ASUS P5K Deluxe - Intel P35 Bearlake + E6600 B1 / Q6600 B3
After setting up my P5K Deluxe the other night, I decided to start off with my old trusty E6600 B1 ES cpu so as to be able to compare temps and results with my other motherboard adventures with the same cpu.
The P5K Deluxe shipped with 0123 bios but was updated to latest 0304 bios and flashed using USB drive and Ez Flash 2 in bios. You can see the bios screen shots here.
Asus P5K Deluxe Photos
Notes: - Will be continually updated as I progress.
- Added: June 13th, 2007: Confirmation from bingo13/Gary from Anandtech here, black dimm slots are designed to be optimised for higher memory clocks/low latency clocks compared to yellow dimm slots. I found this out went revisiting Corsair 10000C5D Dominators in black dimm slots here.
- Heads up for folks with PS/2 mouse, these new Asus P5K/P5K3 Deluxe boards removed the mouse PS/2 port in favour of USB mouse devices. So if you have a PS/2 mouse you'd either need to grab a USB mouse or PS/2 to USB adaptor http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/show_p...de]=CB-SKUSBPS. Unfortunately, for me that particular adaptor didn't work with my KVM switch mouse PS/2 connector cable so a USB mouse was needed.
- Recovery from failed overclocks seems to be much better on Asus P5K Deluxe. Just turning off from power switch and powering psu off, wait a bit and power psu back on and power up would initiate the recovery mode - I see the bios detecting cpu at default 9x266FSB for my E6600 so i can F1 back into bios to set proper settings. No need for clear CMOS so far
- Memory dividers available on Asus P5K Deluxe depend on the FSB Frequency set. Not all FSB Frequencies have all dividers available for them (well for 266FSB at least haven't tested the rest yet).
- At 266FSB you have access to DDR2-667 (4:5), DDR2-800 (2:3), DDR2-889 (3:5), and DDR2-1067 (1:2). Photo
- At 333FSB there's DDR2-667 (1:1), DDR2-800 (5:6), DDR2-833 (4:5), DDR2-1000 (2:3), DDR2-1067 (5:8), DDR2-1111 (3:5), and DDR2-1333 (1:2). Photo
- At 400FSB there's DDR2-800 (1:1), DDR2-960 (5:6), DDR2-1000 (4:5), DDR2-1200 (2:3), DDR2-1280 (5:8), DDR2-1333 (3:5) and DDR2-1600 (1:2). Photo
- At 500FSB there's DDR2-1000 (1:1), DDR2-1200 (5:6), DDR2-1250 (4:5), DDR2-1500 (2:3), DDR2-1600 (5:8), DDR2-1667 (3:5) and DDR2-2000 (1:2). Photo
- Seems for at least 1:1, 4:5 and 2:3 dividers AUTO subtimings are set pretty tight, performing in Super Pi times just behind manually set subtimings of 3-30-8-3-6.
- CPU Voltage Damper option in bios reduces vcore droop by as much as 75%. From approximately 0.032v droop to 0.008v droop! Finally, Asus answers our prayers in regards to vcore droop
- Transaction Booster bios option when enabled, seems to boost memtest86+ v1.70 reported memory bandwidth. By default Transaction Booster is set to AUTO, but when Enabled or Disabled a sub menu appears in the form of levels. When enabled, Transaction Booster gives you an option to select 2 Boost levels of 0 or 1. When disabled, Transaction Booster gives you an option to select 3 different Relaxed levels between 0-3 - level 0 at least looks the same as AUTO set Transaction Booster in memtest86+ v1.70 bandwidth.
- Interesting to note that for tests at 9x444FSB 1:1 4-4-4-4 2-20-2-2-2 at 2.1v vdimm that Transaction Booster AUTO and TRFC = 20, memtest reports 5383MB/s memory bandwidth compared with TRFC = 25 or 30 at 5201MB/s. But at TRFC = 20 if you enable Transaction Booster with Boost level 1, memtest still reports 5383MB/s. Could it be Transaction Booster Enabled just manipulates a tighter TRFC or other subtimings values ? Without memset for windows we won't be able to see what the subtimings are for real for now though.
Preliminary conclusions May 13th, 2007:
Asus P5K Deluxe is meant to be replacing the 965P chipset motherboards such as Asus P5B Deluxe/P5B-E etc with the flagship 975X chipset being replaced by Intel X38 chipset due out later. I think the Asus P5K Deluxe can potentially end up faster in memory bandwidth intensive tasks than 965P by virtue of the new dividers available 5:6 and 5:8 opens up alot more FSB/MEM combinations
So far i can say, Asus P5K Deluxe has all the good features of Asus P5W DH, Asus P5B Deluxe, Asus 680i Striker extreme, Asus Commando and Asus P5W64 WS Pro rolled into oneAsus took alot of feedback into consideration when they designed P5K Deluxe it seems (some suggestions i put forth but I've sure other end user folk have put their 2 cents in too
)
Pros:
- CPU Voltage Damper fixes the old vcore droop issue!
- High memory clocking like P5B Deluxe/Commando with upto 2.55v vdimm max
- High Kentsfield quad core fsb - folks been able to get their QX6700 to 480-500FSB compared with P5B Deluxe 400FSB or 450-480fsb with volt mods or 440-480FSB on Asus Commando
- Very good failed oc recovery like Asus 680i Striker extreme, less need for clearing CMOS on failed overclocks
- Cleaner cpu socket area for phase change or extreme cooling users like Asus Commando (my Commando just arrived on Friday so another adventure starting soon - this is for phase change
- Stock auto performance is very fast on par with moderately tweaked P5B Deluxe in terms of memory bandwidth/super pi. Handles tighter subtimings for memory than P5B Deluxe but performance similar - so maybe loosened up a bit by default for P5K Deluxe.
Cons:
- Lack of PS/2 mouse port - for KVM switch PS/2 users like me it mights it a bit more complicated to use. I setup a spare USB mouse next to my PS/2 mouse and by passed my KVM switch PS/2 mouse connector cable but kept KVM PS/2 keyboard/monitor plugged in.
- No power/reset/clear cmos buttons like the Striker Extreme boards
- Bios chip it isn't replaceable but soldered/fixed on the board it seems. See page 2-3 of manual for the board diagram here. The bios chip is supposedly located at the centre point in between the last PCI3 and PCI-E 2 slot and the red IDE connector location. Directly in alignment with the battery. That would make the bios chip to be the soldered on square chip to the right of the 7 pin header pictured here ? But it has Crash Free 3 bios feature see page 4-7 of manual. Shove the included driver dvd disk the system and boot it up and it should attempt to do a recovery bios flash.
- Added May 17th, 2007: Folks over at hardforum.com have highlighted some possible layout concerns in that if 2x double slot video cards are used in the 2x PCI-E video card slots, it will render 2 out of 3 of the PCI slots unusable and the location of the front USB/Firewire connectors and IDE connector.
But those are preliminary conclusions.. only had the Asus P5K Deluxe and P5K3 Deluxe board for 4 - 5 days so far
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Originally Posted by hausner
, DFI Infinity 965P-S (testing) 
, E6750 es 
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