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  • yacoub - Sunday, April 29, 2007 - link

    Just curious about the audio CPU usage test usually done on boards...
  • Leinad - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    In the FAQ for this board on the Asus website, the board is listed as a 680i board. Newegg lists it as a 650i board, and Anandtech likewise calls it a 650i board. Nice to finally see an explanation.

    Looking forward to the Motherboard roundup!
  • goinginstyle - Thursday, April 5, 2007 - link

    Any chance of testing some cheap memory?
  • sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    I'm really disappointed by this review, it's not up to the usual Anandtrch quality. Let me explain why:

    You can not call this a 650, because there is no nForce 430 southbridge.
    Calling the southbridge a AMD570 is a bit misleading, because NB 570AMD = NB 590AMD = SB 590AMD = SB 590i = SB 680i.

    Further more there might not even be a difference in the northbridge even if it has 8 lanes disabled, those aren't connected with the "real" 680i's either. They appear as a hidden link, the links on the Hybrid also have a missing #1 port, so it's there, not sure if it's cut or disabled. The only bord that appears to use it isn't here yet, it's the MSI Diamond with 4 PEG ports.

    Besides this, you failed to notice that the pcb is actually a Striker Extreme (just peak under de Plus sticker). So any difference between this bord and a Striker Extreme are caused by difference of Bios, or between individual bords. You can't compare one Striker and one Plus and One Evga and make chipset conclussions, two Strikers might end up on different FSB speeds.

    "680i SLI chipset utilizes the nForce 590 SLI MCP and 680i SLI MCP." That should be 680i SPP.

    Memory timing differences should be caused by bios difference. THe Striker has a 1004 bios ready did you use that?
  • Dainas - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    Great, so theirs only one PCI slot(rendered useless if you SLI) and the only PCIe 1x is rendered useless if you put a decent videocard in this machine.

    Not that any friggin SLI/Crossfire LGA board on the market can be considered much better should you want to have more than a soundcard installed.

  • sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    It has two PCI slots and only one would useless when using SLI with double sized cards. The only PCIe 1x is useless when using a double sized card.
  • yacoub - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    Btw this board gets some horrid reviews over on NewEgg. Sure, the user reviews there are known to be pretty tough because anytime someone has a bad experience they're ten times more likely to write about it than someone who has a good experience. But still, compare the reviews of this board with the reviews of the MSI board Anandtech reviewed last week.
    I wouldn't consider buying this Asus board seeing how many DOAs and other problems folks are reporting with it. The MSI, which doesn't overclock as well, seems much more likely to at least be a 100% functioning product.
    How sad that the motherboard market has become this unreliable. I remember when Asus was a board you'd pay just a little more for because it would be solid.
  • kilkennycat - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    .. 0501 has an extensive list of 23 fixes over 0402 !!
    The current latest is 0602 BETA.
    See the Asus website. Make sure that you search for the PLUS version of the P5N32E-SLI.
  • Tuffrabbit - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    It is interesting that the "budget" 650i board draws a whopping 47 more watts at idle than even the Flagship D975 Intel board ???
  • Tuffrabbit - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    Correction: Make that 57 watts...
  • 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

    quote:

    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' ?


    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

    quote:

    360x10 (3-4-3-9 2T,


    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? :(
  • JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    Sorry - just an errant typo correction. If you look at the image, you can see it's 1T. Gary had "TT" in there and I corrected that to 2T when it should have been 1T.
  • yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    oh awesome :)
  • mostlyprudent - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    I think it's time for a comprehensive article to pick the best boards for Intel CPUs (P965 vs. 680i vs. 650i vs. 680i LT vs. 975X vs. RD600, etc.). I know some of this has been done in pieces, but it would sure be nice to have it all in one article. Please :)
  • Gary Key - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    After I finally complete the opus known as uATX or "How to kill the reviewer", we will have a performance roundup that might even include a new spin of the P35. ;-)
  • yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    It'd be awesome to see a round-up in time for the April 22nd Intel price drop and 6320/6420 release.

    I want to know simply: "The Best 650 SLI and 680 SLI NVidia-based Boards For 6320/6420 OverClocking" and NOT with any of that ridiculously over-priced Dominator or Flex XLC RAM. Just test with realistic RAM that actual people would buy like Corsair XMS2 or OCZ Platinum series and similar. High-end RAM but not retarded over-priced stuff with gigantic cooling mechanisms. Test RAM that's around $250 (or less) for 2GB matched pairs.

    That's what I'd like to see. An actual overclocker 650/680 board round-up for the 6320/6420 c2d chips with RAM people who are looking for the best bang-for-the-buck would actually buy.

    People who spend around $200-250 for the motherboard, $200-250 for quality, low-latency RAM, and $200 for the CPU.

    There's a lot of us and we'd love to know which board to buy and which RAM works best with it when oc'ing.
  • sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    The OCZ2N1066SR2GK only costs €208 here, that's SLI ready, 1066 MHz, 5-5-5-15, 2x 1GB.
    The OCZ2N900SR2GK only costs €192 here, that's SLI ready, 900 MHz, 4-4-3-15, 2x 1GB.
  • yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    This image link on page4 is different than the actual image:

    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/motherboards/a...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mot...sus/p5n3...
    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/motherboards/a...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mot...sus/p5n3...

    (I think one of the sample images is duplicated.)
  • JarredWalton - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    Did someone fix this? They are definitely different images for me, although only minor differences.
  • Marlowe - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    Very nice review - looks like a good board! After reading the article I have some questions:

    Isn't the 'Plus' moniker ment to mean some kind of functionality with Vista? I think I remember when some previous Asus board got a new revision and the got the Plus moniker, it also got a small PCB riser board attached below the IO area.. ReadyBoost or something? Does this board have that? It's not that copper square behind the LAN/USB connections? Or maby it's just a new name for their mid-range boards.

    Isn't that a 6-phase power circuit in the pics? I know the Asus site claims 8-phase, but they also have a wrong power circuit pic. The site also says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz," about the memory speed and doesn't mention support for EPP at all, so that must be wrong as well according to your article?

    In the expansion slot area you write "two PCI Express x1" but that's not so? Isn't the top slot for the "SupremeFX" audio riser board?

    In the Dual Core OC page, the E6300 has 2MB L2 not 4MB :)

    And a question: I have the Tuniq120 as well, and the fan is placed ~7 cm over the board and placed in an angle so I guess there aren't much airflow going to those heatpipe sinks. Did you have to use an additional fan over the cpu area while using the Tuniq120 heatsink and overclocking? So if overclocking you *have* to hang some fan with zip ties or something over that area? Thats a bit of a hassle isn't it :P

    Anyways very nice performing board :D Looks physically totally identical to the Asus P5N32-E SLI tho :D But
  • sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    The E Plus is ment as an upgrade to the E, it has all solid caps just as the Striker.

    The E, E Plus and Striker all use the same PCB (just look under the white sticker) and all have a 8 phase power design.

    All three have EPP and SLI Ready support up the 1200 (and the 1250 works as well).

    The top one can only be used for the riser.

    True.

    The Northbridge does get very hot, however using the heatpipes should be enough to reach 450. Any busspeed above 400 isn't recommended anyway because of the reduction of timing from the strap selection.

    True, they share the same PCB, this one has the same caps as the Striker.
  • R3MF - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    this mish-mash of different chipsets probably works fine under windows, because asus will provided a tailored nVidia driver to ensure it works.

    but they have always been rubbish at providing a linux variant of the proprietary systems design.

    can i use the standard release nVidia linux chipset drivers to use this board under linux?

    if the answer is 'no' then this board is garbage.
  • Gary Key - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    This board uses the standard NVIDIA 680i driver set in XP and Vista. I had no issues loading SUSE 10.2 on the board but did not test it extensively with RAID or other options. The ADI audio worked but not as well as the Realtek offerings on other boards.
  • yacoub - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    but only for you and the other handful of folks in that situation...
  • yyrkoon - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    Yes, and no. Because users are fed up with MS/WIndows/Vista, a lot of users are making the plunge into Linux.

    Anyhow, it is the softwares responcability to comply with the hardware, not vice versa(to a point that is, obviously the hardware does need to comply with each specification, IE SATA, IDE, x86, etc.), if Linux is to be taken seriously, the Linux dev teams NEED to write a module for every possible chipset out there . . . if not, then well, you will have what you currently have right now, an OS, that does not support near as many hardware configurations, as Windows does.

    Linux is a fun OS, and great for certain situations, but when you have problems like those caused by udev, and whatever else, you can not help but feel like it is not complete. Granted, the Linux dev teams for each distro, is usually much smaller than the teams that write code for Windows. End results however, tend to make this user feel as though Linux is a toy OS, with lots of work still needed. Ubuntu, is good for some situations, and a cutting edge Distro such as SabayonLinux, is also not without its quirks(but 'feels' very simular to Windows Vista.).

    The end result is: what do *you* expect from a free OS ? Personaly, I like each, for different reasons, but still consider Windows to be the only real serious OS, mainly because of support for many, if not nearly all forms of hardware. Look and feel also are a consideration, but Linux has been closing the gap here, for a long time now.

    Anyhow, that 'handful of users' is growing day by day, and is not really a 'handful' any more.
  • MrWizard6600 - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    I could really use to see one. I don't see the differances between this board and a regualar 680i chipset, aside from the northbridges being different (which you would think would impact total PCI-e lanes but... apparently not..).

    so can you put together a map?
  • sWORDs - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link

    Check this post, it's a dutch forum, but the first second and third table are english, and those are the ones you need.

    http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/...">http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/...
  • Gary Key - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link

    Let me see what we can create tomorrow.

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