ASUS P5N-E SLI - Testing
(Page 4 of 4 )
Testing
There aren’t a whole lot of benchmarks that will utilize and show noticeable gains for motherboards, but here are a few tests. I will compare this to the Abit IP35-E. It should be a good comparison. If you want SLI, of course there is only one option in this test, the ASUS P5N-E SLI. Here is a look at the rest of the hardware:
Intel Pentium 2140
Abit IP35-E
ASUS P5N-E SLI
2 GB OCZ Gold GX XTC
MSI 8600 GT OC
OCZ Powerstream 520 watt
WinRAR
This benchmark uses some important parts of the motherboard: the CPU, the memory, the chipset, and the southbridge. This test will see how fast the PC can compress and extract data. Higher speeds are better.
Super Pi
This benchmark computes the numbers of pi. It will need input from the memory, CPU and chipset.
3DMark 06
This is the benchmark of benchmarks. Everyone will benchmark different games, but you will always see this benchmark run.
The results are close, but the ASUS P5N-E SLI with help from its 650i SLI chipset beats the Abit IP35-E with the P35 chipset. These results differed some from what I was expecting, as I’ve seen reports where the P35 chipset is quicker then the 650i.
I was a little suspicious about my results. I came to the conclusion that it was due to the ASUS BIOS being more mature and optimized. I checked some of the change logs for the different BIOSs and found that ASUS has spent some time optimizing a few BIOSs. This is in contrast to Abit’s BIOS that had actually hurt performance, but did fix the dual boot issue the board was having.
In a few months this might be an interesting thing to come back to. The original BIOS for the Abit P35 motherboard shipped with a better performance BIOS at first, but it had the bad double boot issue. I hope to see the best of both worlds combined soon.
Conclusion
The ASUS P5N-E SLI is a great motherboard. It starts with the chipset, which is a total turnaround from the first nVidia chipsets for Intel. ASUS has added all the features you would expect. It is a very well-designed motherboard, except for one part. The socket area is way too crowded and makes it very difficult if not impossible to use some larger coolers. The chipset cooler is a fire waiting to happen. I have never felt anything that hot before.
I have to point out, again, that you get two IDE connectors. This is a lifesaver for those with IDE hard drives and DVD burners. Overclocking was a breeze with this motherboard; I was able to easily reach the max for my CPU. ASUS has done some fine work with the BIOS to get this board flying. I would have given this motherboard a DevHardware Recommended award, but the motherboard not being able to work with big coolers is a killer. If you are not going to use a big cooler, this is a very solid and reliable board for you.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
| Recommended by Dev Hardware |
|---|
|
