ASUS Maximus Formula SE: X38 and DDR2 Unite!
by Rajinder Gill on November 9, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Conclusion
The term "underwhelming" was used by us in our introduction to describe our sentiments about the X38 in DDR2 configurations. After testing the ASUS Maximus Formula SE for the past few weeks, the initial memory latency and bandwidth figures had us feeling exactly that way too. Of course, recent BIOS updates have improved the situation and once we broke past the synthetic memory benchmarks, it became clear that real world gaming or application usage does not suffer at all from the apparent synthetic deficit at equivalent processor speeds. We did find this board to be very quick and certainly worthy of attention for those looking to build a premium gaming platform or for the enthusiast looking to get the most out of their processor while utilizing DDR2 memory technology.
The lack of memory divider options to really push the board seems to be an issue from Intel's end, as the Gigabyte/MSI/Foxconn/abit X38 motherboards suffer the same malady. For DDR2 users, the decision of which chipset to buy can be summed up by considering whether or not you intend to run two graphics cards in Crossfire mode or do not plan on upgrading to Penryn shortly. For single GPU systems, we think a sub $175 P35 motherboard like the abit IP35 Pro is an excellent purchase while tweakaholics will have the superlative DFI LP UT P35 T2R, fulfilling the upper-end enthusiast role. However, considering the quickly maturing BIOS releases and the additional performance gains that come with them, we are no longer adverse to recommending an X38 DDR2 board. If we had to make a choice today, the ASUS Maximus Formula SE would be at the top of our X38 DDR2 list.
So, apart from running Crossfire in dual x16 mode and having a fairly tweakable BIOS, where does this leave the ASUS Maximus Formula? On the plus side, the latest BIOS releases are maturing rapidly, and we have found no real incompatibility issues using XP or Vista with a wide variety of components. Though the BIOS is touted as being for the "Extreme Tweaker", it's very easy to use. There are a few quirks to auto overclocking with the 0505 BIOS, voltages tend to drift towards the high side, at times outside the realms of safety in our opinion. This is why we suggest using manual settings as the best overclocking option for long term use. The bios recovery system worked flawlessly after a failed overclock setting and continues to be the best in the industry. We also found the features available on the board and the component choices utilized are excellent for the most part.
Our biggest gripes revolve around the somewhat disappointing execution of the supplied water block design and unreliable 1/2" tubing clamps when using high flow rate pumps. Sure, we love the concept - a single water block cooling two key areas of the motherboard, saving a lot of user cost and PC case clutter. Unfortunately, the bonding of the block to the Northbridge heatsink makes the whole water-cooling concept almost meaningless with our particular board sample. In non-modified form, the differences between running air rather than water to cool the Northbridge are virtually nonexistent. We have passed our suggestions to ASUS, who seem very willing to explore ways of improving the current design. Given the choice of spending in excess of $70 for two good water blocks to cover the Northbridge, and Southbridge, we prefer a well-implemented single block solution from ASUS. We have expressed our concerns to ASUS and they have shipped us a new board to test that hopefully resolves this problem.
We want ASUS to continue supplying their easy to use BIOS tweaking functions for mass audiences, though we feel that they do not need to combine "tweaker" functions under a respun marketing slogan. The current inclusion of a very limited and coarse GTL reference adjustment, "Transaction Booster", "Static Read Control" and "Clock Twister" actually prevents the enthusiast from full and flexible control, especially when the motherboard is pushed really hard (which it probably will be considering its target market). In this price class we need the option of full tweaking - certainly if a board is marketed as "Extreme Tweaker" as it should offer just that. ASUS definitely faces some stiff competition from Gigabyte, whose GA-X38-DQ6 offers nearly the same performance and features, bar the water-cooling out of the box. Then we have the possibility of DFI's and abit's X38 DDR2 offerings complicating choices even further. Oh, we also forgot the upcoming X48 chipset, which is bound to be more than just a speed binned X38 but is still targeted for the DDR3 performance crowd.
Extreme benchmarkers do make up a small percentage of the overall PC market, yet the success of an enthusiast level product hinges largely upon their opinion. The current buzzword in the benching scene is DDR3 and ASUS has its grip firmly on that market, with their DDR3 boards (Maximus/Formula Extreme) holding most of the Futuremark 3D world records. This leaves the appeal of current DDR2 X38 boards to early adopters who are either running CrossFire, waiting for a DDR3 price drop, or for Penryn to finally arrive. We have to acknowledge that the real test for supremacy between the X38 and P35 is yet to come - by that we are referring to the Penryn based processors that will be hitting retail shelves shortly. Once users have retail silicon on hand, it will be interesting to see how well both chipsets handle high FSB rates on the new processors. In our early testing, the nod goes to the X38 and is one more reason to consider the chipset once it matures. More than ever in this segment of the market, it's still all about features and overclocking. In this regard, we have to give the ASUS Maximus Formula SE a passing grade, and a recommended buy when looking at the current X38 offerings.
The term "underwhelming" was used by us in our introduction to describe our sentiments about the X38 in DDR2 configurations. After testing the ASUS Maximus Formula SE for the past few weeks, the initial memory latency and bandwidth figures had us feeling exactly that way too. Of course, recent BIOS updates have improved the situation and once we broke past the synthetic memory benchmarks, it became clear that real world gaming or application usage does not suffer at all from the apparent synthetic deficit at equivalent processor speeds. We did find this board to be very quick and certainly worthy of attention for those looking to build a premium gaming platform or for the enthusiast looking to get the most out of their processor while utilizing DDR2 memory technology.
The lack of memory divider options to really push the board seems to be an issue from Intel's end, as the Gigabyte/MSI/Foxconn/abit X38 motherboards suffer the same malady. For DDR2 users, the decision of which chipset to buy can be summed up by considering whether or not you intend to run two graphics cards in Crossfire mode or do not plan on upgrading to Penryn shortly. For single GPU systems, we think a sub $175 P35 motherboard like the abit IP35 Pro is an excellent purchase while tweakaholics will have the superlative DFI LP UT P35 T2R, fulfilling the upper-end enthusiast role. However, considering the quickly maturing BIOS releases and the additional performance gains that come with them, we are no longer adverse to recommending an X38 DDR2 board. If we had to make a choice today, the ASUS Maximus Formula SE would be at the top of our X38 DDR2 list.
So, apart from running Crossfire in dual x16 mode and having a fairly tweakable BIOS, where does this leave the ASUS Maximus Formula? On the plus side, the latest BIOS releases are maturing rapidly, and we have found no real incompatibility issues using XP or Vista with a wide variety of components. Though the BIOS is touted as being for the "Extreme Tweaker", it's very easy to use. There are a few quirks to auto overclocking with the 0505 BIOS, voltages tend to drift towards the high side, at times outside the realms of safety in our opinion. This is why we suggest using manual settings as the best overclocking option for long term use. The bios recovery system worked flawlessly after a failed overclock setting and continues to be the best in the industry. We also found the features available on the board and the component choices utilized are excellent for the most part.
Our biggest gripes revolve around the somewhat disappointing execution of the supplied water block design and unreliable 1/2" tubing clamps when using high flow rate pumps. Sure, we love the concept - a single water block cooling two key areas of the motherboard, saving a lot of user cost and PC case clutter. Unfortunately, the bonding of the block to the Northbridge heatsink makes the whole water-cooling concept almost meaningless with our particular board sample. In non-modified form, the differences between running air rather than water to cool the Northbridge are virtually nonexistent. We have passed our suggestions to ASUS, who seem very willing to explore ways of improving the current design. Given the choice of spending in excess of $70 for two good water blocks to cover the Northbridge, and Southbridge, we prefer a well-implemented single block solution from ASUS. We have expressed our concerns to ASUS and they have shipped us a new board to test that hopefully resolves this problem.
We want ASUS to continue supplying their easy to use BIOS tweaking functions for mass audiences, though we feel that they do not need to combine "tweaker" functions under a respun marketing slogan. The current inclusion of a very limited and coarse GTL reference adjustment, "Transaction Booster", "Static Read Control" and "Clock Twister" actually prevents the enthusiast from full and flexible control, especially when the motherboard is pushed really hard (which it probably will be considering its target market). In this price class we need the option of full tweaking - certainly if a board is marketed as "Extreme Tweaker" as it should offer just that. ASUS definitely faces some stiff competition from Gigabyte, whose GA-X38-DQ6 offers nearly the same performance and features, bar the water-cooling out of the box. Then we have the possibility of DFI's and abit's X38 DDR2 offerings complicating choices even further. Oh, we also forgot the upcoming X48 chipset, which is bound to be more than just a speed binned X38 but is still targeted for the DDR3 performance crowd.
Extreme benchmarkers do make up a small percentage of the overall PC market, yet the success of an enthusiast level product hinges largely upon their opinion. The current buzzword in the benching scene is DDR3 and ASUS has its grip firmly on that market, with their DDR3 boards (Maximus/Formula Extreme) holding most of the Futuremark 3D world records. This leaves the appeal of current DDR2 X38 boards to early adopters who are either running CrossFire, waiting for a DDR3 price drop, or for Penryn to finally arrive. We have to acknowledge that the real test for supremacy between the X38 and P35 is yet to come - by that we are referring to the Penryn based processors that will be hitting retail shelves shortly. Once users have retail silicon on hand, it will be interesting to see how well both chipsets handle high FSB rates on the new processors. In our early testing, the nod goes to the X38 and is one more reason to consider the chipset once it matures. More than ever in this segment of the market, it's still all about features and overclocking. In this regard, we have to give the ASUS Maximus Formula SE a passing grade, and a recommended buy when looking at the current X38 offerings.
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takumsawsherman - Saturday, November 10, 2007 - link
Now, we have a close to $300 board, and what we get for that is no Firewire800 support. Amazing. But the sick part is that for $300, you also don't get:1. PS/2 mouse. Obviously too expensive to implement.
2. Poorly attached cooling (a perennial issue dating back at least to A7N8X 2.0)
3. No parallel or serial, not that anyone would use it. But I'm looking for something they could maybe afford to add when you drop $300 on a motherboard.
4. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see eSATA, either.
What a waste of time. Heck, I think the Tyan 1846S/L/A from 1998 had more features, and for $115. At the time, that seemed expensive. Great board, with great support. Now, off to the forums to see what issues the Maximus users are having. I'm betting it's not been all fun and games for them.
Speaking of fun and games, in 1999, Tyan had a board with a front panel socket surrounding the front panel headers. When I called them, they said they were pushing for a standard interface for that pain in the butt stuff nobody likes to install. One connector. Never happened. Now, Asus should do the same thing. Instead of just moving it out of the case (which is better than the current system, I admit), why not put the connector on the board, and push other mobo manufacturers and case manufacturers to support it.
GlassHouse69 - Sunday, November 11, 2007 - link
yeah. parallel and serialthey are actually useful if you just dont load up your ipod and play l33t games that pwn.
no firewire 800 also. it would be like a 50 cent piece of hardware. id say most 2 dollars.
300 dollars equates to 15 dollars of rediculous cooler that is not needed, 25 dollars at most for the board, and the rest kiddie shit ripoff. People forget the articles 2 years about how much really a "high end" motherboard should cost.
thanks for playing.
LoneWolf15 - Sunday, November 11, 2007 - link
I couldn't agree more on the PS/2 ports. ASUS' decision to do this on their recent boards has caused me to strike them from my list. I use a KVM to allow me to troubleshoot the systems of others, and PS/2 still works the best for me in this.No eSATA ports on the backplate would be forgivable on a board that didn't cost this much, but at near $300, it's ridiculous. Admittedly, eSATA is kind of a future thing, but for the price, you should expect some future proofing. (I checked ASUS' website and found no mention of an eSATA port bracket either, so I'm guessing it's not there)
I no longer need parallel, though serial is occasionally useful for console-port programming. As for FireWire 800, as much as I'd like to see it adopted, so far it's just not happening on the PC, and I won't fault ASUS for that.
I think Gigabyte's GA-X38-DQ6 offers a better layout in almost every way except maybe the SATA ports (which is a judgement call - I like the front-port connectors ASUS uses, but they won't work well for every case). And Gigabyte is smart enough to provide both PS/2 ports while still fitting more USB ports, dual FireWire, and all the requisite audio ports. Gigabyte also has a well thought out eSATA port bracket.
ASUS just loses out on this one. (note: that said, I'll never pay $300 for a mainboard.)
Missing Ghost - Saturday, November 10, 2007 - link
I fully agree with you. 300$ is a lot for a board, for that price you can expect workstation quality. eSATA and serial COM ports are definitely ports that I do use. Also I'm sure the board has tons of problems since it's made by ASUS.Axbattler - Saturday, November 10, 2007 - link
1. I am not too offended by that. At least it has two more USB ports than Abit's iX38 Quad-GT. That said, Gigabyte can fit both two PS/2 and 8 USB ports in some boards (those without Serial/Parallel ports). It comes down to the connectivity you need - there is a finite amount of space at the back and you will sacrifice something. I'll take two USB ports over one PS/2.2. Problematic indeed.
3. Goes back to point 1. I think it's acceptable for parallel or serial to go. Although optional brackets would've been nice. For the cost though, it is more appropriate in my view to see Firewire 800..
4. ...and eSATA. What were they thinking? They are basically saying that if you want X38 and eSATA, you have to get a DDR3 boards.
It looks like while price of Intel CPU today do not have a big mark up compared to AMD at their peak, top end motherboards based on the S775 is a lot more expensive than similarly classed motherboard back then. I remember that Asus's motherboard around the 939 chipset were around £130 back then, somewhat comparable than their top P35 offering today, but well short of most of their x38 - and the MaximusExtreme is close to £200.
Raja Gill - Saturday, November 10, 2007 - link
Some of the points made do show how the makret for extreme products has changed over the last 18 months. For the ROG boards, the users who provide the greatest amount of 'heard' feedback are generally the extreme users. This is probably why the emphasis has shifted away from entry 'workstation level' ports. The ragged edge top end enthusiasts do not seem to mind sacrificing the additional ports for additional board speed, as they would see it at least. Additional peripheral ports do require extra BIOS code and onboard resources (not a great excuse from me, but one of the only ones I can really give). There is of course no justification one can provide in either direction that satisfies both types of users requirements. We can guess that cost and profit margins play a large part in decisions too. What we have seen in recent years is Asus also offerring 'WS' boards that are aimed at overall compatibility and the ports that general PC users deem essential. At this time we have no idea at this time if a WS level variant featuring the X38 chipset is planned.regards guys
Raja
Axbattler - Saturday, November 10, 2007 - link
Is the ROG series significantly better than the WS series when it comes to board speed/tweaks? Which board (out of any manufacturers) have the best fan monitoring/control of all (and in the event of a tie - which has the best layout/connectivity)?IntelUser2000 - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
Boo on the useless expensive products!! Chipsets are the least beneficial in terms of R&D spent.carpediem2u - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
I was wondering about this question due to this article.Could it be possible to disable of the dual cores in a Quad core CPU?
Since they are made of two dual core CPU's?
Raja Gill - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
There is no function in 0505 BIOS to turn off a core or cores, I have not tried the later BIOS releases...