[18th Anniversary] Asus Black Pearl - P5k-Premium Testing Report

[nicepun]

Am running raid 0 with vista 32bit fine! At 500x8

We're referring to Q6600 G0 --

[AMDfreak]

Please don't get confused watercooling with the P5K-Premium Black Pearl.
The implemented watercooling mobo that people often get confused with this one is the Blitz Extreme or Formula Special Edition.

However, from what I read so far is that the Black Pearl uses the same ref board as the Blitz series but less the dual Crossfire x8 and the obvious Fuzion water block.

I won't go watercooling anytime soon so the Black Pearl looks like the perfect choice for me.

The Blitz Formula edition is touting 2-phase power for the dimms as opposed to the 1-phase on the P5K-DLX and BP. Seeing the great memory results on the BP so far, I wonder if the 2-phase on the Blitz is a great benefit or just overkill.

[Budwise]

most likely overkill, but then again what forum is this?

[noobzed]

2,5 vDimm, seem Premium can do good OC

[Kilyin]

Seems like there are a lot of minute differences on the P5K Premiums depending on batch and factory.

The one on Newegg site has PCB made in Taiwan and MEC inductor beside the DIMM slots.

I just got one from newegg and it says "PCB made in China"

[kcnyc]

I just got my Black Pearl today and will be upgrading from the Asus P5W64 WS Pro. Do I have to reinstall Windows?

[lessonz]

Okay, so has no one gotten it stable with RAID0 and Q6600?

[nicepun]

I just got my Black Pearl today and will be upgrading from the Asus P5W64 WS Pro. Do I have to reinstall Windows?

Although recommended, NO THERE'S NO NEED. Just need to update your chipset drivers.

[Kilyin]

I just got my Black Pearl today and will be upgrading from the Asus P5W64 WS Pro. Do I have to reinstall Windows?

Unless it's the same chipset, yeah. You could just do a repair install

[palese]

I just got my Black Pearl today and will be upgrading from the Asus P5W64 WS Pro. Do I have to reinstall Windows?

I believe that is the wise thing to do, but that is just my opinion

[WSX]

Try uninstalling drivers for the existing board first, then install drivers for the new board, you may not need to re-install Windows.

[masotime]

Has anyone tried the new beta bios? 0302, dated 14th August 2007.

[bro20000]

where that!

[fornowagain]

In Vista 64 on the Premium, I noticed some of the apps like coretemp and cpu-z would hang or take ages to load. Its completely stable, prime for 12hrs, memtest et al. It was a left over install from a Asus Blitz, so I thought i'd try a fresh install of Vista 64bit. Nightmare, it gets a few percent into copying files and just sits there, doing nothing. Tried Vista 32bit, same thing. XP Pro 32 bit, no problem goes straight in. And so far everything is as it should be, I had read this board didn't like Vista, but put it down to user error. Ive no idea whats going on , maybe its because I'm using an IDE CD-ROM on the Jmicron controller. I dunno, but some things not right.

EDIT: Spoke too soon. Fresh install of XP latest drivers, all new gear except for the CD-ROM. Spitting out timeout errors, when coping files.

"The device \Device\Ide\iaStor0 did not respond within the timeout period."

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-025783.htm


EDIT2: This Premium board doesnt like my IDE DVDRW either, put in a Sata drive and imstalled Vista 64. Didnt take long for it to start hanging again. Somethings wrong with the Sata ports.

EDIT3: Meh, just about had it with this board. Different hard drive, memory DVDRW, cables. Spitting out ATAPI errors now. Definitely a problem with the way it handles SATA/IDE. Two top of the range boards from Asus, both faulty not impressed.

[sofarfrome]

FWIW...I was using a P5K Deluxe and I set this Premium board up today and using the same HD as with the Deluxe I didn't have to reinstall any of the drivers. So far all benches and functionality are the same at the same settings.

[AndyM]

FWIW...I was using a P5K Deluxe and I set this Premium board up today and using the same HD as with the Deluxe I didn't have to reinstall any of the drivers. So far all benches and functionality are the same at the same settings.

Hey, let us know if you are able to get a higher Orthos stable OC on your CPU with the Premium compared to the Deluxe, K?

[sofarfrome]

Which bios did your board(s) ship with? 102 or 204?

I have another Asus board with the Sata1 port not working. This happened to my first Deluxe board and I had to RMA it as out of 6 only one would work. Right now it appears I have the same problem with this board. Also, it came loaded with the 204 bios which I think is a little soon in the game for these boards to have the latest bios installed. Frankly I am concerned the retailer has shipped me an open box item in lieu of a new retail board as the box itself looked like it had been opened and the date and time were already set. This is atypical with boards I have set up recently, or ever for that matter. I have been quite happy with this company's service and overall quality but I am just trying to figure out if something got mishandled with this deal.

[fornowagain]

Which bios did your board(s) ship with? 102 or 204?

Mine was a new batch in, not that that means anything. Just not stock sitting in the retailers. Anyway, it was 102.

[sofarfrome]

Hey, let us know if you are able to get a higher Orthos stable OC on your CPU with the Premium compared to the Deluxe, K?

I am still waiting on my G0 q6600 so when that comes in I can put up some numbers

[palese]

In Vista 64 on the Premium, I noticed some of the apps like coretemp and cpu-z would hang or take ages to load. Its completely stable, prime for 12hrs, memtest et al. It was a left over install from a Asus Blitz, so I thought i'd try a fresh install of Vista 64bit. Nightmare, it gets a few percent into copying files and just sits there, doing nothing. Tried Vista 32bit, same thing. XP Pro 32 bit, no problem goes straight in. And so far everything is as it should be, I had read this board didn't like Vista, but put it down to user error. Ive no idea whats going on , maybe its because I'm using an IDE CD-ROM on the Jmicron controller. I dunno, but some things not right.

EDIT: Spoke too soon. Fresh install of XP latest drivers, all new gear except for the CD-ROM. Spitting out timeout errors, when coping files.

"The device \Device\Ide\iaStor0 did not respond within the timeout period."

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-025783.htm

EDIT2: This Premium board doesnt like my IDE DVDRW, put in a Sata drive and so far no iaStor errors. Vista 64 installed very quickly

Simple solution XP Pro

[bobov]

I found the board is very picky about the SATA cable. It won't detect HD when I use low quality SATA cable. Use the one come with the motherboard, everything is fine now.

[Apoc@]

I got mine 3 weeks ago with the 204 bios here in The Netherlands.

[fornowagain]

Simple solution XP Pro

Great suggestion

Im might if they port DX10.

[lessonz]

I'm a first time builder, and I've chosen the Premium as my first board. I was wondering if anyone knows of a site that has a great explanation of each of the settings in the BIOS, not just recommended settings but what they do as well. The manual doesn't have enough information on somethings. Thanks.

[andyr(uk)]

I am going to try either the Asus Blitz Formula Special Edition or the premium , price aside which is going to give the best overclock