ASUS P5K/EPU new motherboard: Official 1600 FSB support

[jonny_ftm]

ASUS P5K/EPU new motherboard: Official 1600 FSB support






This new motherboard is announced to officially support 1600 FSB. Strange behaviour when intel only guaranty it offcially on the X48 upcoming chipset. It also includes the EPU technology available on last X38 high end cards and on the P5K Pro. There's no more info on this card, nor it seems to be yet released.

By the way, most ASUS cards will support FSB 1600 QX9775 CPU



As I can see from the shots, it is 8 phase power, but the 4 up phases can't be cooled as there's no holes to fit any heatsink. Also the ATX 12v power connector is only 4 pins instead of 8 pins

The most interesting is to see how the P35 platform is still developped with new motherboards, just 4 weeks before X48 release, while the X38 plateform is still freezed. Hopefully, ASUS will continue to update the P35 bioses for a while. But the most strange is that these new P35 boards look really as the low end segment cards

[jonny_ftm]

Ok, after further digging, I could find more info

The P5K/EPU is just a standard P5K with EPU functionality added. As it is new manufacturing, the FSB 1600 ready logo is to emphasis the upcoming FSB 1600 CPUs. So, no more OC potential than previously suerely. It is interesting though to see that the P35 can easily be stated as compatible with FSB 1600 quadcores despite it's aging. So why intel keeps insisting that X48 will be th eonly chipset supporting FSB 1600 is a mystery.

Here's a list of ASUS mainboards supporting FSB 1600 CPUs

http://event.asus.com/mb/fsb1600/index.htm

The P965 won't be supported by bios updates

[Leeghoofd]

Maybe they want to stress that the bios isn't optimized for 400FSB auto setting... but can be done by manual overclocking... I really hope this EPU isn't the origin of my OC on the Maximus...

[jonny_ftm]

Maybe they want to stress that the bios isn't optimized for 400FSB auto setting... but can be done by manual overclocking... I really hope this EPU isn't the origin of my OC on the Maximus...

Yes, I remember the talks in Maximus forum. Many thought EPU was causing the overclocking issues they see. If we believe X48 first tests on ASUS boards by anandatech and the results of the P5K Pro (includes EPU) I saw here (very high FSB with quadcores), maybe it's not the EPU fault, or at least, they implemented it better. Also, most X38 boards seem to be hit and mess in high FSB stability with quadcores.

Anyway, I hope too as all new ASUS boards will have EPU onboard

[c931]

The P5K/EPU is just a standard P5K with EPU functionality added.

+ PS/2 Keyboard Connector
+ one more PCEe_x1-Slot
- one less PCI-Slot
+ Ethernet: Marvell 88E8056 (P5K: Attansic L1 crap)
+ 8-phase PLL
+ better NB-Cooler
- 2 less SATA Ports, switch from JMB363(2 SATA, 1 PATA) to Agere(1 PATA)
- new layout