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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strikeback03 - Thursday, September 20, 2007 - link
My question about the heatpipe cooling is related to this:So why are these companies creating cooling solutions that work best with inferior CPU cooling? The heatpipe towers and water certainly seem to be the best CPU cooling, but the board cooling system looks like it was designed to work with the stock Intel cooler.
mostlyprudent - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
I couldn't be happier to see the passive heatpipe cooling. After reading the reports of the X38 being a "hot" chipset, I was worried that I would be back to screaming/failing little chipset fans...whew...thank goodness.n0nsense - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
there always water cooling option. which i'm thinking about.One circuit for CPU, GPU, NB and SB (like Nautilus 500) + Termalright for mofsets should be perfect for sane overclocking and quiet PC.
Etern205 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
I guess what they mean by "upside down" is do not install into aBTX case?
n0nsense - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
No, they meant that the only (the best) way to install this boards is when CPU socket located on the upper side.look at the picture of CS-718. in this case CPU socket is in the lowest part. This mean that hotest part of heatpipe system is higher then coolest. Heatpipe working the best when coolant vaporized at hotest part, then liquefied at coolest (radiators). Liquefied coolant should return somehow to the hotest part (chipset), and when motherboard "normally" this done by gravity. When the board installed in "upside-down" or horizontally, this SHOULD be done by capillaries, which are way less effective according to Asus support and wiki.
Etern205 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
I was right about this "do not install into a BTX case"The Enermax CS-718 supports ATX motherboards, but the design is based on the BTX specs.
On a correct ATX case, if the back of the case if facing you, then you will open the panel on the right. And when the opening is facing you the front will face to the right.
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2901/1015uh6.jp...">Image
As for BTX if it's place into the same position, then you will open the panel on the left, which is what the Enermax CS-718 is designed to be and when the opening is facing you the front will face to the left. http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6379/1007xq2.jp...">Image
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
FYI, I deleted your (numerous) multiple posts. A little bit of patience goes a long way. Once or twice I can understand, but three sets of multiple posts? Hopefully that was just a weird error on the part of your system.n0nsense - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
it is a problem with my computer @ work.I guess it's caused by Synergy.
Anyway, thank you for clearing my extra messages. It's sad that i can't remove or edit my own messages.
n0nsense - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
it is a problem with my computer @ work.I guess it's caused by Synergy.
Anyway, thank you for clearing my extra messages. It's sad that i can't remove or edit my own messages.
8steve8 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
is the intel g35 chipset launching with the x38? if not, when will it launch?while the x38 doesnt offer much tangable to the users of p35 or 965p, especially those of us that are sane (ddr2 users), the g35 appears to offer a vastly improved 3d engine, and native hdmi support. "vastly improved" over the g965 and g33, which, for example, i can play warcraft3 at 1600x1200 w/full settings... this is onboard video... very impressive.