Official Asus P5Q-EM MicroATX HDMI Discussion Thread

[BlueAqua]

I thought I'd start a thread dedicated to this board because it differs from the P5Q quite a bit.

Some links for reference first:

Official Asus board information:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...13&modelmenu=1

Newegg Link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131336

A very helpful AVSForum link:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1057809

Efficient Power Saving and Home Theater PC Enjoyment!

* Intel LGA775 Platform
* Intel® G45/ ICH10R chipset
* ASUS EPU-4 Engine
* ASUS Express Gate
* Multi-VGA Output: HDMI/DVI/RGB Support
* High Definition Experience of Vision and Audio
* 100% Japan-made Solid Capacitor and 5000 hrs VRM Solid Capacitor

It has some nice improvements from the P5E-VM HDMI.

I've ordered the board and should have some more information this weekend. I'd really like to have an XS point of view with this board as I hope more people pick it up. I'm just going to be using it for my htpc, so no gaming.

[BulldogPO]

Interesting board, will it oc? Shame that it has only one PCI-e x16 slot.

[karl_eller]

It'll be interesting to see if it OC's as well as the P5E-VM HDMI's do. If it does, this looks like it should be a very nice mATX board for most setups.

Eller

[BlueAqua]

I received my board the other day and have had a little time to play with it. Here are some preliminary pictures:














Some Express Gate shots:





And some of the important bios shots:









I was actually impressed with the amount of familiar options in the bios.

More to come.

[karl_eller]

What is that 3.6Ghz done with? Dualie or quad?

Eller

[BlueAqua]

What is that 3.6Ghz done with? Dualie or quad?

Eller

This is just my E8500 CO dual right now. I don't plan on doing any quad testing. I don't own a 45nm quad either.

I was noticing some fsb issues around 410mhz, but still investigating.

[MassiveOverkill]

This board sucks for overclocking. It will not go over 430 FSB, that's with the latest 1406 BIOS. My Xeon gets higher OC's on my P5E-VM HDMI (will post at 4.0Ghz, would probably run stable if I had the guts to pump more voltage through her). Still hopelessly waiting for another BIOS release that willl allow higher than 430 FSB. Hell, I'd be happy with 450 FSB. I'd be really happy if it would do 470.

I will add that with LLC enabled there is ZERO VDroop...........no mods needed here, just a good BIOS.

Asus's canned responses are dissapointing. Maybe some P5Q BIOS hackers could do us a favor and see what they can do.

[MassiveOverkill]

Did I just kill this thread or have you been able to get past 430 FSB? What video card are you using?

[BlueAqua]

Did I just kill this thread or have you been able to get past 430 FSB? What video card are you using?

I don't think you killed it. I haven't had a whole lot of extra time to play with it and I don't think many others even have it.

410 was with onboard video, and then I tried it with a 9800gx2 with similar results. Kind of disappointing.

[gooFly]

For me the FSB limit is 424 with the onboard IGP, anything higher and it refuses to boot. An other thing restricting me is the unability to run my RAM at high speeds without corrupting the display driver (I get an error message in vista "display driver has failed and recovered..." and after that the driver igfxsrv takes about 40% CPU and will do that untill I reinstall the driver.

-gooFly

[Big.Wayne]

ASUS P5Q-EM
INTEL E5200
CRUCIAL Anniversary Edition PC2-5300
XIGMATEK HDT1283
SHARKOON SE Blue 2000
ANTEC Earthwatts 380







Still getting to grips with this board but quite happy with it so far. Had lots of issues getting my memory to work on a divider (Crucial PC2-533) when using the various straps, *Auto* memory speed seems to work fine though, I suspect I need to manually configure some of the more advanced memory settings as the sticks only contain SPD info for the lower speeds and I'm not sure the P5Q-EM knows what to do with them!

I've been clocking Core 2 for a few years now but this board has pushed my technological know how tons, I know competely understand the Northbridge and NBCC, straps, tRD etc etc, quite chuffed!

I haven't been able to breal 360MHz-FSB myself but I am using new E5200 chips which themselves may have an FSB wall of some sort, kinda wish I had kept my old Faithful E6300 which I knew was good up to 480Mhz-FSB, oh well!

My big breakthrough with getting this board to play nice was setting the vNB higher, between 1.2vNB to 1.3vNB really gets things going . . .especially if your using high FSB and/or a low tRD.

The onboard Intel® GMA X4500 HD graphics are quite good (32MB/64MB/128MB) and having been doing some testing I can see how the IGP speeds up along with the system memory which is in effect graphics memory. Out the box the 3D power is so so but work your system out and tweak the latency/Bandwidth just right and you will notice a great improvement. Been playing Team Fortress 2 at 1024x768 lol, can't wait to see INTELs next gen Larrebee stuff mixed into a motherboard like the P5Q-EM!

Deffo gonna keep this board for my HTPC/light gaming machine and even though Core i7 is starting to ship I don't see the Core 2 platform going away anytime soon, it's also nice to keep an LGA775 platform for testing chips and DDR2 memory for the next year or two and I think this is the product to do just that!

[gooFly]

The new 1502 BIOS is a "must" for anyone wanting to up the FSB. My previous FSB wall was at 424, now I can easilly boot with 440 and use high memory speeds without getting the IGP video drivers all messed up.

-gooFly

[MassiveOverkill]

I wish I could say I got the same results. 1502 BIOS did nothing for me.

[Taylor01]

Not been able to pass 425 x8.5 with my q9550. New bios 1602 is out now still no help. I haven't really tried up the NBv I'm might try that tonight. I don't think too many people have this board yet. I really want to hit 470 x8.5 for 4ghz. Have any of you had any better luck?

[p3ps1c0la]

425 fsb wall here. Really need a modded bios to bypass this problem.

[RealTelstar]

Hiya, Anybody tried the ASUS P5Q-EM DO?
It's a different chipset Q45/ich10DO and more server oriented. It has some better components that score high in my list. It's for an audio-only pc. i need to know if the vcore can be undervolted on this board too.