- Aug 24, 2006
- 583
- 0
- 18,980
Ok, so I got a chance to test the overclocking capabilities of this motherboard, and though the new bios fixes many issues that the old bios has had, the overclocking ability is still minimum.
The P5B Basic, is not the same Motherboard, Bios, nor does it even seem related to ANY other P5B motheboard made by Asus. This means that if you own a P5B Deluxe, you have a COMPLETELY different MoBo. If you own a P5B Deluxe, then I am assured that you will find that the issues in this article are not true to your application.
On the older versions of the Bios (509) the ability to increase the Multiplier was added to the X6800 and was set to a maximum x13. This remains true, and is significantly low compaired to the x15 on almost any other manufacturers have.
A multiplier of x13 is completely unstable and will not boot windows, regardless of FSB settings that would lead to underclocking every aspect of the motherboard. (example: 200 x 13 = 2600). This remains true.
Previous Bios (509) allowed the X6800 to overclock the Multiplier to 12x and still run 1066mhz memory. At 1:1 (533mhz Memory) a single increase of FSB on the (11x or 12x) would lead to a failure on Boot, or complete system instability
I was able to overclock my X6800 from 2.93ghz to around 3.3ghz, at a 1.40v, and a 1000mhz memory speed (66mhz underclock)! Prime95 -t duel instance failed after 1 hour. (300 x 11 = 3300).
I was able to run the MoBo at (280 x 12 = 3360) though I havent yet smashed it with a long test of Prime95. My memory speeds will drop due to the lower FSB.
All tests show that an increase of 1 on the FSB numbers above, leads to a failure of the Duel Prime95 after just a few minutes.
The limitation of 2.1v on the memory continues to be an area of concern and a major limitation of this Motherboard. Corsair and many 1066 memory requires 2.2v!
Though I did drop my memory multiplier 1 step for both tests; Lower Memory Multipliers (1:1) seem to provided no additional system stability or overclocking ability.
The Northbridge heatsink runs hot (you can put your finger on it but it is uncomfortable). I upgraded the passive aluminum heatsink on the northbridge of the Asus P5B to a copper swiftech fan based heatsink, and found that this did nothing to improve the performance of the overclocking.
Note: a single instance of Prime95 on either processor will run forever.
No tests were done to confirm any improvements to the RAID ability of the Motherboard.
Pro's: Additional overclocking ability has been added. Stable Product for the non-overclocker. Lowest Priced P965 Asus Mobo. Each BIOS upgrade improves motherboard performance. Lower CPU temps then 509. Solid PIDE performance even with duel CD/DVD Rom Reader and Writer's. Fast BIOS release schedule.
Con's: As a relative midranged priced MoBo, $144.99, this board continues to have very limited overclocking ability. The history of this board and its bios limitations continue to provide useless as a stable platform for the expert user. Product support is vertually non-existant. Asus Product and Sales website is fast, offering quick responses and fast descriptions of product details, while the Asus's support Forums, Driver Downloads, and all support related materials become unavailable during long lasting peak times. Website users password accounts require the user to constantly request a new password to log in. Long forms with a huge list of required product details and other added products creates a very long time to ask simple online support questions. Hours spent seeking online support, has lead to no return emails or answers. High end water cooled system (with C2E disabled) temps are MUCH higher then any other reported aircooled system.
Users who want a great motherboard without the additional features the "High-End" (aka "High Priced") MoBo's offer, should look elsewhere. No current P965 Mobo supports SLI or Crossfire support. Higher costing Motherboards that offer duel x16 PCI Express slots a very expensive option. No current add-on products other then the VideoCard Market require or offer support for PCI x16 Slots.
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 which is priced at the same level as the P5B, is reported to offer some of the best overclocking ability. An additional 2 SATA devices, DUEL BIOS PROTECTION, and the great online support offered by Gigabyte makes this product a complete waste of money.
Other Asus Mobo's have been reported as reliable and great products, with high prices. Many people on this website love Asus, and havent experianced the P5B BASIC product problem list. Based on Asus's product support and product quality. I will never buy another Asus product, and recommend others to look elsewhere for all products.
Final Thoughts: I will keep using this motherboard at a lower stable overclocking speed with low CPU voltages. X6800 is a very fast processor that currently doesnt really need a high clockspeed to perform the toughest applications. Hopefully Asus will improve this product to a suitable solution to me.
The P5B Basic, is not the same Motherboard, Bios, nor does it even seem related to ANY other P5B motheboard made by Asus. This means that if you own a P5B Deluxe, you have a COMPLETELY different MoBo. If you own a P5B Deluxe, then I am assured that you will find that the issues in this article are not true to your application.
On the older versions of the Bios (509) the ability to increase the Multiplier was added to the X6800 and was set to a maximum x13. This remains true, and is significantly low compaired to the x15 on almost any other manufacturers have.
A multiplier of x13 is completely unstable and will not boot windows, regardless of FSB settings that would lead to underclocking every aspect of the motherboard. (example: 200 x 13 = 2600). This remains true.
Previous Bios (509) allowed the X6800 to overclock the Multiplier to 12x and still run 1066mhz memory. At 1:1 (533mhz Memory) a single increase of FSB on the (11x or 12x) would lead to a failure on Boot, or complete system instability
I was able to overclock my X6800 from 2.93ghz to around 3.3ghz, at a 1.40v, and a 1000mhz memory speed (66mhz underclock)! Prime95 -t duel instance failed after 1 hour. (300 x 11 = 3300).
I was able to run the MoBo at (280 x 12 = 3360) though I havent yet smashed it with a long test of Prime95. My memory speeds will drop due to the lower FSB.
All tests show that an increase of 1 on the FSB numbers above, leads to a failure of the Duel Prime95 after just a few minutes.
The limitation of 2.1v on the memory continues to be an area of concern and a major limitation of this Motherboard. Corsair and many 1066 memory requires 2.2v!
Though I did drop my memory multiplier 1 step for both tests; Lower Memory Multipliers (1:1) seem to provided no additional system stability or overclocking ability.
The Northbridge heatsink runs hot (you can put your finger on it but it is uncomfortable). I upgraded the passive aluminum heatsink on the northbridge of the Asus P5B to a copper swiftech fan based heatsink, and found that this did nothing to improve the performance of the overclocking.
Note: a single instance of Prime95 on either processor will run forever.
No tests were done to confirm any improvements to the RAID ability of the Motherboard.
Pro's: Additional overclocking ability has been added. Stable Product for the non-overclocker. Lowest Priced P965 Asus Mobo. Each BIOS upgrade improves motherboard performance. Lower CPU temps then 509. Solid PIDE performance even with duel CD/DVD Rom Reader and Writer's. Fast BIOS release schedule.
Con's: As a relative midranged priced MoBo, $144.99, this board continues to have very limited overclocking ability. The history of this board and its bios limitations continue to provide useless as a stable platform for the expert user. Product support is vertually non-existant. Asus Product and Sales website is fast, offering quick responses and fast descriptions of product details, while the Asus's support Forums, Driver Downloads, and all support related materials become unavailable during long lasting peak times. Website users password accounts require the user to constantly request a new password to log in. Long forms with a huge list of required product details and other added products creates a very long time to ask simple online support questions. Hours spent seeking online support, has lead to no return emails or answers. High end water cooled system (with C2E disabled) temps are MUCH higher then any other reported aircooled system.
Users who want a great motherboard without the additional features the "High-End" (aka "High Priced") MoBo's offer, should look elsewhere. No current P965 Mobo supports SLI or Crossfire support. Higher costing Motherboards that offer duel x16 PCI Express slots a very expensive option. No current add-on products other then the VideoCard Market require or offer support for PCI x16 Slots.
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 which is priced at the same level as the P5B, is reported to offer some of the best overclocking ability. An additional 2 SATA devices, DUEL BIOS PROTECTION, and the great online support offered by Gigabyte makes this product a complete waste of money.
Other Asus Mobo's have been reported as reliable and great products, with high prices. Many people on this website love Asus, and havent experianced the P5B BASIC product problem list. Based on Asus's product support and product quality. I will never buy another Asus product, and recommend others to look elsewhere for all products.
Final Thoughts: I will keep using this motherboard at a lower stable overclocking speed with low CPU voltages. X6800 is a very fast processor that currently doesnt really need a high clockspeed to perform the toughest applications. Hopefully Asus will improve this product to a suitable solution to me.
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