDIA nForce4 Intel) Asus P5AD2 Premium (Intel 925x) Intel 925x Reference Board |
Tests with the new Asus boards used either of two memories based on Micron DDR2 memory chips. OCZ PC2-5400 EB and Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL are both low latency memories designed to run at DDR2-667 or higher speeds. DDR2-667 tests were run at 4-2-2-4 timings and DDR2-800 benchmarks were run with 4-3-2-4 timings.
The PCI Express 6800 Ultra was used for all video testing. Two 6800 Ultra video cards were used to verify SLI and semi-SLI performance. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless noted otherwise.
Results are color-coded for DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 for the Asus 955x and nForce4 Intel motherboards. The P5DW2 is gold for 667 and dark gold for 800, while the P5ND2-SLI is light green for 667 and dark green for DDR2-800.
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HardwareD00d - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
Wow, 3% increase. That falls within a margin of error.HardwareD00d - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
This article did an excellent job of showing why DDR2 is total crap. Until they can tighten up the timings, DDR533==DDR667==DDR800 pretty much.quicksilverXP - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
Hey,What bios was your board running at? I purchased two recently, and both of them don't have the DDR2-800 option. I noticed you have 7 ratios available while mine only has 5, and only up to DDR2-667. My Bios version is 0124 from the POST screen. Can you help me out?
KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
"Heatsink" is one word. If you are describing a general "heat sink" (there is a distinction), then you are talking about something else.Furthermore, fans are in fact considered active cooling. Active cooling by definition is any cooling device that can be disabled/enabled at will. Heatsinks are passive; fans, peltiers, etc are not.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A...
Kristopher
Darth Farter - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
well, anyone know where I can find this?what is the msrp for these (dual core) boards, cause those $255/$245 prices on newegg/ZZF are hard to ignore...
fishbits - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
"a fan doesn't actually cool anything, it just pushes air around"Try disabling the fans in your rig and A/C, take temp readings before and after and get back with us. Moving same temp to same temp isn't cooling. Moving cooler air (or water or other) to something that is hotter (chip, compressor, radiator, etc) most definitely actively cools it.
ElFenix - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
heat sink is two wordsfans are not active cooling. air conditioning is active cooling, turning the ceiling fan on in your room is not. a fan doesn't actually cool anything, it just pushes air around.
thanks!
Doughboy - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
My retail package also did not include the WiFi/Tuner and Remote. Still a great board though. :)jonny13 - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
Why the hell is Doom3 listed under DirectX 9 gaming?Someone should tell Carmack that he was actually coding in DirectX 9 and not OpenGL like he thought...
Also, on the third graph of the General Benchmarks, you have the orange color as the Asus P5ND2-SLI instead of the Asus P5WD2 like every other chart. If you are going to use colors for the graphs, at least be consistant.
bob661 - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link
#6Hypertransport is an open standard. Neither AMD nor NV owns it.
#10
A64's also use Hypertransport to connect the processor to the northbridge.