Intel 925X Roundup: Creative Engineering 101
by Wesley Fink on August 12, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Asus P5AD2 Premium: Features and Layout
| Asus P5AD2 Premium Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 775 Pentium 4 (Prescott) |
| Chipset | Intel 925X/ICH6R |
| Bus Speeds | 100MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI Speeds | To CPU, 33.33, Auto |
| DDR2 Speeds | Auto, 400, 533, 600 |
| Core Voltage | 1.4375V to 1.7875V in 0.0125V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.80V to 2.10V in 0.1V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | Auto, 1.5V, 1.6V |
| FSB Termination Voltage | Auto, 1.2, 1.4 |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 PCIe x16 Slot 2 PCIe x1 slot 3 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/IDE RAID | 4 SATA 150 drives by ICH6R Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, Intel Matrix plus 4 SATA 150 RAID by Sil3114R (8 Total SATA ports) |
| Onboard IDE | One Standard ATA100/66 by ICH6R (2 100/66/33 drives) Plus One IDE RAID by IT 8212F (2 133/100/66, RAID 0, 1, JBOD) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports 3 IEEE 1394b FireWire Ports by TI 1394b |
| Onboard LAN | 2 X Gigabit PCIe LAN Both by Marvel 88E8053 |
| Onboard Audio | CMedia CMI9880 (Intel HD) 8-Channel with SPDIF in/out |
| Wireless LAN | WiFi 802.11g Included |
| Tested BIOS | 1005 Beta 002 |
Asus calls their new 925X board the P5AD2 Premium, and the board is clearly top-of-the-line in every way. All of the Asus Proactive AI (Artificial Intelligence) features are included, and Asus proudly advertises the overclocking features of the P5AD2 Premium. This includes a special cooling plate on the bottom of the board in the CPU area that Asus calls Stack Cool.
Asus includes Dual Gigabit PCI Express LAN on the P5AD2, with both LAN ports powered by the new Marvel 88E8053 Ethernet controllers. You will also find a complete WiFi set-up with an 802.11g card and antenna included for the WiFi slot. Asus has devoted a lot of resources recently to providing standard-setting Wireless LAN on their motherboards, and the P5AD2 is the culmination of those efforts.
You will also find the premium C-Media CMI9880 codec supporting the Intel High-Definition audio, with 8 channels and Dolby Digital Live technology support. The CMI9880 is the only audio solution in this roundup that has a built-in Dolby AC3 encoder that can actually encode your digital audio into Dolby digital streams, which can then be output to the SPDIF for Dolby Digital playback. The CMI9880 does this real-time for any digital audio in your system to feed Dolby Digital playback. The rest of the boards in the roundup use sound solutions based on the newest Realtek ALC880 High-Definition audio chip, which is also an excellent audio solution, but Asus carries Intel High-Definition (Azalia) audio further on the P5AD2 than on any other board in this roundup. You will also find 3 of the high-speed 'b' versions of IEEE 1394 firewire, which promise double the speed of 1394a ports.
The storage area is one area where the Asus stands above the rest of the boards reviewed here. All of the boards support the ICH6R standard 4 SATA/1 IDE (2drives) configuration. The Asus and Gigabyte add 4 more SATA ports for a total of 8 SATA ports. The Asus goes even further by also adding an ITE controller for 2 more IDE devices for a total of 4.
It is clear that Premium certainly describes the features on the Asus P5AD2, but Premium also refers to the price. The Premium is the most expensive board in this roundup at about $100 more than the Abit AA8. The real question, then, is whether the Asus is worth the premium price. That is a question that you will need to answer based on your individual budget, but there is no other board in this roundup that offers the unique and useful feature set that you will find on the P5AD2.
Asus has also provided a truly complete set of overclocking controls in the BIOS. It is worth noting that the P5AD2 is the only board in the roundup to offer a DDR600 memory speed in addition to the 533 and 400 offered on all the boards. Since we found that the current DDR2 memory was all capable of DDR667 performance, this added 2:3 ratio will allow for running DDR2 at 667 with just a modest CPU overclock, something that will appeal to some users. Asus also provides adjustment of FSB termination voltage, something that we found useful in the extreme overclocking possible on the Asus.
Asus is a manufacturer who pays close attention to the layout of their motherboards. That certainly shows in the P5AD2 Premium. Floppy and Hard Drive connectors are in the preferred upper right board-edge position, where they usually work best in most case designs. The 24-pin power connector and 4-2pin 12V connector are both at board edges where they do not require being snaked across the CPU and restricting air flow. The 8 SATA ports are clustered at the lower right of the board (4 ports) and the bottom edge of the board (4 ports). The additional IDE connector is also near the bottom edge along with the headers for additional SATA and IEEE1384b ports.
The only complaint with the layout will be from those who still use a 4-pin audio header to one of their optical drives, since the audio connector is in the worst possible location at the bottom left of the motherboard. In a tower case, you will need to search for a longer audio cable, not an easy-to-find item, since every audio cable we had on-hand would not reach from the drive to the audio connector in a tower case. This should not be an issue in the more common mid-tower layouts.
The P5AD2 layout is very close to ideal and you will likely be very pleased at the thought that went into the layout of the Asus 925X.
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JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
On the Gigabyte 8ANXP-D:Page 10
Memory Slots Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots
Gigabyte provides 6 DIMM slots, but the total memory and number of sides that can be used is the same as the other boards in the roundup.
JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Typo page 5:"The memory stress test measures the ability of the Abit AA8 to"
should read Asus P5AD2. :)
only on page 5, may be more.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
allright, point taken. howabout testing lower lga775 cpus and combining the results with 939 scores?Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#5 - You're welcome.We also ran and reported the rest of our standard motherboard tests, which included Business and Multimedia Content Creation Winstones and Media encoding (which Intel won by a small margin).
As we stated in the review the only reason we did not include our standard SPECviewperf 7.1.1 benchmarks is because we have seen variations of up to 100% in SPECviewperf results with certain 925X boards. We don't believe these results are real, and we are trying to find answers for these variations in benchmark results. Until we find some answers, publishing the workstation benchmark results would not really reveal anything about the performance of the 925X boards we are testing.
The FX53, Intel 925X, and Intel 915 results are included for reference and completeness. We are comparing five 925X motherboards in performance, and we do not mean to detract from that comparison with AMD Socket 939 benchmarks. Please consider the 939 results to be a frame of reference.
AnnoyedGrunt - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
From what I can see, the P4 560 is about $750, so that puts it right between the 3800+ (about $650) and the FX-53 (about $850) in price. It would be nice to add the 3800+ scores (if you have any) to that review just so we could see how the price/performance of the 560, 3800+, and FX-53 compare.-D'oh!
Shimmishim - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#2 - Achieving a 4 ghz overclock on a pentium is nothing to sneeze at... i think 3.8 may be possible on air but 4.2 is really pushing.As much as a lot of us would love to see overclocked processor results, i think it's best that they only show stock clock results as they are easier to compare...
#3 - Its hard to say how fair it is to use a FX-53 against the 3.6 ghz 775 chip... but if you think about it, they are comparing the top end pentium 775 skt (new pin count) vs. the top of the line A64 939 skt (new pin count)..
Both are also 1 megs of L2 even though the extra cache doesn't help the A64 greatly.
Maybe a 3800+ would have been better comparison but i think he was trying to make things as easy to compare as possible...
Even if he had used a 3800+ or even a 3700+ i don't think the gaming results would have been that much different... we all know that the A64's dominate in gaming.
maybe some more tests besides gaming would have been better...
but all in all...
thank you Wes for a good article!
Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#3 - The 3.6 is the fastest Intel processor. If you will check our launch reviews you will see the 3.6 outperformed the 3.4EE. We are indeed comparing the best performing Intel - the 3.6 - to the best performing AMD - FX53.Prior to the 3.6, the 3.4EE was the fastest Intel CPU.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
lately i've been noticing unfair comparisons between intel and amd, in this article, high end processors are being compared with the top of the line from amd. this isnt really helpful to anyone, so please go back to the old anandtech way.Anemone - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice article !If I could have had one extra wish it would have been to show a set of test charts with a moderate oc on them, think that would put the FX @ 2.6-2.7 and the P4 560's @ 4.2-4.3.
If the boards can overclock, and the 939's can too, where does it all land for those using just normal or at most water oc'ing.
No worry, these wishes do not detract from a very nice article.
Thank you
stickybytes - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice to see asus get a award but unfourtanetly the word "prescott" mentioned in any sentence will probably scare away 80% of AT'ers.