Asus P5NSLI

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200..._p5nsli/1.html

[DougEdey]

I just want the northbridge heatsink, that tis awesome!

[samkiller42]

Hum, very interesting, im looking into buying the Asus P5N32-SLi Premium WiFi, and as it has the NVIDIA nForce® 590 SLI™ Intel Edition chipset i should be fine, woot, but when i do a budget machine for Intel next, this board is certainly worth looking at

Sam

[PA!N]

I dont like the brownish pcb
It seems to be good product none the less.
And of course nice review.

[DeX]

So am I right in assuming that the main reason this board doesn't perform so well at things like file compression and xvid encoding compared to the more expensive Asus board is the memory frequency? I've always wondered what effect memory frequency has in real life terms but you never seem to state such 'obvious' points in your reviews.

Anyway if my assumption is true then it's obvious that memory frequency is quite important. It always suprises me that two seemingly similar boards in terms of functionality can be so different in price sometimes. Does this mean then that a cheaper board is unlikely to be able to support memory at frequencies that are so boldly claimed - at least without becoming unstable?

[Tim S]

It's possible - the main downside is usually the lack of overclockability.

I'm thinking of doing a Core 2 & AM2 memory clock scaling article if it would be of interest. We've already covered timings on Core 2 (and it makes very little difference in most tests, generally speaking), but I think that clock scaling would be a nice addition.

[DougEdey]

Vote for a Clock scaling article.

But I think that a lot of the main BiT articles along those lines should be given their own section.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by DeX

So am I right in assuming that the main reason this board doesn't perform so well at things like file compression and xvid encoding compared to the more expensive Asus board is the memory frequency? I've always wondered what effect memory frequency has in real life terms but you never seem to state such 'obvious' points in your reviews.

Anyway if my assumption is true then it's obvious that memory frequency is quite important. It always suprises me that two seemingly similar boards in terms of functionality can be so different in price sometimes. Does this mean then that a cheaper board is unlikely to be able to support memory at frequencies that are so boldly claimed - at least without becoming unstable?

Tim's been thinking about a memory clock scaling article for a while but it's just finding the time to fit it in the shedule at the moment This board was one that really made us stand up and look at clock scaling in a big way: DDR2 seems to have come a long way since it's first introduction where 400/533/667 even with the crap timings it had made very little effect on the P4 architecture and Dual channel DDR2 533 over single channel DDR on the 915G chipset and Pentium M was at most, 3% difference. It looks like Core2 is more dependent but we want to do the article properly and thoroughly (in typical Bit fashion).

No matter how cheap a board it is should always support the rated settings it claims otherwise it's false advertising. Overclocking is NEVER a given. It looks like it's an early BIOS issue, since other reviews have had mixed results as well and most have attained the 667 that had eluded us. There's no reason that it shouldnt do 667 since it's literally just a rebadged NF4 C19 northbridge which is tried and tested working silicon.

[nooh]

Quote Tim:-

However, if you're one of these people, don't expect to be able to overclock much. We tried overclocking the P5NSLI using our Core 2 Extreme X6800 and a Core 2 Duo E6400. We were unable to get the board to post with a front side bus higher than 300MHz using either CPU. NVIDIA has been up front with us, stating that the nForce 570 SLI chipset isn't tailored for overclocking. If you want an SLI motherboard taylored for overclocking Core 2 Duo processors, you'll have to look at an nForce 590 SLI solution - these are obviously more expensive. END of Quote


Hi after reading that it brought me some hope, I have been following the 590 Intel and the way it has been progressing , I then compared it with its competition and wasnt too pleased.

There are boards out there that claim to go till 480FSB and the 590intel can only go till 325fsb.

Has the situation changed regarding this , has the 590 intel chipset got a chance in front of the intel chipset?

[Tim S]

well, I know that there is something delaying production 590 SLI Intel Edition boards, but I don't have specific details that I can share. It could be any number of things, including a refresh of the memory controller. I do know that the reference boards don't represent the final product though, if that gives you some food for thought.

[DeX]

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

No matter how cheap a board it is should always support the rated settings it claims otherwise it's false advertising. Overclocking is NEVER a given. It looks like it's an early BIOS issue, since other reviews have had mixed results as well and most have attained the 667 that had eluded us. There's no reason that it shouldnt do 667 since it's literally just a rebadged NF4 C19 northbridge which is tried and tested working silicon.

Ok, so if it's a BIOS issue, don't you think it would be better to only do the review when the board is running at its full potential? I'm not criticising the review which is top-notch as always but, I don't know how much of an effect getting the memory to run at 667 would have had. I get the impression though that it appears to fall behind the more expensive Asus in memory intensive tasks.

I would love to see a bit-tech memory guide article but I know you have more than enough on your plate. It amazes me how much you guys manage to churn out sometimes and the extensiveness of the work you do.

[Tim S]

Not necessarily - we usually go by the moral of 'review it when you can buy it'. Since you can buy this board now, we've reviewed it.

Also, with boards like the Abit KN9 SLI, we could be waiting for months for it to perform to its 'full' potential. We gave that one five weeks of our attention - on and off - and it got no better. I'll be keeping an eye out for BIOS updates on the P5NSLI - I'm waiting for NVIDIA & Asus to get back to us.

[nooh]

Originally Posted by Tim S

well, I know that there is something delaying production 590 SLI Intel Edition boards, but I don't have specific details that I can share. It could be any number of things, including a refresh of the memory controller. I do know that the reference boards don't represent the final product though, if that gives you some food for thought.

Thankyou very much for that sir , you are a nice man

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by DeX

Ok, so if it's a BIOS issue, don't you think it would be better to only do the review when the board is running at its full potential?

But then when do you review a board? How do you know future BIOS' aren't going to make much of a difference and we strive to be first to the net with a product review of something that you can buy to benefit the maximum amount of people (and get more page views = more money = better content).

[DeX]

I was under the impression it was an early version you had for review which hadn't had all its kinks ironed out. So if I got that board now and I wasn't able to run it stably at 667 would I be able to just send it back?

[Tim S]

Nah, we got this board two weeks ago and we are under the impression that it is a final production board. Since you could buy it about a week ago, I'd say that is probably true. It's a BIOS issue, so the board revision isn't going to affect things in that sense.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by DeX

I was under the impression it was an early version you had for review which hadn't had all its kinks ironed out. So if I got that board now and I wasn't able to run it stably at 667 would I be able to just send it back?

Nope, we don't put stuff up of "reviews" listing prices with pre-production stuff, although sometimes some slips through but they become obvious quickly after we check and get a final-retail in (ala MSI K9N). What's the point if it's not a representation of what you can go out and buy?

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

Nope, we don't put stuff up of "reviews" listing prices with pre-production stuff, although sometimes some slips through but they become obvious quickly after we check and get a final-retail in (ala MSI K9N). What's the point if it's not a representation of what you can go out and buy?

It goes back to this column I wrote: http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2005...one_mia/1.html

Things have changed a little since then, but the basic gyst of the article represents our current stance on mobo reviewing. I'm happy for us to 'preview' stuff that comes in a brown box, but we ask manufacturers to send us 'retail' products in 'retail' packaging, rather than pre-production in retail packaging.

Some slip through, but we soon find out when we start testing the board. We are told that the memory stability at 667MHz on the P5NSLI is a BIOS issue with 2GB of RAM installed, as the board works fine with 2x512MB at DDR2-667.

[TMM]

If you squint its almost an "ASUS PENIS"

[TekMonkey]

my e-penis is bigger than your e-penis.