Intel vs. AMD

marsey99,

Asus do have some employees who monitor their forum. If something important comes along, like that memory slot issue or a defunct bios upgrade, they do jump in! That's how I learned of the 505 bios problem on the P5N-E SLI and not to use it at the time. Their participation is strictly non official, but these are people that know, that work for Asus, watching the complaints and suggestions. They stay pretty invisible otherwise.

Happy computering,
theone

 

It's always useful to have a helping hand around that knows the products...

 

Finally got my board here.

I'm back in action at 3.2GHz. Flawless.

Got a v1.33 Much better board and very stable overclocking.

Now I'ma torture it to make sure it'll take the OC. If not I'ma back it down to(and still be wicked fast at) 3GHz.

 

Back in running order. But temperatures have been through the roof lately. 80*F in my ususally cool basement room. 95* outside. And my parents left the heat on(ugh!).

I've backed it down to 2.8GHz to avoid any problems.

It's been kinda slow in here. Someone come back to the brawl and contribute.

 

Estuansis,
I'm very curious about your temperatures, both CPU and MB. My room temp right now is 27C and it's idling at 29-30C. I didn't mod the Northbridge heatsink because it was stuck so tight that I was afraid I would break something so the MB temp gets up to 40C, which I'm not happy with. Now I finally got the heatsink to move but thanks to PP design of the spring loaded pins, I have to pull the MB to get it off to mod it with some Arctic Silver 5. I'm not sure what to expect but I know using AS5 on my P5P800 SE heatsink dropped the MB temp 13-14C. Since this one has never has gone over 40, I've been lazy and haven't pulled the MB yet. Hey! It's a lot of damn work!

So how do you compare your old MB with the new v1.33? Was there any difference in your approach to overclocking it? I'm asking because if the prices continue to go down I may just stick an E6600 in this one and use the E4300 for a customer build. I know Mort81 has his running at 3.6 on an Asus P5W DH MB and has posted some very nice numbers. This is my very first experience with a GigaByte MB after years of using mostly Asus, and I have to say it's been a very positive one. Like I said, this has been the most enjoyable build and overclock of my life. I liked the Asus P5N-E SLI in spite of all the problems, but it just seems to be several bios revisions away from being ready for "Prime Time"! Asus also needs to do some serious re-thinking on why the board was a roaring success when it first came out and what happened to cause problems for so many people several months down the road. I mean, they know how to do it right so they need to get doing it!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

You're unhappy with 40? my chipset runs 43-47C! I haven't modified it with Arctic silver, but assuming I keep this motherboard (not really rich enough to change it yet!) I may very well do. I'm getting an A8R-MVP for my media server to tide me over while the A8N is replaced.

 

sammorris,

Gina starts questioning whether I should have modded the chipset heatsink whenever she sees 37C on her P5N-E. Most times it 33-34C. That's why I didn't touch it in the first place. If it's staying a few degrees above ambient, why mess with it? I'm seeing 33-34C now on the P5P 800 SE on the D-940 after I modded it! Didn't change a thing in the setup and everything, component wise is the same!

It's funny, I've been doing customer builds with Asus motherboards since the early 90s. It's what I've always recommended to my customers Today I gave a customer a quote and I'm going to use a GA-965P-DS3 for this one which surprised him as I've built 7 for either him or his family members and all were Asus. I just told him to come on over and spend some time with mine and then decide. He's buying! He wants a 6420 which is fine with me. This way I'll get a chance to see what one of the new low end 1066 fsb CPUs can do in this MB. I'll stay with the G.Skill cas4 as well, at least on this MB!

I've decided that I'm gonna stay away from Asus motherboards for a while until they can get it all sorted out and get their act together. I know they will, as they are a good company. I just don't need more aggravation like with the last one. Not for me, and certainly not for my customers! I've had a good association with Asus over the years, but right now they are having too many problems with too many popular motherboards to suit me and my needs. Like I've said before, I'm used to putting a computer together without problems. Assemble it, turn it on and it works! That's exactly what I got from the components I selected for mine, so for now, that's what I'll recommend. Doesn't mean I can't get a bad one, but I have to admit, I am impressed with this combination and it gave me everything I asked for, and more. I remember all too well what it was like encoding all night with the P4, with about 3 hours of that time just to do the encode. Now the whole job takes about an hour!

I know a lot of people asked me how I could stand waiting like I did, but the lesson I learned was the value I got out of it because I took my time, asked people who have more knowledge than me and then built accordingly. Besides, after the nightmare I had with Gina's, I deserved a break! LOL!! I'm very pleased with the results!

Best Regards,
theone

 

Absolutely, after the experience I've had, for my main PC I'm going to give Asus boards a break. Anything other than overclocking and my P5N-E has been perfect, but as you know, 3Ghz is far from stock. I was happy to go with an A8R board for my server, as when you get towards the cheap section of motherboards there are some questionable choices but Asus boards are still acceptable, at least they are with proper chipsets, I'm not going as far as getting a VIA chipset board.

 

ever stop and think that the problems might be with the nvidia 650i chipset and not asus. I've had absolutely no problems with my asus P5W DH Deluxe and it's intel 975 chipset or have I heard of many problems with the intel 965 chipset on asus mobo's.

 

Yeah of course I did, but seeing as my other Asus motherboard is faulty...

 

Mort81,

Some of the problems, yes. And you are right I haven't heard or read about problems with the 965 or 975 chipsets either!

I've said that all along! I think that the 650i motherboards have a good shot at being superior to the 965P boards because they will afford better adjustability in areas of the memory and FSB and the ratio between them. It's just a question of making it all work as designed.

My best guess is that certain plants in China build certain chipset motherboards for Asus. The problems I had with the 2 bad P5N-E SLIs were directly related to board level components, as I suspected. Asus confirmed this with the 2 I sent back and issued full credit for both of them. Things like resistors, capacitors and diodes, stuff you don't usually think twice about these days. I would strongly suspect that the particular plant that builds the motherboards that are having problems right now got a supply of sub standard components. I've seen the same thing happen in my industry a couple of times over the years. Even considering the "Idiot factor", I can't remember how long it's been since I've seen so many multiple DOAs or short term failures. At least not from a company that builds as good a quality boards as Asus does!

I also think that once the bios has had more time to "ripen and mature" most if not all of the minor annoyances will disappear as well. Things like the memory slot issue for instance! I can't think of one instance over the years where I ever had to be concerned over which pair of slots I put my memory in, yet with the P5N-E, that was the single most common problem. That being said, Sam has or had his 2 sticks in slots 1 and 3, exactly the opposite of what Asus Tech recommends and his worked fine!

I'm not putting the knock on Asus as I've used their boards for just about everything I've built for the past 17-18 years with very few problems. Whatever the problem is, Asus will get it right. They are a very good company and they bent over backwards to help me out with this recent problem.

Just because I used a GigaByte MB (my first ever!) for my E4300 build doesn't mean I've become a GigaByte fanboy. I could just as well buy another one tomorrow and it might be DOA or die within just a couple of hours too. I made the decision to purchase both it and the G.Skill memory based on the advice of our mutual friend. I will do this next E6420 using both because of the experience and ease I had with my build. The price is right and the quality and performance to me, is outstanding for the money.

Best Regards,
theone

 

theone,

they all have "growing pains". not that long ago, corsair was having dead stick problems with their 2 x 1gb DDR2 XMS2 PC2 6400C4 memory kits and that's almost unheard of with corsair. that problem appears to be ironed out now.

 

Well it's exactly what I use and I have no issues. However, I couldn't figure out any working combination for my 2x512MB XMS2 PC6400 CAS5...

 

I love the v1.33 mobo vs the original. And I loved the price. $99 for what is a $130 component in original revision.

Not a HUGE leap but very nice overall. I noticed far fewer "black spots" in my overclock. Which helped me take it up nice and slow with fewer jumps. Before I had to jump it up a little sometimes to POST and I didn't feel easy with that.

We've worked out the cooling problems in my house and I'm back at 3.2GHz. I have no wish to go higher. I idle around 29-32*C and get 49-55*C with most heavy loads. Current room temp of 70-75*F. Usual constant mobo temp of around 30-35*C. Not too bad really.

theone, got any load temps?

I'm hoping for a slight drop when the Arctic Silver Ceramique cures(yes, I switched over). I have it on all my mobo heatsinks, on my CPU, and on my video card cooler.

I'd rather not benchmark again(lol). I'm more of a multimedia/gaming junkie than a performance freak(if you know what I mean).

Video card idles at 45*C and hits maybe 60-65*C under load. Not too bad for such a high power GPU

Got a 3D mark 03 of 33342 w00t!

 

Estuansis,

Amen to the 1.33! I'm not sure why the earlier version costs more as the v1.33 is by far the better MB. I guess if people don't know........

BTW, if the Ceramique gets too stiff to squeeze out, just put it in the microwave for 4 or 5 seconds and it will flow nice again!

One big plus is the High Definition Audio. If you have an SPDIF connection, either Coax or Optical on your sound system, try it out. It's Awsome sounding! You do lose control of the volume in Windows so make sure the amp is turned down or it will blast you out of the room. Scared the hell out of me the first time I tried it! LOL!!

For me, 3.275GHz seems to be the sweet spot. My MB never exceeds 40C and the CPU will break 50C once in a while. I just wanted something fast and reliable and 3.275GHz seems to be best overall.

My only real gripe is the lack of a proper manual that covers all the stuff v1.33 gives you. Even if you go on line, the info isn't any better. They have promised me a manual when they get the new ones printed as there's a lot of extra goodies that aren't documented. I also like the 6 stage power regulation which became available with v1.2 and above.

2 things I did that make a big difference was I turned on the Smart Fan control in the setup to auto, set the Fan speed control mode to PWM for my Freezer 7 Pro (which has PWM) and turned on C1E (Thermal management). On mine when it is idling the CPU runs at 2.2GHz but as soon a I apply a load it jumps right up to full speed. Not one bit of difference in my benchmarks either! At idle my Freezer 7 Pro runs at less than 1200 rpm and it stays cooler than when I run the fan full speed (2500 rpm). Much quieter too!

After more than 200 builds over the last 18 years or so, it's the best MB I've ever owned! It was certainly the easiest and most painless overclock I've ever done. The whole basic deal took all of about 2 hours to put together and OC. I love it!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

Try running 3dmark06 and see how much you clean me out. I get 6755. GPU idles at around 55C and full load gets to about 75-80. However, it's fanless. If I ever get an 8800GTX or similar I'll be using the Hr-03 on that too, it's proven so effective.
CPU idles at 36-38C when fan is at full speed, 45C when running silent. At full speed, full load is around 46-48C, and silent it's around 55C.

 

that's pretty hard to believe, which program are you using to monitor your GPU temps? i'm water cooling my 8800gtx's in SLI and my temps are only about 5C-7C degrees lower than yours at idle and hit similar temps on load. even on stock cooling before i got water blocks for my 8800gtx's, idle temp was EASILY 50C-55C and on warm days, 60C IDLE!

all my Nvidia 8800gtx's are EVGA brand as well, i have a few of the standard version as well as the superclocked and AC3 version, stock for the AC3 version idle's around your temps. if you have the standard eVGA 8800gtx and have not replaced the stock cooling on it but only replaced the thermal compound, the temps you claim are not possible on air.

im not trying to burst your bubble as the others have already done so with your previous benchmarks in sisandra, but since you are a gamer you should get accurate temps of your GPU if you plan on OC'in your video card Thermalright makes good aftermarket video card coolers or AIR, but your current temps are well below average especially if all you did was replace thermal compound w/ Artic Silver Ceramique. GPU load temps on a single 8800gtx on stock cooling can easily get in the 70C-75C degrees when playing intense game as well. i seriously doubt Arctic Silver alone would drop your temps 10C-15C on load, assuming you play very intense/agressive games that fully load your video card.

@sam, 3dmark06 for comparison sake for my C2D dual core system:



8800gtx in SLI, i lowered my E6600 cpu speed to 3.6ghz exactly just to run the memory linked 1:1 for fairness

docTY

 

Lol sixteen thousand that's nuts. I hope you make use of all that power!

 

any suggestions as to what i SHOULD do with the power available to me? perhaps if i were a bit younger i could really enjoy the games that people play and really enjoy out right now, but alas, i've passed my prime as far as gaming is concerned

i am looking forward to picking up a copy of Crysis, by Crytek, when it's released later this year (hopefully) as i've read so many good things about it and the game would provide me a means to really test how the 8800 series performs with the new Direct X10 and CryEngine2 (the screenshots i've seen in their preliminary stages already has me impressed)

 

Still waiting for AMD'S answer to Intels C2D.
I seriously considered a C2D but unfortunately DFI'S ATI RD600 board just isn't good enough.I'll go Intel or AMD but when it comes to mainboards................. DFI.Yes I'm an DFI fanboy!!!!