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  • chawkfan2002 - Thursday, June 2, 2005 - link

    In reading your article you indicate the “Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL could reach DDR2-1066” I am trying to determine how the memory speed is actually DDR2-1066? Your illustration indicates the FSB at 1068MHz (1066MHz) do you have any screenshot that shows the memory speed at 1066MHz? If the FSB is at 1066MHz then the memory bus is only at 534MHz (FSB 1066/4=266 actual speed… Memory bus 266x2=533 Double Data Rate) I have tried the FSB at 266 and manually changed the memory speed to DDR2-800, Memtest+ still shows actual speed at 534MHz

    Any information you can provide on how to achieve the 1066MHz actual memory speed will be most graciously accepted.
  • Makyla - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link

    pwned
  • ElFenix - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link

    kristopher:
    just because a lot of people got it wrong doesn't mean it's right. the first definition is the only proper one. that is like saying that because it is popular, on the internet, to say "he should of done that" means that 'of' is a proper substitute for 'have.'

    as for heat sink, much of that is the same. i suggest you take a look here:
    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=heatsink
  • ElFenix - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link

    ""a fan doesn't actually cool anything, it just pushes air around"

    Try disabling the fans in your rig and A/C, take temp readings before and after and get back with us. Moving same temp to same temp isn't cooling. Moving cooler air (or water or other) to something that is hotter (chip, compressor, radiator, etc) most definitely actively cools it."

    no, the conducting of heat from the radiator to the air through natural processes cools it. an air conditioner actually moves the heat against the temperature gradient. a fan cannot do that. a fan, again, isn't actually cooling anything. just because there is a moving part moving the air at a faster than natural current does not mean that the cooling is active. it is not. you're still relying on the normal radiator-air interaction. now a peltier actually moves the heat. that is active cooling. a fan only passively cools.
  • Viditor - Thursday, May 12, 2005 - link

    How about this board
    http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid...

    SUPER H8DCE Serverboard ( OEM White Box ) for System only
    Dual AMD Opteron 200 series Processor supported-940 pin ZIF Socket
    nVIDIA nForce Pro 2200 & 2050 Chipset
    Up to16/16/32 GB of ECC Registered DDR 400/333/266 SDRAM
    nVIDIA nForce Pro 2200 & 2050 SATA II controller for 8 SATA ports
    Dual nVIDIA nForce Pro 2200 & 2050 Gigabit Ethernet
    AC'97 audio CODEC high quality 6-channel sound
    2 X PCI-Express x16 + 2 X PCI-Express x4 + 3 X 32 bit PCI

    Dual dual Opterons with SLI...
  • Darth Farter - Thursday, May 12, 2005 - link

    Wesley Fink,

    do you know at what msrp Intel puts them (955/945)?
    also for the nf4(&ati) dual core compatible boards?
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    #26 - As we said in the review, we were able to enable SLI on the 955x using the old, almost unavailable nVidia 66.75 drivers. However, none of our SLI-enabled games worked properly. It was our original intention to compare the SLI performance (and we have P5ND2-SLI benchmarks), but the "Semi-SLI" was not completely working. Until the P5WD2 SLI works, and works with readily available drivers, the fact there are 2 x16 slots on the Asus 955x is academic for SLI - a promise for the future.
  • Capt Caveman - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Small Win. If you go to Asus's website, they have updated it. They now list two editions of the P5WD2 Premium board and list the Wifi-TV Card as either bundled or optional. Of course, they have yet to email me back. Or offer the Wifi-TV Card.

    http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l...493&mode...
  • niz - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Its a shame that they didn't bother to benchmark comparative SLI performance between the two motherboards.

    I'd like to know whether the diffrerence between the PciE slot timings (x8/x8 and x16/x2-4) really makes any difference to SLI performance.
  • HardwareD00d - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    They will probably be able to reach DDR2-4096 speeds pretty soon by setting timings to 20-20-20-60 and hooking up a 9v battery to it.
  • HardwareD00d - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Wow, 3% increase. That falls within a margin of error.
  • HardwareD00d - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    This article did an excellent job of showing why DDR2 is total crap. Until they can tighten up the timings, DDR533==DDR667==DDR800 pretty much.
  • quicksilverXP - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Hey,

    What bios was your board running at? I purchased two recently, and both of them don't have the DDR2-800 option. I noticed you have 7 ratios available while mine only has 5, and only up to DDR2-667. My Bios version is 0124 from the POST screen. Can you help me out?
  • KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    "Heatsink" is one word. If you are describing a general "heat sink" (there is a distinction), then you are talking about something else.

    Furthermore, fans are in fact considered active cooling. Active cooling by definition is any cooling device that can be disabled/enabled at will. Heatsinks are passive; fans, peltiers, etc are not.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A...

    Kristopher
  • Darth Farter - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    well, anyone know where I can find this?

    what is the msrp for these (dual core) boards, cause those $255/$245 prices on newegg/ZZF are hard to ignore...

  • fishbits - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    "a fan doesn't actually cool anything, it just pushes air around"

    Try disabling the fans in your rig and A/C, take temp readings before and after and get back with us. Moving same temp to same temp isn't cooling. Moving cooler air (or water or other) to something that is hotter (chip, compressor, radiator, etc) most definitely actively cools it.
  • ElFenix - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    heat sink is two words
    fans are not active cooling. air conditioning is active cooling, turning the ceiling fan on in your room is not. a fan doesn't actually cool anything, it just pushes air around.


    thanks!
  • Doughboy - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    My retail package also did not include the WiFi/Tuner and Remote. Still a great board though. :)
  • jonny13 - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Why the hell is Doom3 listed under DirectX 9 gaming?

    Someone should tell Carmack that he was actually coding in DirectX 9 and not OpenGL like he thought...

    Also, on the third graph of the General Benchmarks, you have the orange color as the Asus P5ND2-SLI instead of the Asus P5WD2 like every other chart. If you are going to use colors for the graphs, at least be consistant.
  • bob661 - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    #6
    Hypertransport is an open standard. Neither AMD nor NV owns it.

    #10
    A64's also use Hypertransport to connect the processor to the northbridge.

  • fitten - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    #5 Differences of 3% are usually in the noise of the type tests that most benchmark sites run. 3% is effectively 0% since that is beneath the precision of the tests.
  • Calin - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Higher speed memory will only give you a real performance boost if you use one of the fastest processors. On a slower processor, all that extra memory bandwidth will not help at all (or very little)
  • Carfax - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    I wonder, is Intel ever going to introduce processors with a FSB greater than 1066 before they go to CSI? All this DDR2 bandwidth is going to waste..

  • Darth Farter - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    what is the msrp for these boards, cause that $255/$248 prices on newegg/ZZF are hard to ignore...
  • Pjotr - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    "i thought hypertransport was an amd thing, not an intel or nforce thing....."

    nVidia uses HyperTransport between NB and SB. They have since nForce1 on AMD and they also use it in X-Box, if you didn't know.
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    #5 - We didn't measure the difference in nF4 Intel and nF4 AMD at 2T. It was a subjective comment. So I have tried to better explain what I found in the paragraph you quote:

    "On the nF4 Intel platform, the performance impact of a 2T Command Rate appears to be rather small, as the nF4 Intel performance remains very competetive with the 955x as far as it goes. However, at just over DDR2-900, the nF4 Intel appears to hit a wall . . ."
  • Zebo - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    "it would have been better to include a fx-55 as competition "

    Not for INTC;)

    Man that's a nice chipset they got though so missed from nV:)
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    overclockingoodness -
    Both boards are rated at DDR2-667, but both easily ran DDR2-800 with the right memory, which is the next logical memory speed. We mainly wanted to see if DDR2-800 made any real performance difference, and the answer is no in Office and Multimedia, and yes in most gaming. For the future this also gives us a full set of benchmarks at DDR2-800 for comparison if we choose to use them.

    We also found the Asus 955X did a marginal DDR2-1066 in early testing so it seemed reasonable to at least test and report benchmarks at the very stable DDR2-800 in addition to DDR2-667. We won't be doing this with all future boards, but the tests did provide some answers to our questions.
  • mrwxyz - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    i thought hypertransport was an amd thing, not an intel or nforce thing.....
  • Lonyo - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    On page 5 you mention 2T having less of an impact than with AMD boards.
    Does that mean it has absolutely zero impact then?
    There's a thread on the forums showing 2T for AMD haveing REAL WORLD impacts of maybe 3% slowdown, nothing more except in synthetic tests, so I suppose on the Intel board it makes maybe 1% difference.
  • overclockingoodness - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Can someone tell me why they decided to bench both at DDR-667 and DDR-800?

    Wesley: are you planning on testing all Intel mobos like that with two different memory speeds?
  • Capt Caveman - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    I actually plan on returning the P5WD2 Premium that I purchased. I bought this board for going to dual core but was really sold on the Wifi-TV card that was supposed to come with it. It's the first board in Asus's Ai Life Series and the major component of this series is the Wifi-TV Card.

    Well, surprise my Asus Premium doesn't come with one. It's optional. I spoke to people at Asus US in Technical Support, Customer Service, Pre-sales and RMA groups and they all confirmed to me that there was only one model and it's optional. Every retailer that carries the P5WD2 Premium has it without the Wifi-TV Card. Yet, the reviewers have them, making you think that the card comes with the board.

    Also, things have been down-graded on this board from previous premium boards. The mosfet heatsink is aluminum compared to the copper heatsinks used in my P5AD2-e Premium. Contrary to what some have said, the P5WD2 Premium does not have IDE Raid when the P5AD2-e Premium did. The P5AD2-e Premium also has 1394b where the P5WD2 Premium does not. And obviously no built on Wifi.

    Why did they call this board a Premium when it's missing all of the premium items that we're used to getting? Why didn't they just call it the Deluxe since this board does not have the premium features as it's other premium boards?

    I believe Asus is misleading folks. I have yet to receive a reply back to several emails that I have sent also.

    Sad thing is that I was a huge fan of Asus til getting this board which I must pay a 15% restocking fee to return.
  • elecrzy - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    on page 2, you might want to add that NF4 supports SATAII, not just SATAI.
  • RadeonGuy - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    it would have been better to include a fx-55 as competition

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