P5E3 overclocking guide: ASUS P5E3 Deluxe BIOS Setup and Tweaking

905 even for the remote control familiar to us from the ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition, which connects to a specially dedicated USB connector on the rear panel (the necessary port is marked on the I / O Shield bar). The Deluxe board is equipped with two coolers for power piping, unlike one in a more affordable fellow. There is also a set of branded Q-Connector connectors in each version of the boards, which facilitate the connection of wires from the front panel of the case, and a disk with a very wide list of additional software.

But as far as we remember, Deluxe models always had a richer package and had additional functionality. In our case, the kit is almost the same, which means that the differences between the products in question should lie precisely in the functionality, which we will now check.

Inspecting the boards

So, both boards are designed to install processors from both the Core 2 family and its derivatives such as Pentium Dual-Core and Celeron. The old Pentium/Pentium D with a bus from 800 MHz and, of course, a 45-nm CPU based on Wolfdale and Yorkfield are also not forgotten. The option to install a Celeron Dual Core is also provided, but it seems impossible to see the X38+Celeron combo, except on test machines. The maximum available system bus frequency for ASUS P5E3 Deluxe is 1600 MHz (against 1333 MHz for P5E), although it is unofficial for the X38 chipset. Such a frequency will become the prerogative of the soon-to-be-released X48 system logic set, but, as repeated tests show, not only the P35, but also the older P9 can support the 1600 MHz bus.65. DDR3-1333 with a total capacity of up to 8 GB is declared from the supported memory, and in Overclocking mode it becomes possible to install 1600/1800 MHz modules, which are still unreasonably expensive rarity.

The rear panels of the P5E3 and P5E3 Deluxe differ only in the absence of a second network connector and one eSATA on the more affordable version. Otherwise, they repeat each other: one PS / 2, six USB ports, optical and coaxial S / PDIF, FireWire connector, RJ45 and eSATA, as well as 6 audio connectors.

On this note of product similarity, we have to finish, because further on these are completely different boards, unlike the considered P5K series, in which even the model with DDR3 support has the same PCB design.

ASUS P5E3

Black textolite, which in the days of ASUS CUSL2-C Black Perl added prestige to products, has ceased to be something outstanding, but, nevertheless, has not lost its purpose. Agree, because black boards look much more presentable than ordinary boards.

The design of ASUS P5E3 has both positive and negative sides, and not only ASUS products suffer from such shortcomings. The negative points include the proximity of the DIMM slots to the first PCI-E x16 slot, which will not allow you to remove memory modules without removing the video card. Another very interesting design decision — the company’s engineers for some reason considered the installation of a COM port in the upper right corner of the board the most convenient place to place it, although it would be problematic to find a rack with such a long cable.

Now about the pluses, and not only the design plan. As befits a high-end product, ASUS P5E3 is equipped with an eight-channel processor power supply using high-quality components, as in all other power circuits. The controller, called the EPU (Energy Processing Unit), is responsible for power management, thanks to which the manufacturer promises energy savings of up to 56.8% at low processor load. How true this is, and not another trick of marketers, one can only guess.

The power transistors responsible for 4 channels are covered with a separate aluminum radiator, the rest of the elements are already cooled by a complex-shaped radiator connected by a heat pipe to the chipset microcircuit cooling system. The heat sink on the ICH9R chip is made with ribs, and in this case, the presence of a heat pipe seems meaningless, but, given the general fashion for a heat pipe, when a high-level solution simply has to be equipped with intricate plexuses of tubes and radiators, nothing is surprising here.

The X38 chip has a small heatsink with a futuristic-looking cover with a printed company logo.

There are four connectors on the board for connecting fans, one of which is a 4-pin connector for a processor fan. But no matter what the cooling system is, no matter what solid capacitors and chokes in armored cores are used, and the CPU power subsystem implementation scheme itself, everything can come to naught if there is only a conventional 4-pin ATX12V auxiliary power connector. And if this is quite enough for overclocking the Core 2 Duo, then, alas, this connector will not be enough to unlock the potential of a quad-core processor.

After clarifying all the serious shortcomings, let’s return to the positive points. All other connectors and connectors are located at the edges of the board and quite thoughtfully. So, the floppy drive connector is located at the top of the board; IDE connectors and two pairs of SATA opposite the PCI-E x16 slots are rotated 90°, which will allow you to install video cards like GeForce 8800GTX/Ultra or Radeon HD 3870 X2.

If it turns out that the HDD cage in the case is located close to the board, then two standard SATA connectors will allow you to connect cables in the usual way. The FrontPanel block, like on seven-year-old boards, without color coding, but with signatures, and the existing set of branded Q-Connector connectors will allow you to first connect the wires from the front panel to them, and then to the board. The ClearCMOS jumper is combined with the contacts of the case opening sensor and is located right next to the FrontPanel — you can’t do without tweezers here.

ASUS P5E3, as expected from an X38-based product, has two PCI-E x16 slots. To expand the functionality, two more regular PCI and two PCI-E x1 are installed, although the native functionality of the board still lags behind some solutions based on the younger representatives of the Intel 3 Series chipset family.

Only one network controller (Marvell 88E8056) is installed on this model, and the optional Marvell 88SE6111 chip supporting one IDE channel allows you to connect only one eSATA device. The presence of the south bridge ICH9R, which supports 6 SATA II channels with the ability to organize RAID arrays 0, 1, 5, 10, alleviates the lack of external interfaces for connecting a HDD. The 7.1-channel HAD codec Realtek ALC883 is used as an audio subsystem.

ASUS P5E3 Deluxe

Another «black prince», but more functional and with some shortcomings, both old and new.

As in the first case, the memory slots are close to PCI-E x16, although the graphical interface has shifted to the right. The COM port is already installed in the usual place — in the lower left corner. The rest of the peripheral connectors are neatly placed along the edges of the board, in much the same way as in the more affordable model. Note the rearranged IDE and SATA connectors — now they are in a «mirror image».

The processor power subsystem is made according to an 8-channel scheme, all capacitances on the board are solid-state, coils are in ferrite cases. The auxiliary power connector is now EPS12V standard, which will allow you to easily overclock the Core 2 Quad.

And, of course, the cooling system has undergone significant changes: the radiator on the north bridge has become more impressive; on the ICH9R, the cooling element is a conventional heat sink; the cooling elements of all power elements are part of the CO connected by a heat pipe, and another radiator has been added above the EPU controller. Such a system will be easily cooled by a mega-cooler with a horizontal fan, but with a tower-type cooler, you will have to resort to installing additional bundled fans, since the board has 6 fan connectors.

The ClearCMOS jumper is no longer adjacent to the FrontPanel, but is located on the bottom edge of the board, and after installing ASUS P5E3 Deluxe in some cases, using the jumper will be extremely inconvenient.

Now we have come to the main distinguishing feature of the Deluxe version from the regular version, namely the functionality of the board. If in the P5E3 model only two PCI-E x16 slots were available to the user (and, logically, no more are needed), then in this case, engineers increased the number of slots to three, two of which support 16 PCI Express 2.0 lanes each, and one , black and located on the edge of the board, — a total of 4 PCI-E lanes. Nothing is yet known about the possibility of installing a third video card in CrossFireX mode (at the moment, even Catalyst drivers do not support this function), even if it appears, you should not forget that when x4 mode is activated, a couple of additional PCI-E x1 slots will turn off. For owners of «old» expansion cards, there are two PCI slots.

Of the additional chips that expand functionality, the board has two gigabit network controllers, and one of them (Realtek RTL8110SC) is located on the PCI bus, which reduces its efficiency. This is due to the presence of a PCI-E slot operating in x1 / x4 mode, and, as you know, the south bridge supports only 6 PCI Express lines, two of which are already occupied by the second network controller on Marvell 88E8056 and the HDD controller — JMicron JMB363 (1 channel IDE and 2 SATA II channels). The sound subsystem is based on the already familiar 10-channel HD audio codec ADI AD1988B with a signal-to-noise ratio of 101 dB, which is quite enough for an integrated solution.

As you can see, the price difference between the regular and Deluxe version includes a more powerful CO, 4 pins in an additional power connector, a second cooler, another PCI-E x16 slot, also one eSATA channel and a network controller, a better audio codec. Naturally, this difference was reflected in the price — about 50-60 dollars.

BIOS

The BIOS of both boards, based on AMI microcode, allows you to fine-tune the system for yourself, as in all ASUS products aimed at enthusiasts and demanding users. Overclockers have the opportunity to raise the FSB to 800 MHz in 1 MHz steps, raise the voltage on the processor to 1.7 V, on the system bus — up to 1.5 V, memory — up to 2.3 V (2.78 V for P5E3 Deluxe) . In a more expensive model, there is such a parameter as Clock Over-Charging, thanks to which you can increase the stability of the FSB bus when it is overclocked.

The next test — 3DMark’06 — again demonstrates a certain superiority of the Deluxe version, which can be attributed to an error.

On the older model, file compression in the well-known WinRAR archiver is 4 seconds faster, which means that the processor/memory subsystem is slightly better implemented in ASUS P5E3 Deluxe. The reason for this, most likely, is the lower secondary memory delays set by the board by default.

The results in gaming applications are the same as in 3DMark’06, except for the game Doom 3, famous for its love for the memory subsystem. It is in this application that the advantage of the older model is clearly visible — nevertheless, something “wrong” is going on with the memory settings of this motherboard.

Conclusions

The days of «top-end» boards, which differ from cheap counterparts in their color scheme, gold or platinum-coated heatsinks and cost $150, are long gone. And if for exclusivity 7-8 years ago they put some kind of bonus in the box, for example, in the form of a screwdriver, now manufacturers may well charge us 200-300 dollars, leaving only the motherboard and a standard set of cables. You can’t say the same about ASUS products — the delivery package is top notch as always, and the functionality corresponds to the price, which also depends on the positioning of the chipset. In this case, the cost of solutions based on Intel X38 will not be small by definition — the chipset itself is top-end, which means that boards based on it at a price of less than $200 will not appear soon. Unless after the release of the next flagship of Intel — X48, which will be officially presented this spring. Then yes, it will be possible to think about buying, and then for the sake of building a powerful CrossFire system, which with the Radeon HD 3870 is not so productive.

Now for each of the products discussed. The ASUS P5E3 Deluxe board, as befits a high-level solution, is well-equipped, has extensive BIOS options for fine-tuning the system, and powerful CO. The eight-channel power supply scheme of the processor will allow you not to worry about the high-quality power supply of the overclocked quad-core CPU. An interesting technology using the EPU, designed to save power at a low load on the processor, has not yet been run-in, so we won’t focus on it too much — there is, and that’s okay with it. The only negative in all this is the final cost of the finished system, because DDR3 memory modules are still quite expensive.

Model P5E3 came out somehow unbalanced, expensive and not very functional. A rich kit, extensive BIOS capabilities and an 8-phase processor power scheme have a positive effect on the board’s assessment, but just one network controller and an eSATA interface somehow do not associate with a price of $250. And if extra equipment is really required in exceptional cases, then how can one explain the use of a 4-pin ATX12V auxiliary power connector instead of the 8-pin EPS12V that has already become familiar to expensive solutions? If ASUS P5E3 is used at face value, then this drawback will in no way affect the stability of the system, but for an enthusiast and overclocker this may become a problem.