** The Official ASUS P5N-E SLI & Ultra 650i Thread **

I'm using it again as my J&W board just refuse to post from time to time...I'm using an 3rd party cooling on the NB and well the board just works not getting as easy oc but don't care it does what it says on the tin and switches on every time :)
 
yeah, mine has had over 2 yrs of 24/7 use fully loaded now, with firstly a QX6700 and then a Q6600 in it. Run at stock with standard northbridge heatsink and 4 sticks of RAM. Good solid reliable board, supported the quad core CPU out of the box which was rare at the time and crucial because I didn't have a dual core to put in to do a BIOS flash. Excellent performance too, no regrets.

As for the NB heatsink, there are various options - a big thread on this board over at anandtech forums, and there is a pointer to a thread with all the useful info summarised including what replacement NB heatsinks fit.
 
Yea Im still using this, its tough and does the job its supposed to basically.


Has anyone noticed after installing win 7 that the sound driver for the onboard gives much better top end. I thought it was my earphones but its definitely giving a new sound to some old mp3 I think anyhow


Im surprised it works well with quads too, a fairly standard clock I take it? I never had to replace the NB even with max volts it just needs good airflow over it
 
Quads - yes standard clock basically, you can't get a quad over 3GHz on this board unless you're extremely lucky
On my QX700 a multiplier overclock was fine, 266 x 11 = 2.93GHz
 
This is one of the things I like about ASUS - this board is over 2 years old, and ASUS are still supplying BIOS updates to improve it. Not every manufacturer would bother. You may say it is because the board wasn't right in the first place, but nevertheless ASUS have been great
 
Tuvoc said:
This is one of the things I like about ASUS - this board is over 2 years old, and ASUS are still supplying BIOS updates to improve it. Not every manufacturer would bother. You may say it is because the board wasn't right in the first place, but nevertheless ASUS have been great
Click to expand...

For the £70-£80 we paid 2 years ago, there was very little wrong with the P5N-E SLi, which is why you still see them going for good money second hand, and why this thread is still going over 2 years on.
 
Yeah I just checked my email for the order I did just over 2 years ago:

Product Quantity Price
----------------------------------------------------------
Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i SLi, S775 PCI 1 £58.25
2Gb (2X1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR 1 £37.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, Socket 775, 1 £59.95
----------------------------------------------------------
Nett total £156.19
Carriage £4.99
VAT £28.21
Total £189.39

Now for under £190 delivered this has gotta be the best value mobo/ram/cpu combo I've had since my Abit BH6/64MB PC100/Celeron 300A (another £200 jobbie) over 10 years ago. Still going strong today albeit with another 2GB RAM dropped in.

Sure, the board has it's quirks, especially the random FSB holes where it just refuses to POST at some speeds, yet runs flawlessly at other (higher!) speeds. The NB overheats and there has been the odd dodgy BIOS come out. It's not the greatest clocker especially for quads or when you've got all the RAM slots full.

But at the end of the day it's a £67 mobo which is pretty solid nowadays with a modern BIOS and not once have I ever seriously considered swapping it out for another S775 board - not worth the hassle and cost for an extra couple of hundred MHz at best. I run at around 3.15ghz normally at apart from GTA4 there's nothing that's left me desperate for more CPU power.

As for the new BIOS, I've not noticed any problems as yet (flashed last night and bumped the FSB up by 20mhz), haven't done any stress testing yet though.
 
Well, in Jan 2007 mine was

Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard 1 £74.99
Intel Core 2 Quadro Extreme Edition QX6700 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.66GHz (1066FSB) - Retail 1 £549.99
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) 2 £289.98

Yep, £290 for 4GB RAM - oh times have changed.

The P5N-E SLi ran the QX6700 with a multipler overclock of 266 x 11 = 2.93GHz quite happily. It also ran it at 333 x 9 = 3.0Ghz but I chose the multiplier overclock to reduce stress and heat on the northbridge. I ran it with the QX6700 24/7 under 100% load all 4 cores for about 18 mths. I then gave it to my brother with a Q6600 at stock, and he has run it 24/7 fully loaded with that in it from then on. So, two and a half years of 24/7 use under full load with a heavy power draw. Never missed a beat, still going strong. Can't ask for more than that, one of the best motherboards I have ever had.
 
Hey all,

Ive also still got this board running lol

even tho when i upgraded to 2 extra sticks of 1gb ocz spec ops ram "4x1gb sticks" it wouldnt boot :( anyone know much about that? Ive not tried to overclock nor mess with nothing in the bios altho i did try a bios update maybe 6 - 7 months ago when i got the new ram as i thought it might have been that.

Now its coming to me upgrading a few bits but i see if i overclock the cpu "as i have a nice Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme cooler on there it should take a bit :) ive heard i only need to to go to 3ghz to all be ok. Im running a E6600 in there atm and want to upgrade to a gx260 - 275 - 285 something like that.

Can anyone help me at all? maybe add me to msn/yahoo or mail me or anything as i dont know where to start and would be great or let me know in this thread.

Thanks
 
The later BIOS definitely hepled RAM compatibility. My 4 x 1GB Geil works perfectly. I didn't have much luck with OCZ though, I think you may have trouble getting 4 sticks of that to work.
 
so could be best for me to maybe go grab a 3x2gb pack?

is it only when u have all slots running that it becomes unstable?

also any brands i should avoid or anyone know which 6GB pack 100% works :)

btw i have P5N-E SLI BIOS 1301 installed atm and tried the 4 sticks the beta update seems to be only for cpu stability and mines been rock solid anyways.

Thanks
 
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