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Everyone has long been accustomed to the release pattern of motherboards from ASUS, when one basic model produces several modifications - most often Deluxe and Premium are added to the “regular” one. In this case, the PCB of the boards, as a rule, is the same, and the only difference is in the completeness of its filling and the variety of configurations. Even when the board underwent some modifications, visually it remained very similar to the rest of the series. But the ASUS P5B motherboard does not fit into the usual scheme, because... It has very little in common with the ASUS P5B Deluxe-Wi-Fi, which we visited earlier.
As you can see, motherboards differ not only in the color of the PCB and the completeness of the slots filled with microcircuits. The differences are everywhere: in power schemes; in the set and number of expansion slots; in the arrangement of chips and connectors... But what can we count, with a biased approach they can generally be considered only as very distant relatives (only thanks to the use of identical chipsets as the basis). Therefore, we will not draw parallels, but will examine the ASUS P5B motherboard as an independent product, which has a budget textolite coloring and not the most affordable price.
Specification ASUS P5B
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CPU |
Socket LGA775 (compatible with Intel PCG 05B/05A/06B); Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott (2M)/Gallatin/CedarMill) with bus frequency 533/800/1066 MHz; Support for processors with Hyper-Threading technology; |
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Intel P965 Northbridge with Intel Fast Memory Access Technology; Communication between bridges: DMI; |
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Four 240-pin slots for DDR2 SDRAM DIMM; |
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One PCI-Express x16 slot; |
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Expansion options |
Three 32-bit PCI Bus Master slots; |
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Built-in sound SoundMAX ADI AD1988A 8-channel; |
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Realtek PCI-E Gigabit network controller (RTL8111B); |
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Overclocking options |
Change the FSB frequency from 100 to 650 MHz in 1 MHz steps; Change the PCI-Express frequency from 90 to 150 MHz in 1 MHz steps; Changing the voltage on the processor and memory; |
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Disk subsystem |
Four Serial ATA II (on Intel ICH8); Optional JMicron JMB363 controller supports: 1 internal SATA II 1 external SATA II RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD |
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8 Mbit Flash ROM; |
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External connectors: 1x LPT, 1x Coaxial S/PDIF, 1x Optical S/PDIF, 1x External SATA, 1x LAN, 4x USB2.0/1.1, 8-channel audio, 2x PS/2 for mouse and keyboard; Internal connectors: 1x FDD, 1x IDE, 5x SATA II, 3x USB 2.0 2 ports each, 1x S/PDIF, 1x COM, 1x ADH, 1x CPU fan, 2x Chassis fan, 1x Power fan, 1x Chassis intrusion, 1x Front panel audio, 1x CD audio in, 1x 24-pin ATX power, 1x 4-pin 12V power, 1x system panel. |
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Power management |
Wake from PCI devices, modem, mouse, keyboard, network, timer and USB; |
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Monitoring |
Monitoring the temperature of the processor, motherboard, input voltages and processor core, rotation speed of four fans; |
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ATX form factor, 218 mm x 305 mm (8.6" x 12"); |
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Proprietary software |
ASUS PC Probe II Anti-virus software (OEM version) |
Package
The motherboard is packaged in a cardboard box, which, in addition to the board, contains IDE and SATA cables with power adapters, a plug for back panel cases, CD with drivers and additional software. All this will be discussed below.
Equipment
- Motherboard;
- CD with software and drivers;
- One ATA-133 cable, FDD cable;
- Four Serial ATA cables + two power adapters (two connectors each);
- User's Guide on English language, brief instructions on installation;
- Plug for the rear panel of the case;
- One ASUS Q-Connector Kit (USB, System panel; only in retail version);
- ASUS logo sticker.
Let us immediately draw your attention to the fact that, despite the presence of a COM port on the motherboard, the package does not include a bracket for outputting this port to the rear panel. To be fair, we note that COM ports are currently used very rarely, so we will not consider this as a big minus. By the way, the relative of the hero of today’s review, P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi, does not have the ability to output a COM port at all. Also, despite the presence of six additional USB-ports on the board, using the tools supplied in the kit, can only be connected to the rear panel. So to output a COM port and additional USB, you will have to purchase the corresponding accessories separately. The conclusion can be drawn as follows: the equipment, considering the price on a 5-point scale, is 4. At least, an output strip for USB ports, which are constantly in short supply, would not be superfluous.
Now let's talk about the board design. In general, it can be considered quite convenient, but there are a couple of nuances that can create certain inconveniences and are worth paying attention to. So, everything in order. There are a total of 4 cooler connectors on the board. The first connector, 4-pin CPU_FAN for the processor cooler, is located above the connectors for RAM modules not far from the processor socket, but not too close to it (as is done, for example, on the MSI P965 NEO board), so there are no problems with connecting the power cable should not arise. The PWR_FAN connector is located next to it.There are also two additional 3-pin connectors CHA_FAN1 and CHA_FAN2 for case coolers. They are located in such a way that it is convenient to install one fan on the front panel of the case and one on the rear. There are 2 power connectors on the board: the main 24-pin EATXPWR and an additional 4-pin EATX12V. The motherboard will require a power supply that meets the ATX 12V 2.0 specification.
Three-phase power stabilizer - modest. It consists of 9 capacitors with a capacity of 680 μF. Chipset cooling is passive, without the use of fans. The north bridge of the Intel P965 has a fairly massive heatsink. Traditionally, a radiator is also installed on the south bridge, but smaller.
To the right of the northbridge there are four 240-pin DIMM connectors for DDR2 memory modules. In fact, they are divided into two groups of two connectors. The slots of the first group belong to one controller channel, the slots of the second – to another. It is possible to organize dual-channel memory access. To do this, install memory sticks in slots of the same color. It is worth noting that the board supports DDR2 533/667/800 memory modules. The maximum total amount of RAM is 8 GB. ASUS P5B is equipped with three standard PCI slots, three PCI Express x1 slots and one PCI Express x16 slot.
Note the top PCI Express x1 slot. As you can see, the north bridge cooling radiator is located next to it so that only a relatively small board can be installed in this connector. There is also a green LED indicator on the board that shows the status of the board.
Universal ports and storage support
In addition to the standard Intel ICH8 controller, which supports four SATA II ports, an additional JMicron JMB363 controller is used. It supports one additional internal SATA II port, one External SATA port located on the rear panel of the board, and one IDE port for connecting two compatible devices. Also, using the JMicron controller, you can organize RAID arrays 0, RAID 1 and JBOD.So what do we have? As a result, you can connect 8 to the board hard drives: 6 Serial ATA II drives and two with Parallel ATA interface. Now let's move on to the USB ports. On the back panel of the board there are four USB port 2.0. In addition, it is possible to connect six more connectors using additional brackets. There is no support for the FireWire interface on the motherboard. If we take into account the cost of the board, the lack of an IEEE 1394 controller can be considered a slight minus.
Sound subsystem
Now about the sound system. The AD1988A chip is installed as a codec, which allows you to output sound with a sampling frequency of 192 kHz and has 10 DAC and 6 ADC chips. It supports eight-channel HD Audio, includes device detection, reassignable functions, and multi-stream audio technology that allows you to send different audio streams to different channels. The signal-to-noise ratio is 105 dB. Noise Filter noise reduction technology is also used. This feature recognizes repetitive and persistent noise in the incoming audio stream and then eliminates it during recording.Let's look at the sound card ports. The P5B motherboard supports S/PDIF audio output function, which makes it easy to connect your computer to home theater with the ability to connect to speaker systems via optical or coaxial cable. We also see 6 more sound card pins. Everything is traditional here, the subwoofer is connected to the orange port, the rear speakers are connected to the black port in a 4/6/8-channel configuration, and the side speakers are connected to the gray port in an 8-channel configuration. Pink is traditionally used for microphone connections, blue is linear input, and green – for headphones in a 2/3-channel system, or for connecting front speakers in 4/6/8-channel sound systems.
Net
For support network connections a Realtek RTL8111B (Gigabit Ethernet) network controller is provided, which is connected via the PCI Express bus and supports operating speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s.Proprietary technologies
To ensure fast performance with minimal noise, technology AI Gear allows you to select a profile that adjusts processor frequencies system bus and vCore voltage. This ensures a reduction in noise and energy consumption. AI Nap also aimed at minimizing noise and more economical energy consumption. With its help, you can instantly put your computer into power saving mode without turning off applications (“standby mode”). Technology Q-Fan 2 provides regulation of the rotation speed of the processor and case cooler.Rear panel of the board
Let's take a look at the back panel. Obviously, the manufacturer does not offer us anything original. As we have already noted, there is no COM port, which is gradually finding less and less place in modern boards. The panel has a parallel port (LPT), 4 USB ports, an RJ-45 connector for network connections, one external Serial ATA port, sound card outputs and, of course, two PS/2 ports for a mouse and keyboard.A Clear CMOS (CLRTC) jumper is installed next to the FDD connector, with which you can reset the RTC RAM data by returning BIOS settings to standard.
After the appearance of the new line of ASUS P5K motherboards based on the new Intel P35 Express chipset, it may be somewhat irrelevant to describe a board based on the “outdated” Intel P965 Express chipset. But in fact, the ASUS P5B series of motherboards remains a very interesting and sought-after product. The new chipset did not make a noticeable leap in performance; yes, it supports Intel processors with a 1333 MHz bus, but these processors are not yet on the market. The ASUS P5B line of boards will be in demand for at least half a year, because the price of the recently released series of boards is at this moment a little overpriced. In this review, we will look at the low-end model of the line of motherboards based on the Intel P965 chipset ASUS P5B.
ASUS P5B motherboard specification:
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Manufacturer |
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North Bridge |
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South Bridge |
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CPU socket |
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Supported processors |
Intel Core 2 Quad / Intel Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo / Pentium Extreme / Pentium D / Pentium 4 / Celeron D |
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System bus, MHz |
1066 / 800 / 533 MHz |
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Memory used |
DDR2 800 / 667 / 533 MHz |
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Memory support |
4 x 240-pin DIMMs, dual-channel architecture up to 8 GB |
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Expansion slots |
1 x PCI-E x16 |
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Disk subsystem |
ICH8 Southbridge supports: Optional JMicron JMB363 controller supports: |
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Sound subsystem |
SoundMAX ADI AD1988A 8-channel |
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LAN support |
Realtek PCI-E Gigabit Network Controller (RTL8111B) |
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24-pin ATX power connector 4-pin ATX12V power connector |
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Cooling |
Radiator on north and south bridge |
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Fan connectors |
1 x CPU |
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External I/O ports |
1 x Parallel Printer Port |
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Internal I/O ports |
3 x USB support 6 USB ports |
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8 Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ACPI 2.0a, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 |
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Overclocking capabilities |
Changing FSB frequency, PCI-Express frequency, memory frequency, processor and memory voltage. |
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Proprietary technologies |
ASUS C.P.R. |
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Equipment (important) |
4 x SATA cable |
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Form factor Dimensions, mm |
ATX 12"x 9.6" |
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Products webpage |
The latest BIOS version can be downloaded from the official page. |
The motherboard is packaged in a cardboard box, which is marked with support operating system Windows Vista and quad-core Intel processors.
The back of the package shows a photo of the board with footnotes of its best qualities and lists the proprietary technologies supported by the product. In a little more detail, let’s look at the technologies highlighted by the manufacturer:
AI NOS(Non-delay Overclocking System) – instant overclocking system that intelligently detects system load and automatically increases its performance.
AI Gear– this technology allows you to select a profile according to which the frequency of the processor, system bus and vCore voltage will be adjusted, thereby reducing noise and energy consumption.
AI Nap– technology that reduces noise and energy consumption to a minimum. It puts the computer into power saving mode without turning off applications, and wakes up the system with a simple press of a keyboard or mouse button.
If you would like to familiarize yourself in more detail with the entire list and description of proprietary ASUS technologies that this motherboard supports, you can do this on the manufacturer’s website.
The ASUS P5B motherboard is very well equipped. Includes:
- motherboard;
- CD with software and drivers for Windows Vista;
- User manual in English, brief installation instructions,
- FDD cable,
- cable UltraDMA 133/100/66;
- 4 Serial ATA cables;
- two power adapters for SATA devices, with two connectors;
- company sticker;
- ASUS Q-Connector;
- plug for the rear panel of the case;
- strip with two USB connectors.
Note that there is no bracket with a COM port.
The ASUS P5B motherboard is quite well laid out, but, of course, there are some small comments that we will definitely make. Firstly, only a small board can be installed in the topmost PCIE x1 slot, because the northbridge heatsink is located very close. Aluminum radiators are installed on the north and south bridges - it must be said that during long-term testing and overclocking they did not cope with their task very well.
The Floppy connector is rotated, and it will not always be convenient to connect to it in small cases, so we recommend connecting the cable before installing the board in the case. The Intel ICH8 Southbridge supports four SATA II ports, without the ability to form RAID arrays. These four SATA connectors are located on the right corner of the board. In addition to them, there are two more - one is located near the PCI connectors, and the other External SATA port is located on the rear panel. The operation and organization of two hard drives into RAID 0.1 and JBOD arrays can only be provided by the JMicron JMB363 controller. At the same time, we note that it is completely inconvenient to use an external External SATA port to form arrays. In addition, the controller provides the only IDE connector on the board, with the ability to connect two devices.
The motherboard has three PCI slots, three PCIE x1, and one for a PCIE x16 video card.
Other notable features of interfaces and controllers include:
- support for ten USB ports, four of which are located on the rear panel;
- one COM port;
- PCI-E Gigabit LAN controller (RTL8111B) with transfer speeds up to 1 Gbit/s;
- HDA eight-channel audio codec SoundMAX ADI AD1988A with S/PDIF output and Noise Filter noise reduction technology.
Three-channel power stabilizer, assembled on reliable polymer capacitors 680 μF x 4V and N-channel field effect transistors NIKO-SEM P0903BDG (25V, 9.5mOhm, 50A). Unfortunately, there are no additional cooling elements on the transistors.
The rear panel has the following ports: two PS/2 for mouse and keyboard, parallel (LPT), six switchable audio ports, 4 USB connectors, RJ45 connector for network connections, SATA On-the-Go, coaxial and optical S/PDIF. Note the absence of a COM port, which can sometimes be useful.
You can connect four fans to the board, one of which is a 4-pin processor fan, and the other three are three-pin. The processor cooler connector is a little further away from the LGA775 and is located in the upper part, near the memory slots. The remaining three connectors are conveniently located throughout the board, which provides a good choice places for connecting case fans. Q-Fan Control technology allows you to automatically regulate the rotation speed of a processor cooler powered from the CPU Fan connector and two more case fans connected to CHA-FAN 1-2 connectors.
The ASUS P5B motherboard uses AMI BIOS, with a large selection of settings necessary for successful overclocking of the system.
Overclocking options:
- Change clock frequency FSB from 100 to 400 MHz in 1 MHz steps (manual input);
- Selecting the operating memory frequency (DDR2-533/667/800/889/1067) and changing memory timings (CL, RCD, RP, RAS, 1T/2T);
- Changing the PCI Express bus frequency from 90 to 150 MHz in 1 MHz steps;
Set the DDR2 memory supply voltage from 1.8 V to 2.45 V, in steps of 0.05 V, or enable the Auto adjustment mode;
- Changing the processor core supply voltage from 1.225 V to 1.7 V in steps of 0.0125 V;
Voltage change FSB Termination 1.2/1.3/1.4/1.45 V;
Change the north bridge supply voltage 1.25/1.4/1.55/1.7 V;
- Change the supply voltage of the south bridge core (SATA, PCIE) 1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8 V;
- Change the supply voltage ICH Chipset 1.057/1.215 V;
- Changing the processor multiplier from 6x to max.
In the Hardware Monitor window you can monitor:
- temperature of the motherboard and processor;
- rotation speed of the processor cooler and two other fans in the case;
- processor core supply voltage;
- the voltage value of the main power lines is 3.3V, 5V, 12V.
In addition, it is possible to enable the CPU Q-Fan and Chasis Q-Fan functions, which are responsible for controlling the rotation speed of the processor cooler and case fans, respectively.
Carrying out a standard procedure for testing the capabilities of the system bus, we were able to increase its frequency to 470 MHz, but we are sure that this is not the limit. Unfortunately, we only had DDR2-800 memory at our disposal; if we had something faster, the result would probably have been better.
Testing
The following equipment was used to test the capabilities of motherboards.
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CPU There is no noticeable difference in performance between motherboards based on the new Intel P35 Express chip compared to motherboards based on the Intel P965 Express chip; all indicators are virtually the same. conclusions ASUS P5B motherboard – good basis For computer systems on modern Intel processors, the board shows excellent performance and has good opportunities acceleration But, unfortunately, ASUS P5B has several disadvantages. The Intel ICH8 south bridge cannot organize RAID arrays, so if necessary, you will have to use the capabilities of the additional JMicron JMB363 controller, which supports only two connectors, one of which is located on the rear panel. Also a serious drawback, as it seemed to us, are the bridges that get very hot and the lack of a cooling system on the power stabilization unit. If the radiator of the south bridge was hot during testing, then the radiator of the north bridge was simply red-hot. Although the computer worked stably, there is still some concern for the safety of the chipset under prolonged loads on the system. Therefore, if you decide to do overlocking, then keep this in mind; perhaps it makes sense for you to choose a more expensive board with a better cooling system, or take care of improving the cooling yourself. The advantages include:
The disadvantages include:
We would like to express our gratitude to PF Service LLC (Dnepropetrovsk) for the motherboards provided for testing. Article read 103974 times
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Everyone has long been accustomed to the release pattern of motherboards from ASUS, when one basic model produces several modifications - most often Deluxe and Premium are added to the “regular” one. In this case, the PCB of the boards, as a rule, is the same, and the only difference is in the completeness of its filling and the variety of configurations. Even when the board underwent some modifications, visually it remained very similar to the rest of the series. But the ASUS P5B motherboard does not fit into the usual scheme, because... It has very little in common with the ASUS P5B Deluxe-Wi-Fi, which we visited earlier.
As you can see, motherboards differ not only in the color of the PCB and the completeness of the slots filled with microcircuits. The differences are everywhere: in power schemes; in the set and number of expansion slots; in the arrangement of chips and connectors... But what can we count, with a biased approach they can generally be considered only as very distant relatives (only thanks to the use of identical chipsets as the basis). Therefore, we will not draw parallels, but will examine the ASUS P5B motherboard as an independent product, which has a budget textolite coloring and not the most affordable price.
Specification ASUS P5B
|
CPU |
Socket LGA775 (compatible with Intel PCG 05B/05A/06B); Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott (2M)/Gallatin/CedarMill) with bus frequency 533/800/1066 MHz; Support for processors with Hyper-Threading technology; |
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Intel P965 Northbridge with Intel Fast Memory Access Technology; Communication between bridges: DMI; |
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System memory |
Four 240-pin slots for DDR2 SDRAM DIMM; |
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One PCI-Express x16 slot; |
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Expansion options |
Three 32-bit PCI Bus Master slots; |
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Built-in sound SoundMAX ADI AD1988A 8-channel; |
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Realtek PCI-E Gigabit network controller (RTL8111B); |
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Overclocking options |
Change the FSB frequency from 100 to 650 MHz in 1 MHz steps; Change the PCI-Express frequency from 90 to 150 MHz in 1 MHz steps; Changing the voltage on the processor and memory; |
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Disk subsystem |
Four Serial ATA II (on Intel ICH8); Optional JMicron JMB363 controller supports: 1 internal SATA II 1 external SATA II RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD |
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8 Mbit Flash ROM; |
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External connectors: 1x LPT, 1x Coaxial S/PDIF, 1x Optical S/PDIF, 1x External SATA, 1x LAN, 4x USB2.0/1.1, 8-channel audio, 2x PS/2 for mouse and keyboard; Internal connectors: 1x FDD, 1x IDE, 5x SATA II, 3x USB 2.0 2 ports each, 1x S/PDIF, 1x COM, 1x ADH, 1x CPU fan, 2x Chassis fan, 1x Power fan, 1x Chassis intrusion, 1x Front panel audio, 1x CD audio in, 1x 24-pin ATX power, 1x 4-pin 12V power, 1x system panel. |
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Power management |
Wake from PCI devices, modem, mouse, keyboard, network, timer and USB; |
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Monitoring |
Monitoring the temperature of the processor, motherboard, input voltages and processor core, rotation speed of four fans; |
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ATX form factor, 218 mm x 305 mm (8.6" x 12"); |
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Proprietary software |
ASUS PC Probe II Anti-virus software (OEM version) |
Package
The motherboard is packaged in a cardboard box, which, in addition to the board, contains IDE and SATA cables with power adapters, a plug for the rear panel of the case, a CD with drivers and additional software. All this will be discussed below.
Equipment
- Motherboard;
- CD with software and drivers;
- One ATA-133 cable, FDD cable;
- Four Serial ATA cables + two power adapters (two connectors each);
- User manual in English, brief installation instructions;
- Plug for the rear panel of the case;
- One ASUS Q-Connector Kit (USB, System panel; only in retail version);
- ASUS logo sticker.
Let us immediately draw your attention to the fact that, despite the presence of a COM port on the motherboard, the package does not include a bracket for outputting this port to the rear panel. To be fair, we note that COM ports are currently used very rarely, so we will not consider this as a big minus. By the way, the relative of the hero of today’s review, P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi, does not have the ability to output a COM port at all.
Also, despite the presence of six additional USB ports on the board, only two can be connected to the rear panel using the tools supplied in the kit. So to output a COM port and additional USB, you will have to purchase the corresponding accessories separately.
The conclusion can be drawn as follows: the equipment, considering the price on a 5-point scale, is 4. At least, an output strip for USB ports, which are constantly in short supply, would not be superfluous.
Now let's talk about the board design. In general, it can be considered quite convenient, but there are a couple of nuances that can create certain inconveniences and are worth paying attention to. So, everything in order.
There are a total of 4 cooler connectors on the board. The first connector, 4-pin CPU_FAN for the processor cooler, is located above the connectors for RAM modules not far from the processor socket, but not too close to it (as is done, for example, on the MSI P965 NEO board), so there are no problems with connecting the power cable should not arise. The PWR_FAN connector is located next to it.
There are also two additional 3-pin connectors CHA_FAN1 and CHA_FAN2 for case coolers. They are located in such a way that it is convenient to install one fan on the front panel of the case and one on the rear. There are 2 power connectors on the board: the main 24-pin EATXPWR and an additional 4-pin EATX12V. The motherboard will require a power supply that meets the ATX 12V 2.0 specification.
Three-phase power stabilizer - modest. It consists of 9 capacitors with a capacity of 680 μF. Chipset cooling is passive, without the use of fans. The north bridge of the Intel P965 has a fairly massive heatsink. Traditionally, a radiator is also installed on the south bridge, but smaller.
To the right of the northbridge there are four 240-pin DIMM connectors for DDR2 memory modules. In fact, they are divided into two groups of two connectors. The slots of the first group belong to one controller channel, the slots of the second – to another. It is possible to organize dual-channel memory access. To do this, install memory sticks in slots of the same color.
It is worth noting that the board supports DDR2 533/667/800 memory modules. The maximum total amount of RAM is 8 GB.
ASUS P5B is equipped with three standard PCI slots, three PCI Express x1 slots and one PCI Express x16 slot.
Note the top PCI Express x1 slot. As you can see, the north bridge cooling radiator is located next to it so that only a relatively small board can be installed in this connector. There is also a green LED indicator on the board that shows the status of the board.
Universal ports and storage support
In addition to the standard Intel ICH8 controller, which supports four SATA II ports, an additional JMicron JMB363 controller is used. It supports one additional internal SATA II port, one External SATA port located on the rear panel of the board, and one IDE port for connecting two compatible devices. Also, using the JMicron controller, you can organize RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD arrays.
So what do we have? As a result, 8 hard drives can be connected to the board: 6 Serial ATA II drives and two with Parallel ATA interface. Now let's move on to the USB ports. There are four USB 2.0 ports on the back of the board. In addition, it is possible to connect six more connectors using additional brackets. There is no support for the FireWire interface on the motherboard. If we take into account the cost of the board, the lack of an IEEE 1394 controller can be considered a slight minus.
Sound subsystem
Now about the sound system. The AD1988A chip is installed as a codec, which allows you to output sound with a sampling frequency of 192 kHz and has 10 DAC and 6 ADC chips. It supports eight-channel HD Audio, includes device detection, reassignable functions, and multi-stream audio technology that allows you to send different audio streams to different channels. The signal-to-noise ratio is 105 dB. Noise Filter noise reduction technology is also used. This feature recognizes repetitive and persistent noise in the incoming audio stream and then eliminates it during recording.
Let's look at the sound card ports. The P5B motherboard supports S/PDIF audio output, which makes it easy to connect your computer to a home theater system with the ability to connect to speakers via optical or coaxial cable. We also see 6 more sound card pins. Everything is traditional here, the subwoofer is connected to the orange port, the rear speakers are connected to the black port in a 4/6/8-channel configuration, and the side speakers are connected to the gray port in an 8-channel configuration. Pink is traditionally used to connect a microphone, blue is a line input, and green is for headphones in a 2/3-channel system, or for connecting front speakers in 4/6/8-channel sound systems.
Net
To support network connections, a Realtek RTL8111B (Gigabit Ethernet) network controller is provided, which is connected via the PCI Express bus and supports operating speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s.
Proprietary technologies
To ensure fast performance with minimal noise, technology AI Gear allows you to select a profile that adjusts the system bus processor frequencies and vCore voltage. This ensures a reduction in noise and energy consumption. AI Nap also aimed at minimizing noise and more economical energy consumption. With its help, you can instantly put your computer into power saving mode without turning off applications (“standby mode”). Technology Q-Fan 2 provides regulation of the rotation speed of the processor and case cooler.
Rear panel of the board
Let's take a look at the back panel. Obviously, the manufacturer does not offer us anything original. As we have already noted, there is no COM port, which is gradually finding less and less place in modern boards. The panel has a parallel port (LPT), 4 USB ports, an RJ-45 connector for network connections, one external Serial ATA port, sound card outputs and, of course, two PS/2 ports for a mouse and keyboard.
A Clear CMOS (CLRTC) jumper is installed next to the FDD connector, with which you can reset the RTC RAM data, returning the BIOS settings to standard.
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Core 2 Duo processors have not been uncommon on the Russian market for a long time. At the same time, it has long been clear that these are the most balanced, ergonomic and productive solutions. Also, we can’t help but rejoice at the fairly wide range of motherboards for these CPUs. It should be noted that today for Core processors 2 Duo produces a whole range of motherboards based not only on the traditional 965 and 975 chipsets, but also on more exotic ones, such as 865PE or 915. I note that the use of non-traditional chipsets is not always a good basis for a motherboard. In most cases, this leads to rather mediocre opportunities.
But it is unlikely that the demand for these solutions is so great. And boards based on P965 remain the most popular. It is worth noting that our resource has already reviewed boards based on this system logic. Moreover, these were very expensive and advanced solutions from Gigabyte, such modifications as the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 and Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6. The main feature of these boards is the use of a very efficient and expensive cooling system made entirely of copper. At the same time, this design covers most of the board, which allows cooling not only such traditional elements as the north and south bridges, but also cooling equally important parts of the motherboard, such as mosfets. I note that the use of heat pipes in this design not only makes it more efficient, but also allows us to get rid of inclusion in the working fluid active elements, such as fans. Thus, the cooling system on Gigabyte boards allows not only to quickly and efficiently cool their elements, but also to carry out this manipulation completely silently, which is very important nowadays, considering that sometimes the roar of coolers on processors and video cards seriously irritates the user. And obviously it won’t be superfluous if the roar of the fan on the chipset does not interfere with this hegemony of noise. Among other things, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 and Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 modifications have a wide range of settings designed to overclock certain system components. The practical results of processor overclocking also allow us to view these solutions very positively. Let me remind you that both boards were able to easily cross the 400 MHz mark when raising the FSB frequency, and with a fairly significant margin.
Testing was also carried out on our resource Gigabyte boards GA-965P-DS3, and the results were even better. And this despite the fact that this decision is a very simplified product. First of all, the cooling on this board is much more modest. Gigabyte does not use heat pipes in this model, which is not surprising considering that the DS3 is positioned one step lower than the DS4 and DQ6. Thus, having looked at the range of products from Gigabyte, I can confidently say that these are solid and high-quality products that will appeal to most users. Moreover, the use of a passive cooling system on the DS4 and DQ6 will also certainly find a response among buyers.
With this small digression about Gigabyte's products, I will begin today's review. The fact is that a very serious range of solutions represents not only this company. After all, let’s not forget that Asus has long been a brand that has established itself as a manufacturer of high-quality and reliable products. Moreover, the release of one or another platform was always marked by the fact that we usually received this product from Asus. So, it would be surprising if such a big name were not noted for the release of boards based on the 965 chipset. Thus, Asus has a whole range of boards based on this set of system logic. The oldest of them is the model, traditionally with the richest configuration, which in addition to the standard set of accessories also includes Wi-Fi. This modification is traditionally referred to as Deluxe/Wi-Fi. A characteristic feature of this board is the availability of the widest range of settings and overclocking options. In addition, these solutions usually implement greatest number Serial-ATA outputs, as well as several network chips. A little lower in the hierarchy of boards from Asus is a model with the “E” index. This product has a similar set of settings and capabilities, but still has a slight simplification in the board design. Also, the reduction in price also affected the configuration. Otherwise, the board is identical to the flagship modification. An even lower step is a board with no additional indexes at all, simply called “Asus P5B”. This is exactly what we will talk about today.
Packaging and equipment
The packaging of the Asus P5B has the traditional coloring typical of all products based on the P965. I would like to note that the dimensions are average, which indicates that the board's complete set is modest.
Indeed, the equipment is very meager compared to older versions. However, we have everything we need. Thus, the kit includes:
- User Guide;
- Quick Start Guide;
- Disk with software and software;
- 4?Serial-ATA cable;
- Ultra DMA 66/100/133 cable
- Floppy train;
- Two Serial-ATA power cables;
- USB 2.0;
- Connectors for the control panel;
- Plug for the housing.
I would like to note the presence of a very important detail for most users. Most motherboards released recently by Asus include connectors for the control panel. Thus, the process of connecting cords to this panel can be greatly simplified. Now you just need to connect all the cords to the connector and then connect the entire bunch to the panel.
Board inspection
The board itself also has a very simplified design compared to older modifications. As you can see, in this Asus models does not use copper as a material for the manufacture of radiators or heat pipes. Overall, the board has a very standard design. A small aluminum radiator with the manufacturer's name is responsible for cooling the northbridge. It is worth noting that the dimensions of this cooling system are quite small, and even in the past, much more massive radiators were used on i955-based boards, such as the Asus P5WD2. In our case, a seriously simplified design is used. For example, the cooling of the south bridge is completely fictitious. This chip is cooled by a miniature aluminum radiator.
Changes also affected the power supply system. Compared to most expensive boards, the power supply system on the Asus P5B looks very modest. This also applies to the use of only three phases, as well as 9 capacitors with a capacity of 680 μF each. However, such an approach is very justified. Let's remember that the Gigabyte DQ6 uses a rather complex power system consisting of 12 phases! This structure allows you to withstand very serious loads placed on the power circuit. But let's not forget that the problem of overloading these circuits was especially relevant at the time of using processors based on the NetBurst architecture. Indeed, these CPUs had very high power consumption, which in critical loads could have a negative impact not only on the power supply, but also on the motherboard. With the release of Core 2 Duo processors, this problem became a thing of the past, along with high heat generation and low performance. Thus, when using such ergonomic CPUs, you are unlikely to need a board with such a complex and advanced power system. What Asus offers is quite enough for you, especially since, despite the very small number of phases, the power system itself is well made and uses very high-quality capacitors in its design. The processor is powered via a 4-pin connector. I note that at this point it is also worth talking about simplifying the design, because most boards in this class use an 8-pin output.
The board is equipped not only with traditional PCI-E 16x, but also with 3 PCI-E 1x and 3 PCI slots. Thus, it is worth noting a more conservative approach to this issue on the part of Asus. If in the case of Gigabyte we could see two PCI-E 16x slots at once (although one of them initially works as 4x), then today’s board has a more traditional approach, and, in my opinion, this approach is much more rational. Let me remind you that in most cases we cannot use all PCI slots due to the fact that the cooling system on the video card often covers the adjacent slot. Thus, we have to be content with two or even one PCI slot.
At the beginning of the description of the board, I already touched on the issue of cooling the north bridge, but this point is of very serious importance, so here I will go into a little more detail. The fact is that even before the launch of the system, such cooling raised very serious doubts in me, as it was unlikely that such a design would be able to cope with cooling the rather hot P965 chip. Recalling the experience of testing Gigabyte DS4 and DQ6, I noted that even in the case of these boards, when an advanced design based on heat pipes was used to cool both bridges, and even with this, the radiators heated up quite seriously under load. What then can we expect on boards with such simplified cooling?
I note that we can also find similar conservatism on motherboards from Gigabyte, on the S3 and DS3 models. If you believe eyewitnesses who have personally used these solutions, we can conclude that the radiator copes with cooling the chip, but it is still very doubtful, since at the same time it is worth noting that it heats up very seriously. On the Asus P5B board the situation was similar. As soon as I started the board, the radiator instantly heated up. I will note one interesting point. The fact is that on this design when the board was operating there was a wire from a fan placed on CPU cooler. And imagine my surprise when, after a couple of minutes of operating the system, I discovered that this cord began to become softer and gradually stick to the radiator. Thus, a little more and the rubber winding of the cord would simply melt from the high temperature of the radiator. This arrangement of affairs greatly alarmed me. It is unlikely that in case of such strong heating the board could function normally. In any case, I didn’t want to take any risks and placed a 92 mm fan near the radiator, after which there were no more problems with overheating. Moreover, even during a serious, prolonged load, the maximum structure became warm, before which it was impossible to even touch it.
Thus, I have some concerns that if the board is used in cheap cases with poor ventilation, there may be instability of the board or even failure of the chipset. Moreover, this warning applies not only to the Asus P5B, but also to all motherboards that have such weak cooling on the north bridge. So, if you have a solution to a similar problem, then I advise you to install a fan to blow the radiator or completely change the cooling on the northbridge.
I did not notice any problems with overheating of the south bridge.
The board is equipped with five Serial-ATA outputs. Moreover, four of them are painted red and placed in one group. The fifth is located higher and is painted black. It is worth noting that there is only one output with an Ultra DMA 66/100/133 interface. There is also a connector for Floppy in the same quantity.
The control panel, traditionally for Asus, is painted white, which does not interfere with orientation when connecting the corresponding cords from the case. Moreover, if you consider that the board comes with a convenient connector, which greatly simplifies this procedure.
The back panel is quite traditional. It includes both modern coaxial and optical SPDIF, as well as an aging LPT port. I note that, unfortunately, there is no COM port.
Board BIOS
As for the BIOS, here we have the code from Award, made with the appropriate features by the Asus software department. Thus, in most aspects the BIOS is similar to what we can find on boards in this price range. We are mostly interested in the possibilities of overclocking and tuning system performance. This is what we will talk about.
Overclocking options appear to us in the Configure System Frequency/Voltage section. Looking around this menu, there is an immediate feeling that something is missing. On the one hand, we clearly see a section about changing the frequencies of the memory, processor, changing the voltage on these elements, as well as on the FSB... But where is the voltage regulation on the north and south bridges? This is where the first disappointment awaited us.
Let me remind you that the main criterion when overclocking Core 2 Duo processors is to use a motherboard capable of maintaining an FSB of 400 MHz or more, depending on the processor, or more precisely on its multiplier. Thus, even 450 MHz FSB is unlikely to be enough for you to successfully overclock the E6300 model, and this despite the fact that not every motherboard can reach this level. For example, when testing Gigabyte's DS4, we were unable to achieve such results. It's hard to say what caused this. Low potential of the board itself or flaws in the BIOS area, but the fact remains that when overclocking the younger Core 2 Duo you need to have a very, very advanced motherboard.
Let's not forget that the main point affecting the board's potential is the voltage on the chipset. Thus, the higher this value, the larger the maximum FSB your processor will be able to run on. Unfortunately, in our case we are deprived of such an option, and we will have to be content with the standard voltage. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, because the board’s potential can be quite high even without manipulation to raise the voltage. But more on that a little later.
In the meantime, it is also worth noting the very weak capabilities for raising memory voltage. If on most boards this value is 2.5 V, then in our case it is much lower and equal to 2.1 V. I note that you are unlikely to be able to unlock the potential of expensive memory modules on this board. Let me remind you that some strips require a voltage of up to 2.4 V for optimal overclocking.
The option to change the voltage on the processor is also not pleasing to the eye. The fact is that for some reason the lower value is 1.4 V, and this despite the fact that most Core 2 Duo processors have a nominal voltage of 1.2-1.25 V. The maximum possible value on this board is 1. 7 V.
As for the FSB bus, here we have the ability to change the voltage in the range from 1.2 V to 1.45 V.
The ability to change memory timings is also very standard and does not bring anything new.
In general, it is worth noting that the BIOS capabilities on the Asus P5B are rather mediocre; this is especially surprising considering the traditional high quality Asus products are at exactly this moment.
But it would hardly be possible to draw any conclusions about the board without familiarizing yourself with the practical results. We'll talk about them now.
Overclocking and board features
I used a stand to test the board open type following configuration:
- Processor - Core 2 Duo E6300 (266×7, L2 cache is 2048 KB), Allendale;
- Cooling system - Scythe Mine;
- Motherboard - Asus P5B;
- Power supply – Thermaltake Tough Power 550 W;
- Video system - XFX GeForce 7900 GT EE (520/1500), Forceware 93.71;
- Memory – Corsair XMS2 6400 2 GB, 5-5-5-15;
- Hard drive – Hitachi 250 GB, Serial-ATA, 7200 rpm, 8 MB;
- Operating system - Windows XP, Service Pack 2;
- Thermal interface - KPT-8 (Khimtek)
It is worth noting that for testing we took a regular copy of the Core 2 Duo E6300 processor in a boxed package.
The processor characteristics are standard and familiar to most of our visitors:
Before the overclocking procedure, I performed the standard manipulation for testing. Namely, I updated the BIOS version. This is not difficult to do; to do this, you need to use the Asus Update utility, which comes on the disk along with the board. I would like to note that initially the board had BIOS version 0509 installed. As the utility reported, this firmware is currently the penultimate one. Of course, maybe the board could function perfectly without firmware, especially since the BIOS version is not at all old. But I did not contradict my traditions and updated to 0701. Only after that I started overclocking.
It’s worth saying that the relatively weak power supply and overclocking capabilities in the BIOS to some extent made me think that the board’s potential was very low. In any case, you shouldn’t expect records from a cheaper modification. Thinking so at first, I started overclocking from 330 MHz via FSB, before raising the voltage on the memory to 2.1 V and 1.4 V on the processor. As it turned out, the board operates stably at this frequency. In any case, this conclusion could be drawn after the download cycle of the S&M utility version 1.8.2b. A little bolder, I took the FSB step further, raising the frequency immediately to 370 MHz, but this did not make the system unstable. After that, I already began to understand that all the assumptions that I made before overclocking were not entirely justified, and the board is not as bad as it seems if you look at the BIOS capabilities. On the other hand, 370 MHz is a very modest result, which is given to most boards.
Thus, having complete faith in the capabilities of the board, I began to rapidly increase the FSB frequency... I started with 420 MHz. This bar was easily accepted by the board. Further 440 MHz, but again no problems arise! And this despite the fact that the voltage on the chipset was standard. Then I decided to seriously increase the step, so that later, if something happened, I could lower the frequency to find the optimal value. Indeed, I had serious doubts about the next frequency, but the doubts were in vain, and after a couple of minutes the system was working at an FSB of 480 MHz. What's next? It's not like the voltage on the chipset is initially too high. Such an assumption could well have a real basis, given the overheating of the radiator on this element. On the other hand, I completely rejected this assumption, understanding that Asus would never deliberately increase the voltage on the chipset on a board with a simplified design, as evidenced by the absence of a corresponding option in the BIOS.
Having conquered 480 MHz, it was necessary to cross the psychological threshold of 500 MHz. But this became possible on this board. I note that before this I raised the voltage on the processor a little more to 1.45 V, so that determining the maximum for the board would not be confused by the ceiling of the processor potential. Next, I set the frequency to 513 MHz, with this FSB the processor operated at a frequency of 3600 MHz! But passing POST can hardly be called normal functioning, given that the system was no longer able to load the OS. Thus, I was forced to reduce the FSB frequency to 507 MHz. At this frequency a cycle was completed in the S&M utility.
Having already rejoiced at the success, I was preparing to take a screenshot, when suddenly the system froze... To be honest, this quite surprised me, considering that at that time there was no download as such, and the cycle in S&M was completed. I rebooted the system to repeat the stability test, but this time I could not even boot the OS, because during this process the system froze again. I was forced to reduce the FSB frequency.
To begin with, the value was set to 500 MHz. This time the OS loaded without problems, but while “walking” through the Internet, I was again faced with freezing. Surprisingly, it seems that the S&M utility cannot adequately determine system stability when using Core 2 Duo processors. I then lowered the frequency to 490 MHz and ran a boot cycle using Burn P6 and Super Pi, but there were no problems until the very end. When the test was completed, I again went to the vastness of the endless network, and again the computer froze. At that moment, I already began to lean towards possible viruses or other hostile creatures on the hard drive I was using. But this could not have happened, since the formatting was done quite recently, and the search for viruses did not give any results. However, as it turned out, this was still a wrong assumption, because once I lowered the FSB further to 480 MHz, this problem no longer occurred, and the system was completely stable, regardless of the application used.
The processor frequency was 3360 MHz, which is still a fairly serious result, although not a record.
The memory operated at a frequency of 960 MHz with timings of 5-5-5-15.
Having talked about overclocking, I would like to touch on the topic of the board's features. They, as you probably understood, wear in this case negative character.
The first of these features did not surprise me at all. On the contrary, it to some extent confirmed the rule based on the entire statistics of boards from Asus. Having had the Asus P5WD2 board at my disposal for a very long period of time, I got used to the fact that this product turns the board off and on instead of rebooting. I was not surprised by this when I discovered this problem on the Asus P5B. However, this minus is very unnoticeable, and you quickly get used to it, and soon you completely forget. I note that this phenomenon has traditionally been corrected on older boards with the Deluxe or Premium index through the release of new BIOS versions. But on cheaper versions of boards this problem was usually not solved. In any case, this concerned the Asus P5WD2 board. Of course, I do not rule out that this problem will be fixed on the Asus P5B in the future, but I am confident that this is unlikely. At least this is confirmed by the second feature of the board.
As it became clear after the first entry into the monitoring section of the BIOS, the board seriously overestimates the temperature readings on the processor. Moreover, the overestimation occurs by approximately 15-20 °C. As it turned out, the same problem existed on the Deluxe version of the board, but in BIOS version 0507 this problem was fixed. In our case, even when using firmware version 0701, it is not possible to get rid of erroneous temperature monitoring.
Results
In the end, it’s only worth saying that once again you can see how Asus artificially forces users to purchase more expensive modifications, simply by not providing simplified versions with a sophisticated BIOS. On the one hand, this is a very right move, because otherwise the profitability of purchasing Deluxe versions is very small, on the other hand, it is necessary to somehow distinguish these products in the hierarchy of motherboards not only due to more expensive equipment and design, but also increased functionality, which turns out to be an order of magnitude more serious than that of younger models.
Despite all these little things, the board leaves a pleasant impression. In addition to an excellent price, this product boasts very high overclocking performance and excellent stability. For example, motherboards from Gigabyte behaved completely unpredictably when using memory from Corsair, namely the XMS2 6400 model. On the Asus P5B, everything is absolutely fine.
Positive sides:
- Low price for a board based on the P965 chipset;
- High quality and sophisticated design;
- Very high acceleration rates;
- Good stability and compatibility with new memory modules;
- High availability.
Negative sides:
- Ineffective cooling on the chipset;
- Weak board BIOS capabilities;
- Mediocre food system;
- Incorrect temperature monitoring on the processor;
- Problem with system reboot.