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

[crashalot]

Well that was quite a read. I just want to say hello to everyone and thanks for all the helpful info in this thread. I just built my system and it fired right up for me. I was able too flash the bios to 504 which more or less fixed how the board saw my x3350.
Info on my P5K-P is as follows .... PCB made in Taiwan 7/07. Mixed caps. Shipped with bios 204. No disk errors( I am running in ide mode tho)

My x3350 runs at 1.0-1.1v at stock. I did overclock to 400fsb for a day to test the chip. It ran about 10C warmer and used 1.21v.

Thats about it for now. I will keep you posted as I get more time with it.

[w2richwood]

well the 0612 is up now no longer a beta 9450 quads are supported the c1.s i think its save to say its a good bios im using the beta and having no problems
Rich

[jonny_ftm]

well the 0612 is up now no longer a beta 9450 quads are supported the c1.s i think its save to say its a good bios im using the beta and having no problems
Rich

Official ASUS Site still 0504

[w2richwood]

Official ASUS Site still 0504

sorry but 0612 on the site i log in in usa it will be there
Rich

[haoster]

i think the best bios for now is the 0404. at least for 4 dimm memory overclocking.
with 0504, i cant even boot up with 900ish mhz ram, 5-5-5-15, 4 dimms
but, with 0404, i can boot into windows 1200mhz 5-5-5-15 2.05v vdimm, and run everest mem test. now i am using 455*9 (4095mhz) and 1129mhz ram 5-5-5-15 2.05v 4 dimms.
quite happy with it.
and ya, but the only disadvantage is the lack of .5 multiplier support.

[haoster]

I wanted to give a feedback on Western Digital hard drives
On the ASUS forums, some people reported bad expierience even with the new Caviar SE16 WD6400 AAKS. It is a new drive based on 320Mb high density plates.

Some people reported it was fixed with new motherboards they received from RMA

It looks like the serial numbers after 78xxxxx are ok (7 for 2007, 8 for month 8, that's august). By the way, they are all 2.00G

In my case, I have a 78xxx series, made in China PCB, and I took a risk buying this disk. It runs so great in my setup

So, this WD/Samsung issues should be abscent on new batches and all with serial numbers after 78xxx

Now, you can throw away your noisy and slow barracuda 7200.11 (they're only good for benches and s**ck in real world applications tests) for a Samsung/WD high performance disk.

i have a 77xxxxxxxx, and rev 1.xx
so i guess it wont work nice with wd hds?

[jonny_ftm]

i have a 77xxxxxxxx, and rev 1.xx
so i guess it wont work nice with wd hds?

There's no 1.xx version, all are 2.0G. But, 77xx stock is much a mix than 78xx for SATA controller issues as heavily well reported on ASUS forums. I want also to say it again: it is not a user mis-understanding, these problems are hardware related. Some assemblers here even state on their web page for the P5K Premium: not compatible with WD/Samsung drives to avoid RMA charges

[jonny_ftm]

Any deeper tests on this new bios update, 0612?
Everest RAM performance, stability with OCCT in RAM mode, overclocking...

[Coroner Kyle]

i have a 77xxxxxxxx, and rev 1.xx
so i guess it wont work nice with wd hds?

Just wanted to add to my previous post about my new WD640's working on my board. Well they were working when I was transferring from my raid array (running from areca raid card) to the WD640's, but when I try to transfer from my raptors (running on ICH9) to the WD640's (also on ICH9), the transfer either fails completely or takes forever.

Seems like any data moving just across the board's controller is a no go for me.

[haoster]

Any deeper tests on this new bios update, 0612?
Everest RAM performance, stability with OCCT in RAM mode, overclocking...

i did some brief test on the 0602.
not too much difference on oc the cpu. i can still get my 8400 stable with my 0404 settings. 4140mhz at 1.368v(460*9).
for memory, id say its between 0404 and 0504. 0504 overclocks memory like crap, especially for 4 dimm. also it has very low performance in everest. with the 0602, i can get my 4 dimms crucial ddr2-800 4-4-4-12 d9s stable at 1100mhz 5-5-5-15, transaction booster enabled 2 (performance level 7) at 2.05v vdimm, 1.4v north bridge, 1200mhz 5-5-5-15 2.05v vdimm boot into windows. also, memory performance in everest is between 0404(highest) and 0504(lowest).
read write copy lantency
9361 9757 9036 53.8

imo, the 0604 is the best bios for p5k-premium.

the 0602 is now officially released on the asus website:
P5K Premium/WiFi-AP BIOS 0612
Improve ATAPI CD-ROM's compatibility with EZ-Flash.
Support new CPUs. Please refer to our website at: http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx.
Add [7 DRAM Clocks] in [CAS# Latency] option.
Add some items for [REF Cycle Time].
Enable better support for FSB1600/DDR-1200 combination.
Enable CPR support for CPU Ratio control.
Fix C1E, TM and EIST can't be disabled issue.
Add option [60 DRAM Clocks] into [REF Cycle Time] setup item.
Fix when using Conroe 3.0GHz CPU with FSB1333MHz the system may not resume from S3.

[haoster]

There's no 1.xx version, all are 2.0G. But, 77xx stock is much a mix than 78xx for SATA controller issues as heavily well reported on ASUS forums. I want also to say it again: it is not a user mis-understanding, these problems are hardware related. Some assemblers here even state on their web page for the P5K Premium: not compatible with WD/Samsung drives to avoid RMA charges

i think i have the sata problem when using the 0404 bios. it took me 2 hours to install windows vista from a dvd..
with 0504, it seemed the bios fixed the problem.

also, it looks theres less problem with sata port 2,3,4,6...

i am so confusing, right now i need more storage for my videos, dunno if i should take the risk for a "maybe better performance" wd or samsang drive...

[TWY]

Wonder what is the latest manufactured board out of Asus' factory? Anyone gotten a board with serial number starting with 8 yet?

[w2richwood]

mine is 79 got it in feb. o8 so they maybe out who knows
Rich

[TI66ER]

I'm on bios 0612 now,i'm getting some crucial 8500 tracers tommorow to replace my 6400 reapers,which are a bit poo for oc'ing.I'm hoping to get more than 900 out of the tracers,which i've heard nothing but good things about.

Apart from that,my board is fine,its been stable for months at 3.6gz,using samsung drives(sp2504's,not raided).At some point i fancy trying the matrix raid.

My board is a 79xx/v2.00g btw.

[stepinrazor]

I wanted to give a feedback on Western Digital hard drives
On the ASUS forums, some people reported bad expierience even with the new Caviar SE16 WD6400 AAKS. It is a new drive based on 320Mb high density plates.

Some people reported it was fixed with new motherboards they received from RMA

It looks like the serial numbers after 78xxxxx are ok (7 for 2007, 8 for month 8, that's august). By the way, they are all 2.00G

In my case, I have a 78xxx series, made in China PCB, and I took a risk buying this disk. It runs so great in my setup

So, this WD/Samsung issues should be abscent on new batches and all with serial numbers after 78xxx

Now, you can throw away your noisy and slow barracuda 7200.11 (they're only good for benches and s**ck in real world applications tests) for a Samsung/WD high performance disk.

Johnny FTM can you link some urls' with the people who had this resolved with 78xxxx boards. I need to be sure these guys as ASUS send me a working board. I'm the guy who's been posting on the ASUS site about my problems with the drive btw.

I have two 6400AAKS WD drives in RAID0 and I cannot get them to work! I've also tried the 750GB F1 Samsungs

So far I've had the following SN#s
77M0ACKR**** Original Board
77MXACKR**** RMA Board

Someone help!

[sesdave]

I'm on bios 0612 now,i'm getting some crucial 8500 tracers tommorow to replace my 6400 reapers,which are a bit poo for oc'ing.I'm hoping to get more than 900 out of the tracers,which i've heard nothing but good things about.

Apart from that,my board is fine,its been stable for months at 3.6gz,using samsung drives(sp2504's,not raided).At some point i fancy trying the matrix raid.

My board is a 79xx/v2.00g btw.

If the Tracers you get have double side chips they should be the micron GMH or GHX D9s and should be good upto 1200 but Crucial have been changing recently and new stock seems to be sticks with single sided hi density chips which dont clock as well. Matrix RAID0/1 is the way to goalthough you might be better with bigger drives e.g 500gb. depends on how much data you have. You wont get the true benefit if you just setup raid 0 on your drives as the performance gains are from creating a thin slice raid0 for the operating system at begining of the drive. You wont believe the stats from HD tune when you give it a go. Check the thread out for the detail if you havent done so already http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848.

[TI66ER]

Unfortunatley the sticks i have are single sided,though they are still better than the 6400 ocz reapers which struggled over 1000mhz.I have the tracers on 1080mhz 5.5.5.15 at the moment,i will be seeing what they can do soon though.

Is that the end of the great clocking crucial sticks then? its a shame if it is.What are gonna be the next big thing then in ram sticks?

I'm gonna change my drives to 2x500gb soon,though i dont have a lot on my pc,if its better with them then so be it.because i'm using samsung drives now,does that mean my board is ok? do samsung drives not work at all on boards with the iffy sata controller?

Thanks for the reply

[sesdave]

Unfortunatley the sticks i have are single sided,though they are still better than the 6400 ocz reapers which struggled over 1000mhz.I have the tracers on 1080mhz 5.5.5.15 at the moment,i will be seeing what they can do soon though.

Is that the end of the great clocking crucial sticks then? its a shame if it is.What are gonna be the next big thing then in ram sticks?

I'm gonna change my drives to 2x500gb soon,though i dont have a lot on my pc,if its better with them then so be it.because i'm using samsung drives now,does that mean my board is ok? do samsung drives not work at all on boards with the iffy sata controller?

Thanks for the reply

Here a review of the single sided 8500's - same chips as the new tracers. http://www.digitalreport.net/content/view/79/1/1/1/ whilst not as good as the old doesnt look all doom and gloom . What are you running SATA at - IDE or AHCI. If already on AHCI you definately wont encounter any problems with using RAID.
If you havent got too much data have a go on the 2 x 250GB - be a good test for setting up matrix raid0/1. It the size of the RAID0 that gives the performance and the more drives its spread over the better e.g 4 to give you a RAID5 or 10 configuration. If you use 80Gb(2x40) that leaves you 210Gb for the data cos the RAID1 is mirrored(2x210). Make sure u use the latest storage manager and RAID drivers http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Prod...ProductID=2101 The latest 640GB model drives with higher density platters e.g 320GB will give the best performance /capacity but at a hefty price. Its not really worth it unless you want to be top of the HD tach/Tune tree on the enter the matrix postings! I use Acronis 11 for backup/recovery - I had a problem that the standard recoveryCD couldnt see my drives on the P5k(known problem) but the vendors tech team have now given me a nonstandard ISOrecovery image that works with the p5K premium so I am a happy bunny!

[overclockerd]

Cool board i like this type of desigh:P it is also made to work with watercooling systems as i can see:P really nice

[jonny_ftm]

Johnny FTM can you link some urls' with the people who had this resolved with 78xxxx boards. I need to be sure these guys as ASUS send me a working board. I'm the guy who's been posting on the ASUS site about my problems with the drive btw.
....
So far I've had the following SN#s
77M0ACKR**** Original Board
77MXACKR**** RMA Board

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us

Maybe not much conclusive, but it looks like that early models are concerned. In my case, 78 model is ok, my new WD rocks

I'm on bios 0612 now,i'm getting some crucial 8500 tracers tommorow to replace my 6400 reapers,which are a bit poo for oc'ing.I'm hoping to get more than 900 out of the tracers,which i've heard nothing but good things about.

Apart from that,my board is fine,its been stable for months at 3.6gz,using samsung drives(sp2504's,not raided).At some point i fancy trying the matrix raid.

My board is a 79xx/v2.00g btw.

I can confirm 0612 is better performer on memory on benches and at least as stable as previous versions, didn't try to OC more to see if memory is better.
I'll soon edit the tables in my signature with new performance, but expect some 200Mb/s more bandwidth, not much more

[bwanaaa]

is anyone running 4x2gb with this board? I am having problems waking from sleep on my p5k-wifi/deluxe using the gskill. 2gig moduules

[jonny_ftm]

I edit my signature link if you click P5K Premium in my signature:

Added Bios 0612 results in table
Updated Bios settings with lower vNB
Some feedback on Ref Voltage for me
WD/Samsung HDD Issues

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...28#post2777928

[transistor]

How's this new bios doing with Q6600 and 4 dimm´s OC'ed?

Any thoughts\experiences regarding this?

[ReverendMaynard]

Here a review of the single sided 8500's - same chips as the new tracers. http://www.digitalreport.net/content/view/79/1/1/1/ whilst not as good as the old doesnt look all doom and gloom . What are you running SATA at - IDE or AHCI. If already on AHCI you definately wont encounter any problems with using RAID.
If you havent got too much data have a go on the 2 x 250GB - be a good test for setting up matrix raid0/1. It the size of the RAID0 that gives the performance and the more drives its spread over the better e.g 4 to give you a RAID5 or 10 configuration. If you use 80Gb(2x40) that leaves you 210Gb for the data cos the RAID1 is mirrored(2x210). Make sure u use the latest storage manager and RAID drivers http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Prod...ProductID=2101 The latest 640GB model drives with higher density platters e.g 320GB will give the best performance /capacity but at a hefty price. Its not really worth it unless you want to be top of the HD tach/Tune tree on the enter the matrix postings! I use Acronis 11 for backup/recovery - I had a problem that the standard recoveryCD couldnt see my drives on the P5k(known problem) but the vendors tech team have now given me a nonstandard ISOrecovery image that works with the p5K premium so I am a happy bunny!

Speaking of which, I entered the Matrix



2x500g Seagate 32mb cache Barracudas in RAID0+1. 100g for the RAID0 and 400g for the RAID1. OS, programs and games on 0, all backup items on 1.

Wicked fast man, and so far for the $180 that it cost in drives it's totally worth it.

[w2richwood]

wow nice perforance there glad you finaly did it injoy.i looked back at mine you put me to shame lol
Rich