Asus P5WD2-E Premium: Intel 975X for the Enthusiast
by Gary Key on January 16, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Audio Performance
The BlueGears/HDA Mystique 7.1 Gold has the highest overall CPU utilization rates of the audio solutions tested. BlueGears has confirmed a new driver release this month that will offer improved performance in several areas. The RealTek R1.29 driver release continues to improve CPU utilization rates over previous releases. The Sound Blaster X-FI has the lowest rates with the Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit solution on the Gigabyte 975X board following closely. Let's find out how these results translate into real world numbers.
Obviously, if you are a serious gamer, then a dedicated sound card is still a requirement to ensure consistent frame rate averages across a wide variety of games. We noticed in our Battlefield 2, Serious Sam II, and Half Life 2 testing that the ALC882M solution would stutter in intensive scenes, creating frame rates in the low teens momentarily. The 1.29 release has greatly improved the minimal frame rates, but certain sequences still stutter briefly compared to the other audio solutions. Gigabyte has provided updated drivers for the SB Live! 24-bit solution and we will post those results in the next article.
The ALC882M audio solution displayed excellent sound characteristics in music, video, DVD playback, and games throughout our testing and should seriously be considered as the main audio component if on-line gaming is not your priority. Specifications for the Realtek ALC88x audio family can be located here.
The BlueGears/HDA Mystique 7.1 Gold has the highest overall CPU utilization rates of the audio solutions tested. BlueGears has confirmed a new driver release this month that will offer improved performance in several areas. The RealTek R1.29 driver release continues to improve CPU utilization rates over previous releases. The Sound Blaster X-FI has the lowest rates with the Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit solution on the Gigabyte 975X board following closely. Let's find out how these results translate into real world numbers.
Obviously, if you are a serious gamer, then a dedicated sound card is still a requirement to ensure consistent frame rate averages across a wide variety of games. We noticed in our Battlefield 2, Serious Sam II, and Half Life 2 testing that the ALC882M solution would stutter in intensive scenes, creating frame rates in the low teens momentarily. The 1.29 release has greatly improved the minimal frame rates, but certain sequences still stutter briefly compared to the other audio solutions. Gigabyte has provided updated drivers for the SB Live! 24-bit solution and we will post those results in the next article.
The ALC882M audio solution displayed excellent sound characteristics in music, video, DVD playback, and games throughout our testing and should seriously be considered as the main audio component if on-line gaming is not your priority. Specifications for the Realtek ALC88x audio family can be located here.
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Dfere - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - link
Just bought this and I am having a problem even getting this to post. Fans boot and HD starts to boot. No video image, monitor resets and then blanks.I stripped out unnecesary components- still no joy.
I have an Thermaltake XaserIII 480 with adapter and EZ 4 plug molex connected.
SATA 1 Port using WD 80 gig HD
Pentium D 805 w/ stock heatsink.
Inno3d 6200 TC video in 1st PCI 16 slot.
2X1 Gig PNY memory in Black series of slots.
I will be trying to use only one stock of memory, and then will be taking MB out of case and trying to boot on non-conducitve surface. Anyone else got advice?
TechJunkie - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
I've had it now for almost a week and have started noticing problems. Many forums are now littered with complaints, mainly aimed at the Marvell issue.I mistakenly had set up my system the first time with the Intel chipset and using "Standard IDE"... system worked fine other than the issue with the Marvell. Benchmarks ran fine and 3DMark06 looked great.
I then reinstalled the OS, this time doing the PITA F6 procedure and set up the drives on the Intel controller using RAID (but didn't actually set up a RAID, simply wanted the AHCI with the ability to in the future set up RAID).
This morning I tried to run the 3DMark06 benchmark and while it ran to completion, the graphics screen seemed all corrupted throughout...I'm thinking power problem but it didn't have this issue last go around. Can setting up the drives differently have caused this from a power perspective or is this just one of the possibly many things wrong with this board?
I am wondering if I should RMA it back to zipzoom and get the Intel board, which has always been my choice, except this time the extra SATAII ports provided by the Marvell persuaded me to give ASUS a shot...ironic, isn't it!
In your opinion, based on what you know, will the issues with this board be resolved by BIOS/driver updates? It is a PITA to take my rig apart to swap out the motherboard but I will bite the bullet and get the Intel 975X board if this board can't be fixed via BIOS/driver updates.
medic91b2 - Monday, February 6, 2006 - link
I've had this m/b for a few week's and I have to say that it has many bug's in it. As far as i know, no one has gotten the marvell sata driver's to work and on the intel side people have gotten many mixed result's. I gave up trying to make a raid on this board. Asus support is nowere to be found, I think if any one want's to rate it then yhey should test all of the components of the boardGary Key - Saturday, February 11, 2006 - link
Email me and I will provide you with an updated bios that solves the USB issue and voltage spikes. I still have not had an issue with the Marvell RAID setup and two Raptors.
Zucker2k - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
Gary,Could you please e-mail me the updated bios? email: qommonsense@gmail.com. Thanks.
Richard.
Joepublic2 - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
As far as the motherboard goes, it looks pretty good. NB/SB are passively cooled, the layout is good and the MOSFETs are heatsinked (I've heard of problems with the voltage regulators on cheaper intel boards failing, often because they got too hot). I like how Anandtech's motherboard articles are very critical and mention things that other sites seem to glaze over, such as if the board's voltage regulator is three, four or eight phase.should read "processor's"
Gary Key - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
It is corrected. I had it marked on the final edit but missed it before publication, excuse the Homer moment please. :-) It is a good board but we felt like Asus did not go all the way on it and should have considering the price point. Although the board is not in retail yet we were somewhat disappointed with the bios also. Asus is working on a new release at this time and we hope to be able to test it in the next roundup.
ghg - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
HiWhen may we expect the ANANDTECH 975x shootout ?
BR
Gary G.
Gary Key - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
We should be finished in about three weeks. We have two additional boards in house and another two on their way. We will also have an overclocking shoot out with the Presler and Cedar Mill chips.
ghg - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
HiAny news about the 975x shootout ?
BR
Gary G.