ASUS P5E3 Deluxe: X38 and DDR3 arrives... almost
by Gary Key on September 18, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming and Graphics Performance
The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apples-to-apples comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations, they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks. In this sense we consider the 3DMark benchmarks to be purely synthetic in nature but still valuable for providing consistent measurements of performance.
In our 3DMark06 test, all of the boards are basically even in this test. When looking at the individual tests, the ASUS board scores slightly better in the SM2.0 and SM3.0 tests while the CPU scores are just about identical between all three boards - we'll ignore the ASUS board's seven point advantage.
In the more memory and CPU throughput sensitive 3DMark01 benchmark we see our ASUS P5E3 Deluxe board is around 1% faster. We believe Gigabyte still has some tuning left to complete with their DDR2 X38 board as it scored a fairly anemic 35311 with the memory set to DDR2-800 with 3-4-3-9 1T timings. The differences in performance are not really noticeable in either 3DMark unless you're looking to reach the top of the ORB, which we have a good feeling the X38 was designed to do with the right setup.
Gaming Performance
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a couple popular games. We ran our benchmarks at a 1280x1024 resolution with high quality settings
Battlefield 2
This benchmark is performed using DICE's built-in demo playback functionality with additional capture capabilities designed in house. During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a significant amount of smoke, explosions, and vehicle usage as this a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. We run Battlefield 2 using medium quality graphics settings available in the video settings. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game frame rates of 35 and up.
Prey
Prey offers some superb action sequences, unique weapons and characters, and is a visually stunning game at times. It still requires a very good GPU to run it with all of the eye candy turned on. We set all graphic settings to their maximum except for AA/AF and utilize a custom timedemo that takes place during one of the more action oriented sequences. We generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 35fps.
Gaming Summary
The ASUS P5E3 provides an almost 3% improvement in frame rates under BF2, which tends to be more CPU limited than most games, but in the latency sensitive Prey benchmark we find it falls about 5% behind the Gigabyte board. This is the only benchmark where we witnessed a measurable decrease in performance when utilizing DDR3 at 1066 on the X38 chipset. For now, we will chalk it up to the BIOS needing fine tuning as other latency sensitive benchmarks did not show this pattern in offline testing. Once we receive the shipping BIOS for the retail boards, we will revisit these same games and provide CrossFire results against the P35 and 975X equipped boards. However, the preliminary CrossFire results show minimal gains for the X38 over the 975X when comparing percentage increases between single and dual card configurations.
The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apples-to-apples comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations, they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks. In this sense we consider the 3DMark benchmarks to be purely synthetic in nature but still valuable for providing consistent measurements of performance.
In our 3DMark06 test, all of the boards are basically even in this test. When looking at the individual tests, the ASUS board scores slightly better in the SM2.0 and SM3.0 tests while the CPU scores are just about identical between all three boards - we'll ignore the ASUS board's seven point advantage.
In the more memory and CPU throughput sensitive 3DMark01 benchmark we see our ASUS P5E3 Deluxe board is around 1% faster. We believe Gigabyte still has some tuning left to complete with their DDR2 X38 board as it scored a fairly anemic 35311 with the memory set to DDR2-800 with 3-4-3-9 1T timings. The differences in performance are not really noticeable in either 3DMark unless you're looking to reach the top of the ORB, which we have a good feeling the X38 was designed to do with the right setup.
Gaming Performance
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a couple popular games. We ran our benchmarks at a 1280x1024 resolution with high quality settings
Battlefield 2
This benchmark is performed using DICE's built-in demo playback functionality with additional capture capabilities designed in house. During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a significant amount of smoke, explosions, and vehicle usage as this a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. We run Battlefield 2 using medium quality graphics settings available in the video settings. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game frame rates of 35 and up.
Prey
Prey offers some superb action sequences, unique weapons and characters, and is a visually stunning game at times. It still requires a very good GPU to run it with all of the eye candy turned on. We set all graphic settings to their maximum except for AA/AF and utilize a custom timedemo that takes place during one of the more action oriented sequences. We generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 35fps.
Gaming Summary
The ASUS P5E3 provides an almost 3% improvement in frame rates under BF2, which tends to be more CPU limited than most games, but in the latency sensitive Prey benchmark we find it falls about 5% behind the Gigabyte board. This is the only benchmark where we witnessed a measurable decrease in performance when utilizing DDR3 at 1066 on the X38 chipset. For now, we will chalk it up to the BIOS needing fine tuning as other latency sensitive benchmarks did not show this pattern in offline testing. Once we receive the shipping BIOS for the retail boards, we will revisit these same games and provide CrossFire results against the P35 and 975X equipped boards. However, the preliminary CrossFire results show minimal gains for the X38 over the 975X when comparing percentage increases between single and dual card configurations.
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Gary Key - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
We do not disable services as we try our best to mimic the user experience. Obviously, clearing the Prefetch folder does not allow that to happen but it is the only way to get consistent results. Over time we have seen the benchmark scores move up to 3% when leaving Prefetch enabled, does not sound like that much, but we try our best to keep the benchmark variables under 0.5% within the test suite. Also, Vista has just about doubled the time it takes to run the benchmark test suite, if you ever had an issue sleeping, just watch WorldBench 6.0 run five times in a row.FireTech - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Gary where are the promised µATX and P35 round-ups?After 6+months, you've run out of credit at the excuses bank. It's time to deliver on your promises, then you can get back to the Intel launch parties....
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
µATX G33 will be next Wednesday and will include the NV MCP73, the first P35 series will start this Friday with the Foxconn MARS board and the abit/Gigabyte mid-range boards late next week. The AMD µATX is scheduled on 10/2 with the budget P35 boards following on 10/5.FireTech - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
Sorry Gary but these similar words are still fresh in my memory:Are these new dates set in stone?
Gary Key - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
Still fresh in my memory also. ;-) Yes, the dates are set, the only one that might move a day or so is the second P35 article for late next week. AMD is going to have a Phenom/RD790 preview that I might have to attend next Thursday. Otherwise, the dates are good this time. Email me and I will explain the situation.JKing76 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
New chipset, great. Are we ever going to see the fucking micro-ATX roundup? And no, I don't count that bullshit "dedicated video is faster than integrated video" part 1 fluff.Nickel020 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Hey, thanks for throwinf us a bone Gary! ;)I was wondering what the max FSB of the exact CPU used in the tests was when using P35 boards? Thats one of the biggest hopes that people have for teh X38, that it will allow higher FSBs for quads, because as of now, most people can't get over around 450 FSB on a P35 when using a quad.
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
The max (stable) FSB of the Q6600 on the Blitz Extreme was 468, on the DFI P35-T2R (is an absolute knock out with the 9/13 beta bios) was 470, P5K Deluxe is 464, and abit IP35-Pro was 462. The X38, once mature, will really improve overclocking of the current processor lineup (until you hit the CPU FSB wall) but is really designed to shine with Penryn.However, I believe Intel has just about reached the limits of what they can do with the memory controller based on what we are seeing now, so stock performance is not going to vary that much from a P35 or even 680i/975x in most situations. It appears the BIOS spins are going to need a month or two to really extract the best performance out of the chipset, and DDR2 performance is not that impressive at this time. We will show numbers with DDR2-800 at 3-4-3-9 as a base and a really good P35 board is going to give some of these X38 boards a run for their money until you get the DDR2 speeds up around 1100.
My personal opinion is that the DDR2 X38 boards will quickly replace the upper end P35 boards in the market since the price points will be the same after the launch hysteria is over. Expect to see the P35 drop to the $75~$150 market only by early next year.
Nickel020 - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
Thanks a lot for the reply Gary!You got me thinking again though, I was just going to sell my P35 DS3 and keep the P35 DQ6 for Penryn. But maybe I should sell the DQ6 now as long as it's worth something and use the DS3 until X38 Boards are somewhat mature and then upgrade (and sell the DS3).
Do you think X38 DDR2 Boards will have a significant overclocking & performance advantage over P35 boards with Penryn?
Gary Key - Thursday, September 20, 2007 - link
They are showing around a 5%~9% improvement currently, but I have not received a P35 optimized BIOS for Penryn yet, but then again, the X38 BIOS releases are still immature. We will know more in a couple of weeks I think but right now, unless you go DDR3, not seeing any real performance improvements with DDR2 on the retail X38 boards, a couple of percent here and there but the DFI P35-TR2 board is faster than the X38 DDR2 boards I have right now for single card GPU situations. Still waiting on another BIOS release or two before publishing the final numbers. ;-)