FIRST LOOK: Asus P5AD2-E - 1066FSB & DDR2-711
by Wesley Fink on November 29, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Our Take
Take our Gold Editors Choice P5AD2 Premium, update the chipset to 925XE, and further refine the BIOS adjustments. You've just created the P5AD2-E. The latest Asus Intel board does a great job of extracting whatever performance is available from a 1066FSB 3.46EE. This will come as a surprise to no one, as Asus has a long tradition of tweaking their very best boards to make them even better.It would be a mistake, however, to overlook the potential of the P5AD2-E to extract even more performance from an 800 CPU than you can achieve with the regular 925X version of the Asus. New to the 925XE version is the option to run memory at DDR2-711 while the CPU runs at 533. You also have really excellent adjustment ranges for squeezing the most from any quality DDR2 memory that you care to install in this 925XE board. Most of these enhanced adjustment ranges will likely find their way into the earlier P5AD2, but keep in mind that support for both 1066 and 800 will not be an option for the earlier 925X board.
Does 1066 support really matter? From a stock performance standpoint, we would say' "No, it doesn't." But the added flexibility for squeezing top performance from other components is very useful. If and when more processors show up that support 1066, we may actually find the 1066 option even more useful.
For now, we would definitely choose the 925XE Asus over the 925X if the prices are close. It is just a little bit faster and a lot more flexible; that is, if you are looking for and insist on an Intel motherboard. The Athlon 64 processor is faster than Intel in most applications and the A64 boards are a better choice if top performance is your goal. However, Intel has narrowed the gap recently with the introduction of the 3.8GHz and next year, things will likely get tighter between Intel and AMD. Our biggest concern, and it's a huge reservation, is the super premium price demanded for the Asus P5AD2/E motherboards. While the price has dropped in the past 3 months, these boards are still priced between $250 and $300 - a lot of money for a motherboard. However, if you want the best Intel motherboard that you can buy, the Asus P5AD2-E is still likely your best choice. The 1066 processor cost is also a hard pill to swallow at over $1000, especially when the 3.46EE is outperformed by many lower cost Athlon 64 processors.
It is still early in the 925XE introductions and something better might yet come along. For now the Asus P5AD2-E is the best Intel motherboard that you can buy. The Asus matches the overclocking capabilities of the Abit AA8XE, and the Asus P5AD2-E is consistently the fastest board at stock speeds.
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ceefka - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
oh yeah and of course EE, 1-2MB caches.ceefka - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
#12 Makes you wonder why Asus would go through their trouble ;-) The 1394b is nice of course, but not with a CPU like that. If a boost in FSB isn't doing it for Intel, then what will?#8 I have been wondering about Intel's answer to AMD64 since it came out. There's no (real) answer still, but we've seen Prescott, 1066 FSB, DDR2, BTX and 3.8GHz. They're missing a key element to improve performance and it's not been in the above.
jimmy43 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
This is depressing...I honestly dont see the point of any of these intel reviews, its like their purpose is to remind us occasionaly about that other company that makes cpus, what was their name? OH RIGHT! IntelAikouka - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
It's nice to see ASUS whomp on the sell-out and his fancy little board ;). But I think the Gigabyte NF4 board Anandtech showed a little bit ago may either win or tie in features. The Gigabyte board does lack an awesome sound codec, though.Maybe nVidia will be the saving grace of Intel like it was for AMD back in the nForce 2 days. We certainly know VIA wasn't helping to raise performance by a lot :P.
j@cko - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
Obviously, Intel didn't learn from it's previous lessons..j@cko - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
Moving to new standard is a rather old trick from Intel. If you look back at Pentium III with PC1333 in which involved VIA's PC133 and INtel's RAMBUS...Now, Intel is doing it again... While cannot beat AMD with its DDR, they move on to DDR II...
overclockingoodness - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
It is being speculated that dual-core from Intel and AMD will bring them closer in performance, but until then Intel is in deep waters. Seriously, what was the world's largest chip maker thinking by moving to newer standards so suddenly?While Intel is facing some serious loses right now, I have a feeling that Intel may get the last laugh in a couple years when it is back in lead. By that time, all these technologies will mature and slowly start to spread out in the market. AMD is moving to PCIe soon so that's good news, but what about DDR2?
Ah well, it's a constant debate that will never settle. :)
Bozo Galora - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
Intel has checkmated itself.They have no options - except dual core.
robbase29a - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
So Mr. Fink, did you say that you can put an intel 560 in this and it would still work, and probably work better than in a 925x motherboard? I would like to see those numbers along with some overclocking numbers too.bob661 - Monday, November 29, 2004 - link
Oh, one more thing. Let the flaming begin!!!!!