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ASUS P5W DH Deluxe Motherboard Review
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As the search for the best Core 2 Duo supporting motherboard continues, we decided to take the feature-packed ASUS P5W DH Deluxe for a test drive. This board sports Intel's flagship Crossfire-enabled 975X chipset and the tried and tested ICH7 southbridge. However the price tag of over £170 will put it out of reach of quite a few buyers. To be fair though, it does come with a lot of toys like a remote control and integrated Wi-Fi.

So, is the mammoth price tag justified by the level of performance it offers? Read on to find out....

Price: £168.95 inc vat
Supplier: Kustom PCs
Manufacturer: ASUS

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First impressions

The board certainly looks the business with its black and orange colour scheme. The box itself is not noticably different in size than that of other motherboards, but does feel a bit heavy. That's beacuse ASUS has bundled so many extra features and accessories with the P5W DH Deluxe. Judging by the bundle and the name "Digital Home", it seems that ASUS had an HTPC or media centre PC in mind while designing the board. More on that later.

First of all, lets have a look at the detailed technical specifications:

CPU

LGA775 socket for Intel® Pentium 4/Celeron CPU
Support Intel Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition & Intel Pentium® D Processor
Support Intel 65nm, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme
Support Intel next generation Multi-Core CPU
Compatible with Intel 05B/ 05A and 04B/04A processors
Intel EM64T and Hyper-Threading Technology ready

Chipset

Intel 975X
Intel ICH7R

Front Side Bus

1066/ 800 MHz

Memory

Dual channel memory architecture
4 x 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. 8GB DDR2 800/ 667/ 533 ECC and non-ECC memory
Intel MPT (Intel Memory Pipeline Technology)
ASUS Hyper Path3

Expansion Slots

2 x PCI Express x 16 slot for discrete graphics card
2 x PCI Express x 1
3 x PCI

CrossFire

Support ATI CrossFire graphics cards (both @ x8 mode)
ASUS two-slot thermal design
ASUS PEG Link
Advanced Thermal Design
ASUS 8-Phase Power Design
ASUS Stack Cool2
ASUS Fanless Design: Heat-pipe Thermal solution

Storage/RAID

Intel ICH7R SouthBridge:

1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
3 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with Intel® Matrix Storage Technology with RAID 0, 1, 5 support

Jmicron JMB363 controller

1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66
1 x External Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s (ASUS SATA-on-the-Go) and 1 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1, JBOD support

Silicon Image 4723 Hardware RAID controller (ASUS EZ-Backup)

2 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1 support
Support RAID 10 cross Intel® ICH7R and Silicon Image 4723 controller

LAN

Dual Gigabit LAN controllers
2 x Marvell 88E8053 Gigabit LAN Controller, both featuring AI NET2
Wireless LAN: 54Mbps IEEE 802.11g (ASUS WiFi-AP Solo^TM)

Audio

Realtek ALC882M High Definition Audio 8-channel CODEC
Support Multi-streaming, Jack-sensing and Jack-retasking functions
Anti Pop Function
Coaxial, Optical S/PDIF out on back I/O port
Features Dolby Master Studio technology
- Dolby Prologic IIX
- Dolby Headphone
- Dolby Virtual Speaker
- Dolby Digital Live

IEEE 1394a

TI 1394 controller supports 2 x 1394a ports

USB

Max. 8 USB2.0/1.1 ports

ASUS Digital Home Accessories

1 x Asus DH Remote^TM
1 x ASUS DH Remote^TM Receiver
1 x ASUS MP3-In^TM module
1 x ASUS WiFi-AP Solo Antenna
2 x ASUS EZ-Backup^TM SATA cables

ASUS AI Lifestyle Features

Stack Cool 2 patented fanless cooling system
"SATA on the Go" External SATA connector
AI Quiet

Overclocking Features

AI NOS^TM (Non-delay Overclocking System)
ASUS PEG Link
Precision Tweaker:
- vDIMM: 12-step DRAM voltage control
- vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.0125 increment
- SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection): allowing FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 400MHz at 1MHz increment
- PCIe x16 Frequency: allowing PCIe x16 frequency from 90MHz up to 150MHz at 1MHz increment"
AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner)
Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio. Fixed PCI/PCIe frequencies.
ASUS AI Booster utility
ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)

Other ASUS Special Features

CrashFree BIOS 3
EZ-Flash2
Q-Fan2
Multi-language BIOS
MyLogo2

BIOS

8 Mb Flash ROM,AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3

Manageability

WOL by PME, WOR by PME, Chassis Intrusion, PXE & RPL

Back Panel I/O Ports

1 x Serial Port
1 x Optical + 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Output
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
2 x RJ45
4 x USB 2.0/1.1
1 x IEEE1394a
1 x External SATA port
1 x WiFi-AP Solo^TM antenna jack
8-Channel Audio I/O

Internal I/O Connectors

2 x USB 2.0 connectors supports additional 4 USB 2.0 ports
1 x IEEE1394a connector
CPU / 2 x Chassis(system) / 2 x Power Fan connectors
Front panel Audio connector
ASUS EZ-Backup jumpers
Chassis Intrusion connector
CD audio-in connector
MP3-In connector (Red)
SPDIF out connector
System panel connector
Azalia Digital Header
24-pin ATX Power connector
4-pin EATX12V Power connector

Support CD

Drivers
Make RAID driver Disk for Intel ICH7R and JMB 363
ASUS DH Remote Application
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo^TM Wizard
ASUS PC Probe 2
ASUS LiveUpdate Utility
InterVideo® Media Launcher (OEM version)
Anti-virus software (OEM version)

ASUS Digital Home Features

ASUS EZ-Backup^TM
- 2 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s support hardware RAID 0 or RAID 1 mode
- Plug and play: Default setting in RAID 1 mode, no driver, no BIOS configuration required
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo
54 Mbps IEEE 802.11g and backwards compatible with 11 Mbps IEEE 802.11b
- Software Access point mode
- Station mode : Infrastruceure mode and Ad-Hoc mode
Asus DH Remote^TM
- Power
- Quick Power
- Noise Off
- EZ WiFi
- Full Screen
- AP Launch
- Media Control Zone
ASUS MP3-In^TM

Accessories

1 x ASUS Q-Connector set (USB, 1394, system panel; Retail version only)
InterVideo® MEDIA LAUNCHER Suite (OEM version)
1 x Optional Fan
1 x IEEE1394a port module
2 x SATA cables
1 x SATA power cable for 2 devices
1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable
1 x IDE cable
1 x FDD cable
1 x I/O Shield
1 x 2-port USB2.0 module
User's manual

Form Factor

ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x 24.5cm)

A closer look

The first thing that stands out are the heatsinks cooling the northbride and VRMs. They look like copper but are actually made of aluminium. The 2 sinks are linked with a heatpipe. ASUS have tried their best to make this board competely silent without sacrificing cooling, and the heatpipe is a good indication. The southbridge is sinked with a simmilarly coloured aluminium heatsink.

Looking around the socket area, you can immediately see the 8 phase power regulation which should translate into greater stability whilst overclocking. This also means that it should have no trouble running kentsfield. However, it can be seen that in the centre of the socket, there are a few spots left without any capacitors. We've seen other motherboards which have all these spaces packed. It looks like ASUS have skimped out on a few de-coupling capacitors which could translate into minor RF spikes. Although this would have minimal effect on clocking, shortcuts like these shouldn't be taken on a high end motherboard that costs a bomb.

The bundle is very comprehensive indeed, with no less than 6 booklets, a driver/utility CD and a booklet/CD case with the media launcher disc which can be used with the included remote.

The best is yet to come - you're really spoilt as far as accessories are concerned. An IR remote control and receiver to control your computer is included, which should prove useful for listening to music and watching videos. If that wasn't enough, an antenna is inluded for use with the inbuilt Wi-Fi on the motherboard. Apart from that, there are a host of other, more common accessories such as SATA, IDE and floppy cables, PCI brackets with USB and firewire ports and a I/O shield. ASUS have thoughtfully included an optional fan to be used with the heatpipe cooling system. This will be useful for those among us who use water cooling or phase change, as without any air circulted by a HSF, the heatpipe sink can overheat.

There is no doubt that all the included "creature comforts" will be useful to quite a few people, but we can only guess what these must have added on to the retail price.

The BIOS

Since this is an enthusiast board, we weren't suprised when we found a host of overclocker friendly options in the BIOS. The vCore can be adjusted from 1.225v all the way up to 1.7v in 0.0125v increments. You can adjust how much juice you want to pump into your RAM modules from 1.8v to 2.4v in 0.05v steps. The voltage to the northbridge (dubbed MCH chipset voltage) can be adjusted from 1.5 to 1.65v in 0.05 steps. Voltage to the southbridge (ICH chipset voltage) can be alternated between 1.05v and 1.2v. RAM can be run at DDR2 400/533/667/711/800/889/1067 MHz. It even allows adjustment of the FSB voltage.

A comprehensive range of RAM timing adjustments can be found under the chipset menu. Under this menu is an option called "Hyper Path 3". While experimenting with it, we found that it caused nothing but trouble when set at "auto" so if you decide to buy or already have this board, we strongly recommend disabling this option.

Overclocking

By now you're probably dying to know how we faired overclocking with this board. Well, good things come to those who wait

Our test setup consisted of the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard and the following components:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 engineering sample cooled with Intel reference HSF
2 x 1 GB Team Xtreem PC2 5300 RAM
256 MB Connect 3D X1800XT
80 GB and 300 GB Maxtor Diamondmax 10 SATA hard drives
NEC ND 3500 AG DVD-RW drive
Antec TruePower 2.0 550W 12v EPS server PSU

The E6300 has a default frequency of 1.86 GHz using a 266 MHz FSB and a multiplier of 7. By pumping as much juice into the chipset as we could using the BIOS (1.65v in this case), we were able to get a rock stable 400 MHz out of the motherboard. 400 MHz was cold-bootable and our CPU was 100% prime stable at 400 x 7 (2.8 GHz). That's over a 50% increase in clock speed.

While 400 MHz is respectable, most other 975X based motherboards top out
at around the same level. We were expecting a litle more from the top of the range ASUS board. Another point worth mentioning here is that once you've passed a certain FSB level (around the 350 MHz mark), the only available RAM ratio you can use if you want the motherboard to POST is 1:1. This isn't good news to enthusiasts who will be running high FSBs only to be limited by memory bandwidth. We found out that vDroop isn't too bad with this board - only about a 0.02v - 0.025v drop in vCore occured under load.

Final thoughts

The ASUS has one of the most comprehensive bundles I've seen included with a motherboard to date. The remote control and Wi-Fi antenna will be useful to a lot of people, and the comprehensive manuals should mean you'll have no problems getting it up and running. The attention to detail is top notch. It really does feel as if you are getting your moneys worth.

The overclockability was disappointing for a board costing £170. Having pushed a Gigabyte DS3 Conroe motherboard to 450 MHz FSB without much trouble, I was hoping for a lot more from the ASUS. Still, a 400 MHz FSB should be enough for those of you buying an E6600 or any of the other Conroe processors with 4 MB cache. The E6600 has a multiplier of 9x so with an FSB of 400 MHz, will reach 3.6 GHz, which is about the average prime-stable overclock to be expected from these CPUs under air cooling. Those of you using Allendale CPUs may want to look elsewhere.

The board does support crossfire and should be a good choice for gamers with big budgets. Hopefully a few BIOS revisions will help iron out the gremlins, so be sure to check the ASUS website regularly for updates.

If you need a feature rich Conroe board with Crossfire support and don't care about the cost, it's hard to fault the ASUS. Rock solid stability combined with reliable performance out of the box make this a prime choice for any big spender.

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