Asus P5WDG2-WS: Intel 975X goes to Work
by Gary Key on December 6, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
The Intel 975X chipset fully supports the 820, 830, and 840 dual core Pentium D processors in both stock and overclocked conditions. This chipset also supports the upcoming Presler and Cedar Mill processor range. Dual core really makes a difference in certain multi-tasking scenarios, as was demonstrated in the dual core performance preview. If you are interested in how the various chipsets perform in a real world multitasking setup, please take another look at that review.
NVIDIA SLI Performance
Although the performance does not match the newer 81.xx series of drivers, the 975X boards are still competitive with the nForce4 Intel Edition SLI setup considering the beta condition of the non-certified drivers used. We noticed some graphic anomalies with the Asus P5WDG2-WS in the benchmarks that explains the lower scores compared to the Gigabyte board.
The ability of the 975X based boards to run both ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI setups is definitely a marketing plus, but until Intel licenses and NVIDIA fully certifies and sanctions SLI on the Intel platform, we can only wonder what the impact would be in the market.
Overclocking Performance
The overclocking performance graphs have been added to the standard benchmark test suite and should allow for a better comparison on the overclocking capabilities of tested boards. For more details on the specific overclocking abilities of this board, please refer to the Overclocking and Memory Stress Test section in the Basic Features section.
The Intel 975X chipset fully supports the 820, 830, and 840 dual core Pentium D processors in both stock and overclocked conditions. This chipset also supports the upcoming Presler and Cedar Mill processor range. Dual core really makes a difference in certain multi-tasking scenarios, as was demonstrated in the dual core performance preview. If you are interested in how the various chipsets perform in a real world multitasking setup, please take another look at that review.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | Intel Pentium 840EE (3.2GHz, 800FSB, Dual-Core, 2x1MB L2, HT) utilized for all tests |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL revision 1.3 Settings- DDR2-667 as noted at (CL3-2-2-8) |
| Hard Drive(s): | 2 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer), 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300R0 300GB 7200 RPM IDE (16MB Buffer) |
| System Platform Drivers: | Intel Chipset Software - 7.2.2.1006 |
| Video Cards: | 1 x XFX 7800GTX OC (PCI Express) for standard tests 2 x MSI 7800GTX (PCI Express) for SLI test |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 81.95 WHQL NVIDIA nForce 78.01 Modified for SLI test |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboards: | Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe Gigabyte GA-G1 975X Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal |
NVIDIA SLI Performance
Although the performance does not match the newer 81.xx series of drivers, the 975X boards are still competitive with the nForce4 Intel Edition SLI setup considering the beta condition of the non-certified drivers used. We noticed some graphic anomalies with the Asus P5WDG2-WS in the benchmarks that explains the lower scores compared to the Gigabyte board.
The ability of the 975X based boards to run both ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI setups is definitely a marketing plus, but until Intel licenses and NVIDIA fully certifies and sanctions SLI on the Intel platform, we can only wonder what the impact would be in the market.
Overclocking Performance
The overclocking performance graphs have been added to the standard benchmark test suite and should allow for a better comparison on the overclocking capabilities of tested boards. For more details on the specific overclocking abilities of this board, please refer to the Overclocking and Memory Stress Test section in the Basic Features section.
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Gary Key - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
We are still working on a way to properly show this in the graph engine.Thank you.
imaheadcase - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
I saw this article 2 times put up already. anyone else seeing this?Last half a dozen reviews show up, i see people comment on them, then they disappear and come back latter. weird
wilburpan - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
According to your Ethernet tests:Gigabyte GA-G1975X: 951.4 Mb/s
Asus P5WDG2-WS: 950.3 MB/s
Gigabyte GA-G1975X: 16.04% cpu utilization
Asus P5WDG2-WS: 23.78%
And in your text:
"The Marvell 88E8062 PCI Express Dual LAN solution exhibits slightly higher throughput along with very good CPU utilization rates. The Broadcom 5789KFB option on the Gigabyte board offers excellent throughput, but at a slightly higher CPU utilization than on other solutions."
With the data you have, it seems the exact opposite conclusion should be made.
Gary Key - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
Hi,Unfortunately, our document engine had a mind of its own last night when the article went up the first time as it was not completed yet. The last couple of pages are correct now along with additional information that was not available last night. We had to wait on Asus to provide shipping drivers and Marvell firmware which changed the original scores (went down but stability increased). The new graphs were correct but my text changes had not caught up yet. We have been informed by Asus the 88E8066 chipset will actually be used on the board in the near future.
Thank you.
BrownTown - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
interesting stuff for the Presler there, I eagerly await your new article :pDanDaMan315 - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
yayVegito - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
Juicy.. I just need these pcix + pcie board for an amd machine.. :)Gary Key - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
We highly suggested this to Asus. ;->Pirks - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
Many many years from now we'll get another Asus or any other r333w1 mobo (DFI LanParty Ultra 3.0? :) with quantum 1000 GHz CPU, UltraWideFirewire 24000, USB 8.0, built in laser keyboard link and wireless 80" display link... and a LOT more... and.......AND...
...and A FLOPPY CONNECTOR!!!
and AN LPT PORT!!!!!
and PS/2 JACKS!!!!!!
AND TWO, LISTEN TO THIS - !TWO! COM PORTS!!!!
bwahahahahahahaaaaa
I just can't look at all the museum artefacts on these so called "professional" mobos, when Macs have only USB and FW as their standard interfaces for years!
Yea I know Mac hardware is sucky/expensive, no cool gaming and stuff, but... I really understand well some of my Mac using buddies when they visit me while I'm working on one of my PC's "professional" mobos (upgrading heatsink or something), and they see one of these huge LPT connectors and they're like "WTF???!?!?"
I know noone cares about this stuff, noone will ever make decent and inexpensive legacy free PC mobo, just wanted to vent it off... thanks :)
Saist - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
obviously you have never tried to run a data center, or ever bought hardware on a budget, nor that you run windows...or are you conviently forgetting that Windows has the worst in-box hardware support available and that to run many SATA drives requires installing drivers as though they are SCISI devices rather than on-chip devices.
Or that not everybody can afford to upgrade to a new laser jet / ink jet / Hp OfficeJet at every new release, and that for many a business the stock dot matrix offers the best price/performance and there is no reason to replace a perfectly functioning dot/matrix printer for something that costs a lot more to run.
or that usb support for keyboards is a little spotty in the Microsoft bootloader if you do try to run multiple versions of windows
Or that many older devices still require the com ports.
Sure, if you are building a brand new computer and have no hardware you ever intend to run again, running a legacy free system is a good idea.
But, when you only have 5% of the market at best...
it just doesn't make sense.
Sorry, but I find the laughter and your comments to be so far off base... I can only sigh and wish I had your budget to spend.