Asus P5WDG2-WS: Intel 975X goes to Work

ASUS P5WDG2-WS: Features

Asus designed a well laid out board with all major connections easily reached. The board is lacking most clearance issues and was very easy to install in a mid-size ATX case. Asus did a very good job with the color coordination of the various peripheral slots and connectors.

The DIMM module slots' color coordination is correct for dual channel setup. The memory modules are very difficult to install with a full size video card placed in the first PCI Express x16 slot. The power plug placement favors standard ATX case design and the power cable management is very good. The floppy drive port connector and 4-pin 12V EZ-Plug are conveniently located on the edge of the board along with the 24-pin ATX power connector.

The Intel ICH7R IDE port connector is located on the edge of the board and did not present any connection issues in our mid-size ATX case.

The Intel SATA II ports are conveniently located below the ICH7R chipset and above the primary IDE connector. The SATA II ports feature the new clamp and latch design. Asus did not include the new cable designs in their accessory kit, which greatly enhance the security of the SATA connections. However, the Intel SATA II ports are color coded for primary (Red) and secondary (Black) operation when the ports are set to Standard IDE mode.

The Intel 6702PXH chipset is located in between the DIMM module slots and ICH7R chipset. Below the 6702PXH chipset is a 6-pin jumper switch that allows you to set the PCI-X speed settings to Auto, Force 133MHz, and Force 100MHz.

The Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II Raid ports, Intel USB connector, IEEE1394a connector, chassis panel, and Com1 serial port are located along the left edge of the board. The CMOS reset is a traditional jumper design located in-between the BIOS chip and the chassis panel.

The board comes with (2) physical PCI Express x16 slots, (2) PCI-X slots, and (2) PCI 2.2 slots. The layout of this design offers a good balance of slots and allows for numerous add-in peripheral cards. We did have an issue installing our Sound Blaster X-FI and ATI HDTV cards in the first PCI 2.2 slot. The capacitor in front of the optical drive audio connector had to be slightly tweaked towards the second PCI-X slot in order to install the cards. We do have a concern about the placement of this capacitor on a long term basis in the board.

We did not have any issues installing an ATI X850 Crossfire Edition setup in the two x16 PCI Express slots. This configuration will render the first PCI-X slot useless. There were not any issues utilizing this slot with video cards containing single slot cooling systems when utilizing our Areca ARC-1110 SATA II RAID host adapter.

Returning to the CPU socket area, we find an ample amount of room for alternative cooling solutions. We utilized the stock Intel heat sink, but also verified that several aftermarket cooling systems such as the Thermaltake Big Typhoon would fit in this area during our tests. However, due to the large MCH heatsink, installation of large heatsink cooling solutions such as the Zalman CNPS7700-CU could be problematic.

One of the main design features that Asus engineered into this board is an exclusive 8-phase voltage regulator power design that can significantly lower operating temperatures while reducing input ripple current and output ripple voltages . In fact, the input ripple current is over three times lower than a traditional 4-phase design while output ripple voltages are four times lower. The power consumption compared to the 4-phase design is about 10% less while the 8-phase design has the advantage of quicker transient responses and increased dependability due to lower thermal values.

The Northbridge, Southbridge, and PCI-X chipsets are passively cooled with heatsinks that do not interfere with any installed peripherals. In fact, this system kept the chipsets cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests. Asus places the eight-pin 12V auxiliary power connector at the top of the CPU socket area, but out of the way of most aftermarket cooling solutions.

The rear panel contains the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, parallel port, LAN ports, and 4 USB ports. Located below the parallel port and to the right of the PS/2 ports are the Coaxial S/PDIF, Optical S/PDIF, and external IEEE 1394a ports. The LAN (RJ-45) ports each have two LED indicators representing Activity and Speed of the connection. The audio panel consists of 6 ports that can be configured for 2, 4, 6, and 8-channel audio connections.

The BIOS options are abundant on the Asus P5WDG2-WS, with memory voltage to 2.3V, and an extensive range of chipset, bus, and vCore voltage adjustments. Memory ratios are limited compared to the nForce4 Intel Edition boards, but Asus did manage to offer enough settings to make the board competitive. The board fully supports manual memory timing adjustments or allows for an Auto setting that will set the memory to the SPD settings. You have the ability to overclock the system utilizing the AI Overclock profiles that have preset percentages or to use the AI N.O.S. feature that will dynamically overclock the system based upon system loads.