Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE
Basic Features

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE
Market Segment:	High-End/Enthusiast
CPU Interface:	Socket T (Socket 775)
CPU Support:	LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium XE, Celeron D, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo
Chipset:	nForce4 Intel SLI Intel Edition (C19 revC1) nForce4 Intel SLI Edition (CK-804)
Thermal Design:	8-phase power Fan-less Heatpipe Cooling ASUS Stack Cool 2 for OC
Bus Speed Support:	1066/800/533MHz
Bus Speeds:	533 to 1600 in 1MHz Increments
Memory Speeds:	400 to 1600 in 1MHz Increments
PCIe Speeds:	100 to 148.4375 in 1.5625MHz Increments
PCI:	Fixed at 33
AI Tuning:	Manual, Auto, Overclock Profile, AI N.O.S.
Core Voltage:	Auto, 1.2250V to 1.7000V in 0.0625V increments
PEG Link Mode:	Auto, Disabled, Normal, Fast, Faster
CPU Clock Multiplier:	Auto, 6x-20x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked
DRAM Voltage:	1.8V to 2.4V in .05V or .10V increments
1T/2T Memory:	Auto, 1T, 2T
DRAM Timing Control:	Auto, 6 Options
NB HT:	Auto, 200MHz, 400MHz, 600MHz, 800MHz, 1000MHZ
SB HT:	Auto, 200MHz, 400MHz, 600MHz, 800MHz, 1000MHZ
NB Voltage:	Auto,1.4V, 1.5V, 1.6V
SB Voltage:	Auto,1.5V, 1.6V
Memory Slots:	Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 16GB Total
Expansion Slots:	2 - PCIe X16 1 - PCIe X4 2 - PCIe X1 2 - PCI Slots 2.2
Onboard SATA/RAID:	4 SATA 3Gbps Ports - NVIDIA 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - SI3132 (RAID 0,1,0+1,JBOD) -NVIDIA (RAID 0,1) - Silicon Image 3132
Onboard IDE:	2 Standard ATA133/100/66/33 Ports (4 drives)
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394:	10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel, Six via Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by TI TSB43AB22A
Onboard LAN:	Dual Gigabit Ethernet Marvell 88E1115 PHY, Marvell 88E8053
Onboard Audio:	Realtek ALC850 8-channel Codec
Power Connectors:	ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EATX 12V
I/O Panel:	1 x Parallel 1 x S/PDIF Out (Coaxial + Optical) 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 2 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 1 x External SATA 8-Channel Audio I/O
BIOS Revision:	AMI 0121

We reviewed the ASUS P5N32-SLI back in October 2005 in its initial release to the market. At that time the board revision and BIOS we tested with offered excellent performance, stability, and compatibility across the board. It was also the first Intel board to offer dual X16 support for NVIDIA SLI and with the right Pentium 4 or Pentium D processor the P5N32-SLI offered very good gaming performance.

Since that time the original board has either been loved or hated by its owners. Over the course of time the board was revised with changes to the resistors to improve VRM performance along with numerous BIOS revisions that just never lived up to the results of our pre-release 0047. Issues ranged from poorer than normally accepted FSB overclocking results with premium components, memory incompatibilities with 4GB installations, RAID issues with various BIOS releases, and other items that generally tarnished the reputation of the board.

ASUS did listen to the user complaints and additional component changes were made on the board to improve stability - but the most significant changes occurred in the BIOS. While the options generally remain the same, the overall performance of the board (along with stability) has improved over the previous 1.02 version of the board with the 0310 BIOS.

Click to enlarge

We are still testing the board with a wide array of components but we are glad - actually relieved - to report that the majority of user issues reported to us have been solved. The differences between the two boards are of course compatibility for the Core 2 Duo series, a couple of minor layout changes with the 4-pin 12V Molex connector being removed, and additional capacitors being added to the board for improved stability. The SATA ports are still in the same location which means SLI users will want to plug in their drives before installing the second video card. The basic features and layout of the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE remain nearly the same as the original board.

Basic Performance

Overall, the performance of the P5N32-SLI was excellent. It is also the only board in our Buyers Guide to officially support NVIDIA SLI. It not only supports SLI but offers full dual X16 capability to each PCIe graphics slot. The board was very stable with our X6800, E6700, and E6600 Core 2 Duo processors while providing asynchronous operation between the front side bus and memory controllers. This ability allowed us to dial in extremely low memory latencies at specific speeds in order to maximize the bandwidth of our Corsair DDR2 modules. Like the 975X boards, the nForce4 Intel Edition chipset allows the user to adjust the X6800 CPU ratios up or down.

This ASUS board had a tendency to get very warm during testing and requires a case with good air circulation to operate at normally accepted temperatures. Although the board never failed during overclocking or extended testing, our fingers on more than one occasion wanted to be iced down after touching the passive heatsinks on either the MCP or SPP.

We anxiously await the production release of the nForce 500 Intel Edition chipsets in a few weeks that will mainly bring benefits to the MCP such as additional SATA ports, improved networking features, HD Audio, and some general refinement. Users need to realize that the nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition will still use the C19A SPP will be used that is on this board. Although the chipset is now at a revision C1 and has undergone several months of fine tuning, do not expect the performance or overclocking results to be improved greatly with the nForce 590 SLI boards. In our internal testing we have noticed some minor but measurable improvements, but nothing revolutionary.

Overclocking

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Overclocking Testbed
Processor:	Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core, 2.67GHz, 4MB Unified Cache 1066FSB, 10x Multiplier
CPU Voltage:	1.525V (default 1.2V)
Cooling:	Tuniq Tower 120 Air Cooling
Power Supply:	OCZ GameXStream 700W
Memory:	Corsair Twin2X2048-PC2-8500C5 (2x1GB) (Micron Memory Chips)
Hard Drive	Hitachi 250GB 7200RPM SATA2 16MB Cache
Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio)	318x10 (4x HT, 3-3-3-9 1T) 3180MHz (+19%)

This is not the board to own if you expect or require high FSB overclocks with fixed multiplier Intel CPUs. While the FSB results are in alignment with other NVIDIA chipset boards they do not match overclocking results with Intel chipset boards at this time. We expect to see this change when NVIDIA releases their revised chipsets in several months. However, the board did match the overclock ranges of the Intel 975X board when increasing the multiplier on the X6800, and that allowed far greater control/tuning of the memory speeds due to the asynchronous operation of the controllers.

Although we wish the board provided additional memory voltage settings, we were able to run our memory timings at higher speeds with lower latencies than on the Intel chipset boards. That resulted in improved performance of the board when overclocked. Our only issue with the memory controller at this time is that the BIOS does not fully support memory timings over DDR2-1000 - although this should change before release. We will provide overclocked performance results in an upcoming article along with a comparison to the AM2 SLI boards. This board should sell in the $190 range, significantly lower than the first available Intel 975X boards with stock performance that matches or exceeds those boards. If dual X16 SLI is important to you and high FSB overclocks are not, then this is currently the board to have.