ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus: NVIDIA's 650i goes Dual x16
by Gary Key on April 2, 2007 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Synthetic Graphics Performance
The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apple to apple comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks. In this sense we consider the 3DMark benchmarks to be purely synthetic in nature but still very valuable for providing consistent measurements of performance.
In our 3DMark06 test, all of board are basically even with only an 89 point separation from first to last. Our ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus board scored in the middle of the pack and offered the best video scores of our test boards but one of the lower CPU scores in this benchmark. While this issue did not repeat itself in our other benchmarks, we still found it strange as the results were opposite with the other 650i SPP based boards.
In the more memory and CPU sensitive 3DMark01 benchmark we see our ASUS Plus board leading all boards with 1T timings and scoring in the middle of the pack with 2T settings. While the differences are not significant, this board does offer excellent benchmark scores when utilizing 1T memory settings.
General System Performance
The PCMark05 benchmark developed and provided by Futuremark was designed for determining overall system performance for the typical home computing user. This tool provides both system and component level benchmarking results utilizing subsets of real world applications or programs. This benchmark is useful for providing comparative results across a broad array of Graphics, CPU, Hard Disk, and Memory configurations along with multithreading results. In this sense we consider the PCMark benchmark to be both synthetic and real world in nature while providing consistency in our benchmark results.
The ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus board tops our charts in this very competitive benchmark and we are starting to see a pattern emerge with the latest board releases performing slightly better than our boards released last year. The 650i and 680i chipsets scored very well on the single task disk benchmarks with the 680i performing slightly better in the graphics subsystem tests where they led the field. Our 975X and P965 chipset boards won the multitasking tests while the RD600 offered middle of the road performance in most of the tests. Our ASUS Plus board scored better in the multitasking tests than the other NVIDIA boards which propelled it into first place as its graphic scores were only about 1% lower than the 680i LT SLI.
The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apple to apple comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks. In this sense we consider the 3DMark benchmarks to be purely synthetic in nature but still very valuable for providing consistent measurements of performance.
In our 3DMark06 test, all of board are basically even with only an 89 point separation from first to last. Our ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus board scored in the middle of the pack and offered the best video scores of our test boards but one of the lower CPU scores in this benchmark. While this issue did not repeat itself in our other benchmarks, we still found it strange as the results were opposite with the other 650i SPP based boards.
In the more memory and CPU sensitive 3DMark01 benchmark we see our ASUS Plus board leading all boards with 1T timings and scoring in the middle of the pack with 2T settings. While the differences are not significant, this board does offer excellent benchmark scores when utilizing 1T memory settings.
General System Performance
The PCMark05 benchmark developed and provided by Futuremark was designed for determining overall system performance for the typical home computing user. This tool provides both system and component level benchmarking results utilizing subsets of real world applications or programs. This benchmark is useful for providing comparative results across a broad array of Graphics, CPU, Hard Disk, and Memory configurations along with multithreading results. In this sense we consider the PCMark benchmark to be both synthetic and real world in nature while providing consistency in our benchmark results.
The ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus board tops our charts in this very competitive benchmark and we are starting to see a pattern emerge with the latest board releases performing slightly better than our boards released last year. The 650i and 680i chipsets scored very well on the single task disk benchmarks with the 680i performing slightly better in the graphics subsystem tests where they led the field. Our 975X and P965 chipset boards won the multitasking tests while the RD600 offered middle of the road performance in most of the tests. Our ASUS Plus board scored better in the multitasking tests than the other NVIDIA boards which propelled it into first place as its graphic scores were only about 1% lower than the 680i LT SLI.
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Spanki - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Nice review, but I must say that at worse it's misleading and at best it's potentially confusing regarding the memory timings used (in particular, the command-rate). I really liked seeing both 1T and 2T benchmark numbers, but the images would have been a lot better if the command-rate was listed for _every_ board tested (every line-item).In the absense of that, I have to assume that the rate was 2T for all other boards, unless specifically stated, but even that pattern wasn't followed on the first graphic. I guess this means that I'm casting a vote to see the 1T numbers/comparisons on all the boards (whether or not it makes a 'significant' difference) - if you threw out all the 1T results in this review, I think you get an overall different 'picture' of how well this board compares with the others.
JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
I believe Gary is in the process of retesting boards with 1T where it works, and that will be part of an upcoming roundup. The problem is that until recently, the 680i boards were unable to support 1T at DDR2-800, and no other chipset has managed it either. Now quite a few 680i (and 650i maybe?) boards have 1T support, with the appropriate DIMMs. Personally, I'm okay with using more typical (and cheaper) 2T RAM and overclocking to make up the less than 5% difference. Some people want the absolute best, though.yyrkoon - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Hmm, actually, now that I think about it, the CPU Bus speed *is* 250Mhz, and I did drop the memory down to the 667Mhz divider, but technically, the memory is still running above 800Mhz DDR2 (I think)/me checks while blushing in the process
JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
But you're running an AM2 configuration, right? I'm specifically talking about Core 2 chipsets, where 1T support for DDR2-800 is a more recent addition. I should have made that clearer. I'm pretty sure P965, 975X, 680i, 650i, 590i Intel, and 570i Intel all initially didn't have 1T support at that speed.yyrkoon - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Uh, my ABIT NF-M2 nView has run nothing BUT 1T, even with the memory OC'd (it is 5-5-5-12 DDR2 6400 Promos, but running 4-4-4-12 1T right_now). Perhaps you meant 'current chipsets' ?Gary Key - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Jarred meant current Intel chipsets but 1T is still not working right at DDR2-800 on the P965, close but not there yet. The NVIDIA Intel chipsets have progressed rapidly with 1T operation up to DDR2-900 with decent PC2-6400 memory at fairly low latencies now. We have hit DDR2-1000 at 1T on the RD600 with relaxed timings, have the new board revision on the EVGA 680i and we are so close to DDR2-1000 1T with some "affordable memory" at this time.
BladeVenom - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
The last 20 motherboard articles on Anandtech have all been for Intel. Doesn't that seem a little excessive? I know Intel is the preferred processor for midrange and up, but with the prices of the x2 3600 and the less expensive motherboards, lots of people are still buying AMD.fliguy84 - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Shouldn't it be 2MB on the 4th page?JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Yes - fixed.yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
Dude, 2T? Eww, why? Is that mandated for quad-core systems or were you simply unable to get any stability with 1T at that OC level? :(