ASUS P5E3 Deluxe Overclocking: DDR3 Takes Front Stage
by Kris Boughton on November 20, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Conclusion (Part I)
The more time we spend working with DDR3, the more we understand its potential benefits. After spending a week working with memory speeds in excess of 1.8GHz, we find ourselves wondering how we can ever possibly go back to DDR2. Of course, that only lasts until we check our bank accounts. Even though our results may not be enough to truly substantiate such an expensive purchase, we're confident prices will soon begin their descent and DDR3 will eventually find a home in every enthusiast's system. Additionally, while we would like to see a larger performance gain moving from DDR2 to DDR3, as with most top-bin hardware the margin between first and second place is hardly a whisper. Given time to fully mature, DDR3 will become the new de-facto standard in high-performance memory and is something we look forward to, once the costs are no longer prohibitive.
Considering the market placement of the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe, we find the board exceedingly well equipped and capable when placed side-by-side with the usual gambit of competitors. Although not implicitly marketed toward the extreme overclocking crowd, the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe stands its ground and finds a place near the top of our list of favorite overclocking boards. ASUS assures us they are committed to the practice of ongoing support and plan on continuing in their tradition of improvement and innovation with each new BIOS release. In fact, we've already seen several changes in the time that it took to complete this review.
Those that find themselves looking for the ultimate "tweaker" motherboard would do better selecting either the ASUS Maximus Formula/Extreme or the DFI UT P35-T2R. However, what the P5E3 Deluxe lacks in tweaking options it makes up for with performance and features. Check back soon for the second edition (Part II) of our ASUS P5E3 overclocking guide, where we'll be strapping Intel's new Core2 Extreme QX9650 processor into the board and watching for magic to happen as we show how well the new Yorkfield series overclocks.
The more time we spend working with DDR3, the more we understand its potential benefits. After spending a week working with memory speeds in excess of 1.8GHz, we find ourselves wondering how we can ever possibly go back to DDR2. Of course, that only lasts until we check our bank accounts. Even though our results may not be enough to truly substantiate such an expensive purchase, we're confident prices will soon begin their descent and DDR3 will eventually find a home in every enthusiast's system. Additionally, while we would like to see a larger performance gain moving from DDR2 to DDR3, as with most top-bin hardware the margin between first and second place is hardly a whisper. Given time to fully mature, DDR3 will become the new de-facto standard in high-performance memory and is something we look forward to, once the costs are no longer prohibitive.
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Considering the market placement of the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe, we find the board exceedingly well equipped and capable when placed side-by-side with the usual gambit of competitors. Although not implicitly marketed toward the extreme overclocking crowd, the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe stands its ground and finds a place near the top of our list of favorite overclocking boards. ASUS assures us they are committed to the practice of ongoing support and plan on continuing in their tradition of improvement and innovation with each new BIOS release. In fact, we've already seen several changes in the time that it took to complete this review.
Those that find themselves looking for the ultimate "tweaker" motherboard would do better selecting either the ASUS Maximus Formula/Extreme or the DFI UT P35-T2R. However, what the P5E3 Deluxe lacks in tweaking options it makes up for with performance and features. Check back soon for the second edition (Part II) of our ASUS P5E3 overclocking guide, where we'll be strapping Intel's new Core2 Extreme QX9650 processor into the board and watching for magic to happen as we show how well the new Yorkfield series overclocks.
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frede86 - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - link
hey folksnice guide u made there m8.
but ive tryed to use that setup u recomment.
but doenst work. how come? is it because i use a dou core E8500?
Cheers
frede86 - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - link
Core 2 dou*cEvin Ki - Saturday, February 23, 2008 - link
after reading the information on the AI transaction booster, and the Memset program, i decided to brave up, and give it a go. Memset indicated that my performance level was a 7. as my ddr2 CAS was 4, i assumed that the bios was relaxing my system a little. i simply disabled the booster option in bios with a relax of zero. rebooted, and re-ran Memset. nothing had changed. still a 7. any settings other than disabled and zero, in bios, will not POST. Memset allowed me to change the performance level to 6, apply, and save the change. nothing has changed in bios as a result of that change.my question is, what am i doing wrong, as i would expect to have seen something different in Memset with changing the bios to disabled and in effect lessening the relax?
i apologize if i have somehow missed the whole point, and do not understand this memory tweaking concept.
thanks
jwigi - Thursday, February 14, 2008 - link
Hi I have a P5k Premium and the contact between the heatsinks and the board aren't very good, i was wondering what size of screw you used and also if you needed to put any springs on them, i'm thinking of doing the same 'mod' you've done in your article on my board...thanks
plextor10000 - Thursday, January 10, 2008 - link
I was already one day playing with the settings of the mainboard, first tried to boost the E6850 from default 3Ghz to 3.6 , but could not make it stable in benchmarksSwitched to the Q6600 - and followed the guide , decrease the voltage for the CPU to 1.375 , for safety .
After step by step, i increased from 2.4 without any issue to 3.6 , running stable with my patriot 1333 on 1600
Thank you for this guide. Can i use the same settings for the E6850 also , or do i modyfie some settings to blaze the clocks of it ??
Ryujin - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
I recently got this board, and after reading this article, I really want to follow the advice therein and remove the thermal pads underneath the heatpipes/heatsinks and replace them with thermal paste, and replace all the plastic push-pins with screws/nuts.I've yet to start fiddling with the board, as I am still waiting for the CPU to arrive. A few pieces of advice I was looking for to ease my mind though:
- Would I be mad using Arctic Silver thermal compound, considering conductivity issues? (I could get ceramique, which is non-conductive, but it'll take quite a while, through the channels I wish to use).
- What diameter / length screws do you recommend? I figure 10mm M3 screws with lock nuts should do the trick... If they're too long, I should be able to screw them in with the heads facing the MB-tray.
- I'm going with a liquid cooling solution for my CPU. The P5E3 Deluxe included two fans that can be placed atop the heatsinks surrounding the CPU-socket for just such an occasion. However, I suspect they're rather noisy (are they?). Also, the case I'm using is the Coolermaster Cosmos, which does have ample chassi fans, so I'm wondering it is really necessary (time will tell, but I was wondering if anyone has any opinions on the subject).
cheers
kmmatney - Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - link
OK, looking at the graphs, it just seems like all I'm seeing is the benchmarks getting better with higher overall cpu speed. The overclocking guide was good, but the benchmarks are hard to figure out, since memory speed and cpu speed are getting higher at the same time.kmmatney - Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - link
OK, figured it out - we just need to compare the Asus P5E3 scores versus the Asus Maximums scores at (8 X 465) to see how much DDR3 improves things over DDR2. Seems to be 1%-5%. Yawn...TA152H - Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - link
When I read the article for the x48, I mentioned that it made no sense for the three chipsets unless the x48 was DDR3 only. Well, I have found out from another site that it will be DDR3 only.That makes the x38 really only useful as a DDR2 chipset, after the x48 is available. This assumes Intel did the right thing of course, and all the ugly overhead for DDR2 is removed from the x48. But if it is, you'd have to be a fool to buy the x38 with DDR3, since it is second best, and has overhead from a function that will not be present on the motherboard. It will give you more heat, and more power use for something that is completely useless. I didn't like Intel including both, but I guess it was to transition to DDR3, so it was a necessary evil until the x48 comes out.
retrospooty - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
actually, that isnt true. X48 is just an X38 selected out of speed bin to be the fastest. They were going to market it as only DDR3 (that was a marketing decision not a functionality decision) but have since changed their minds.http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_conte...">http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio...amp;task...
Either way your arguments are pretty one sided. Even with DDR3 highly overclocked to 2ghz its really only a slight bit faster then DDR2. In fact DDR2 at 1000mhz 4-4-4 beats DDR3 at 2000mhz @ 9-9-9 in most real world tests and apps. Intel is currently going with tri-channel DDR3 on the next gen CPU (nehalem) with internal memory controller. Then and ONLY then is DDR3 going to be worthwhile, and even then its only worthwhile because Nehalem chipsets wont support DDR2. DDR3 is a minor speed bump not worthy of spending money on until Nehalem comes out.