Product Listing

ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38)

By Zachary Chan - 4 Nov 2007

Overclocking and Test Setup

Overclocking

  • FSB Settings: 200MHz to 800MHz
  • DDR3 Settings: 667/800/835/886/1002/1067/1111/1333MHz
  • FSB Strap: 200/266/333/400MHz
  • PCIe Settings: 100MHz to 150MHz
  • CPU Voltage Settings: 0.85000V to 1.7000V (in 0.00625V steps)
  • Memory Voltage Settings: 1.50V to 2.78V (in 0.02V steps)
  • FSB Termination Voltage Settings: 1.20V to 1.50V (in 0.02V steps)
  • NB Voltage Settings: 1.25V to 1.91V (in 0.02V steps)
  • SB Voltage Settings: 1.05V, 1.20V (in 0.015V)
  • Loadline Calibration: Auto (default), Enabled, Disabled
  • Ai Clock Twister: Light, Moderate, Strong
  • Ai Transaction Booster: Enabled, Disabled
  • Multiplier Selection: Yes (unlocked CPUs only)

ASUS seems to be getting better at every aspect of motherboard manufacturing, from better design, to better features, they've got a better BIOS as well. We're not talking about the amount or even granularity of its overclocking features and options (which is plenty really), but option description text that will actually make sense to the user rather than the usual cryptic one-liners. Granted, it is still far from perfect, but we've noticed continuous improvements over the past year.

Not only useful information, but clear and precise instructions and instructions are a rarity in most motherboard BIOSes.

No surprise, the P5E3 Deluxe turned out to be a very competent overclocking motherboard, easily hitting the high 470-480MHz FSB range without the need to increase any chipset voltage. We were able to achieve a maximum stable FSB of 500MHz with a 0.16V increase to the MCH, but the board became unstable beyond that.

Unlike the Gigabyte and Foxconn X38 boards we've reviewed before, the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe actuall has an XMP option. Too bad we didn't have XMP memory to try it out.

Test Setup

Now let's see what the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe is capable of performance-wise. We compare the new X38 based P5E3 Deluxe to its its predecessor, the P35 based ASUS P5K3 Deluxe as well as some of the competing Intel X38 motherboards around such as Foxconn's X38A and Gigabyte's GA-X48T-DQ6. To benchmark these boards, the following hardware configuration will be used:-

  • Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor (3.00GHz)
  • 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 @ 7-7-20 CAS 7.0
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
  • MSI GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB - with ForceWare 162.18 drivers
  • Intel INF 8.3.1.1013 and AHCI 7.5.0.1017 driver set
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)

Benchmarks

The following benchmarks will be run to determine the performance of the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe:-

  • BAPco SYSmark 2004
  • Futuremark PCMark05
  • SPECviewperf 9.0
  • AquaMark3
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