Asus P5Q-E (P45) Motherboard Review

ash_scotland88 · 22 Jun 2008 at 21:51

mmh

any ideas for air cooling then?

also looked on google but havnt came across anything but anybody know any results for the qx9650 with the mobo?
i know the cpu can hit 4ghz+ but the p45 is suppose to be able to acheive higher bus speeds so was thinking it would make ir more stable

Tuvoc · 22 Jun 2008 at 22:26

The Ultra 120 Xtreme does fit, there are other choices but I'm not that familair with them

RizlaKing · 22 Jun 2008 at 22:29

Tuvoc can't you muddle along with 6 gig or is that running so bad it's not worth it until a bios fix comes out to resolve this problem with the memory.

Tuvoc · 23 Jun 2008 at 06:20

I can muddle along with 4GB

The OCZ people on their support forum have this to say:

"Set row refresh cycle to 60 with 8gb. NB voltage has to be adjusted to 1.4V.
All boards will require changing some settings to run four 2gb DIMMs.
I have the ddr3 version of this board and have 8gb installed now."

1.4v up from a default of 1.1v ?? I'll engage in more conversation

Cob - I think you had 4 x 2GB running at NB default 1.1v ?

Tuvoc · 23 Jun 2008 at 07:08

RizlaKing said:
Tuvoc can't you muddle along with 6 gig or is that running so bad it's not worth it until a bios fix comes out to resolve this problem with the memory.

Running identical RAM, the board is already slightly slower than the P5N-E that it replaced (about 4% slower in the 4CPU Deep Fritz 10 benchmark), due to the awful memory bandwidth, see the figures in the techreport article here:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14655/5
It's also slower than my P35 Gigabyte board by about the same amount.
However most of the boards they compared to there are DDR3 so you need to be careful reading that

I'm not sure if the board runs in dual channel with 3 memory modules, but if it doesn't it will be slower again

Of course with this board I have far more possibility to overclock the quad core CPU than with the P5N-E, so ultimately it will be faster overall

ash_scotland88 · 23 Jun 2008 at 11:11

does the ddr3 board only support ddr3?

RizlaKing · 23 Jun 2008 at 11:19

Yes it only supports ddr3 they havn't done a P5KC type board with P45 yet.

Tuvoc · 23 Jun 2008 at 11:27

I think ASUS still have a lot of tuning to do regarding memory performance and probably compatibility. For many applications the synthetic memory performance has little impact on real word applications, but there are other applications where you do definitely see the effect.

But with ASUS, I'm confident it will come. ASUS kept releasing BIOSs for over a year on the P5N-E, which to my mind is impressive and indicative of a company that cares about it's users.

Cob · 23 Jun 2008 at 11:30

RizlaKing · 23 Jun 2008 at 11:36

Well i am keeping the memory and will order the P5Q deluxe tomorrow although it would have been good to see the boards from other companys they are taking way to long to get them into the hands of people and it is killing me having everything else ready to go

.

netby · 23 Jun 2008 at 12:28

RizlaKing said:
Yes it only supports ddr3 they havn't done a P5KC type board with P45 yet.

they have the P5QC now on sale

Tuvoc · 23 Jun 2008 at 22:26

RizlaKing said:
Well i am keeping the memory and will order the P5Q deluxe tomorrow although it would have been good to see the boards from other companys they are taking way to long to get them into the hands of people and it is killing me having everything else ready to go .

So you have the same memory as me ?
Will be interesting to see how you get on

OCZ support say try tRFC 60 and a higher tRC as well - although I don't know what that is called in the P5Q BIOS. I did see somewhere that value should be 32 or more.

w3bbo · 23 Jun 2008 at 22:31

Cob said:
I have two of the 2x2gb OCZ PC2-8000 Platinum XTC kits. Can be had under 60 quid per 4gb kit.

Same here

Tuvoc · 23 Jun 2008 at 22:32

w3bbo said:
Same here

And you use them on the P5Q ?

RizlaKing · 24 Jun 2008 at 01:19

Probably be next monday i have the board so will post back then how i get on with the memory maybe if i am lucky a new bios will be out

. That P5QC is one ugly board no way in hell i would opt for that lol. Now the Gigabyte boards are here just in time to confuse matters more maybe it will be wiser to wait and see how they do before splashing the cash.

w3bbo · 24 Jun 2008 at 09:54

Tuvoc said:
And you use them on the P5Q ?

Among others, yeah. No problems at all with the P5Q deluxe

.

Tuvoc · 24 Jun 2008 at 10:05

w3bbo said:
Among others, yeah. No problems at all with the P5Q deluxe .

OK - I'll wait a bit for some other reports of 8GB compatibility and then get some new stuff. The 667 Vista Gold Upgrade stuff is cheap and cheerful I think, OK for 4GB but problematic after that

At the same CPU clock, FSB and memorys settings, this board is slower though than my P5N-E on the 4 CPU Deep Fritz 10 benchmark which is disappointing. But largely irrelavant as I'll get much higher clocks out of it.

Skrapt · 24 Jun 2008 at 10:27

netby said:
they have the P5QC now on sale

I wouldn't buy it personally, the power connection is in such an odd place.

Cob · 24 Jun 2008 at 16:31

Tuvoc said:
OK - I'll wait a bit for some other reports of 8GB compatibility and then get some new stuff. The 667 Vista Gold Upgrade stuff is cheap and cheerful I think, OK for 4GB but problematic after that

At the same CPU clock, FSB and memorys settings, this board is slower though than my P5N-E on the 4 CPU Deep Fritz 10 benchmark which is disappointing. But largely irrelavant as I'll get much higher clocks out of it.

Have you messed with the Performance Level? ASUS have set it very loose so far in their P5Q BIOS's.

Tuvoc · 24 Jun 2008 at 17:00

Cob said:
Have you messed with the Performance Level? ASUS have set it very loose so far in their P5Q BIOS's.

Interesting - no I haven't done any tuning there, that is certainly worth some experimentation. The board is also slower than my P35 Gigabyte board. I'm sure the answer is in the BIOS setting somewhere. ASUS appear to have been very conservative initially, which isn't a bad approach for a new board and chipset.