Any experiences with the new P5Q?

[OptimisTech]

I am getting a new MB soon and my needs are pretty basic. I like the low-end P5Q for its simplicity and size, but the p45 is still pretty new and I'm looking for anyone who has tried one of these boards to get general impressions. Also, the chipset heatsinks look like all flash/no function to me. How hot does the northbridge on this board get?

 

[rickyman123]

no, but i just bought one on sale ( Newegg.com)

 

[OptimisTech]

Yeah, that's what made me wonder about it. $130 seems like a pretty good deal.

 

[rickyman123]

i am using new board for htpc, but i still have not figure out which hsf i am going to be using.

Thermalright SI-128 SE (Newegg) - no more
thermaltake xp-120 (Newegg) - no more
themaltake xp-90c (newegg) - no more

 

[pooner007]

I just got a P5Q Pro setup last night. Heatsinks seem fine, the Pro has 2 smallish heatsinks that are joined with a heat pipe. They were warm to touch at idle, I have not touched them under load. The southbridge sink is pretty skimpy.

A step up to the P5Q Dlx gets you 16 phase power instead of 8, better chipset sinks and a better NIC. The NIC wasn?t a big deal for me as I always run a standalone PCIx Intel card.

I picked this board up to replace GB EP35-DS3R which I returned due to reading the DPC latency thread here.

I have not done any OCing on the Asus board yet but I had my e8400 stable @ 4.0ghz on the DS3R board so we will see.

 

[skywhr]

I am looking at getting the p5q deluxe.... whats a good power supply and chip for this board
new build for me as well

 

[tenax]

i just put together the pq5 board with a 9450, 4 gb of g.skill ram, tagan 800 watt ps, 6 sata hard drives, 1 dvd burner, 3 tv tuner cards and sound card. observations so far:

-easy build..booted right away with no issue. came with 0506 bios, upgraded to the supposed much better 0703 bios right away.

-did not rebuild my prior os drive from my p35 chipset based abit board. no issues.

-there has been a comment about the atheros network chip not being very fast. i question this. i've run speedtests with no speed issues and from a feel standpoint, everything opens very fast.

-easy to use the eazybackup (raid 1) utility. it is misleading though.the manual info refers to only material on the drive you're going to backup to being lost..but in the utility screen, if gives you the impression it will erase both your source and target drives. not true..just set it up this morning and it didn't touch the source drive.

-have no overclocked yet. i love that the default voltage to start with my quad is showing up at 1.15 volts, but there is vdroop as the setting is 1.2 volts. not a huge amount, don't know if i have the line load funtion in the bios engaged that is supposed to correct vdroop. i only built the system up a few days ago so have not overclocked yet. this is my htpc system so i had tv recording priorities to get going cpu temp at that voltage is 36 to 37C.

the layout of the board for the most part is excellent. i am torn on the atx socket placement though. it's great in that it isn't on the bottom edge of the board so doesn't get hidden under the drive cage in my silverstone htpc case. the downside of it's placement up between the graphic card and cpu is it's a thick bundle of cables in the middle of my board and i can't stuff them away the way i'd like to. it seems to have made a cramped case, that much more cramped now.

would like to get the northbridge temp. anyone know a utility that will show it? that was the nice thing about the abit versus asus pc probe which unfortunately doesn't give a lot of info (unless i'm not manipulating it properly)

 

[AmberClad]

Are you not getting a "MB" or "motherboard temperature" reading using ASUS PC Probe II? Because I'm assuming that the MB reading is the NB temperature (I could be wrong though). I'm not sure how much I trust the app though - the CPU reading is quite a bit off.

 

[rickyman123]

Originally posted by: tenax
i just put together the pq5 board with a 9450, 4 gb of g.skill ram, tagan 800 watt ps, 6 sata hard drives, 1 dvd burner, 3 tv tuner cards and sound card. observations so far:

-easy build..booted right away with no issue. came with 0506 bios, upgraded to the supposed much better 0703 bios right away.

-did not rebuild my prior os drive from my p35 chipset based abit board. no issues.

-there has been a comment about the atheros network chip not being very fast. i question this. i've run speedtests with no speed issues and from a feel standpoint, everything opens very fast.

-easy to use the eazybackup (raid 1) utility. it is misleading though.the manual info refers to only material on the drive you're going to backup to being lost..but in the utility screen, if gives you the impression it will erase both your source and target drives. not true..just set it up this morning and it didn't touch the source drive.

-have no overclocked yet. i love that the default voltage to start with my quad is showing up at 1.15 volts, but there is vdroop as the setting is 1.2 volts. not a huge amount, don't know if i have the line load funtion in the bios engaged that is supposed to correct vdroop. i only built the system up a few days ago so have not overclocked yet. this is my htpc system so i had tv recording priorities to get going cpu temp at that voltage is 36 to 37C.

the layout of the board for the most part is excellent. i am torn on the atx socket placement though. it's great in that it isn't on the bottom edge of the board so doesn't get hidden under the drive cage in my silverstone htpc case. the downside of it's placement up between the graphic card and cpu is it's a thick bundle of cables in the middle of my board and i can't stuff them away the way i'd like to. it seems to have made a cramped case, that much more cramped now.

would like to get the northbridge temp. anyone know a utility that will show it? that was the nice thing about the abit versus asus pc probe which unfortunately doesn't give a lot of info (unless i'm not manipulating it properly)

are you using regular P5Q or are you using "-E","Pro","Deluxe", or the most expensive one? if you are using the regular P5Q, what is your heatsink? where do you get P5Q bios version 0703?

 

[tenax]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Are you not getting a "MB" or "motherboard temperature" reading using ASUS PC Probe II? Because I'm assuming that the MB reading is the NB temperature (I could be wrong though). I'm not sure how much I trust the app though - the CPU reading is quite a bit off.

i am, amber..in 3 programs, i get consistent temps in both motherboard and cpu so i'm feeling pretty confident in those. i think you're right about the mobo reading..43C sounds about right for unclocked and in line i believe with the smaller 65nm form factor on the northbridge in terms of what expectations should be for temps as compared to the borderline 50 i was getting at stock with the abit. i should note by the way that this is the P5Q with the standalone heatsinks. on the northbridge, it appears to be a well mounted heatsink using metal screws with springs..it is a much tighter fit than plastic pins are. why they don't simply use screws on all pieces is beyond me (i'm sure it comes down to a cost thing) but silly.. the power cable has to kind of go over the northbridge so no favours are being done for cooling with that cable placement. it will be interesting once i overclock to see the temps. i want to go for 3400 anyway which was the comfort level for me on my abit and frankly, it wouldn't comfortably go much higher (3500 stable..3600 touchy if i pushed)

 

[tenax]

Originally posted by: rickyman123


are you using regular P5Q or are you using "-E","Pro","Deluxe", or the most expensive one? if you are using the regular P5Q, what is your heatsink? where do you get P5Q bios version 0703?

hey rickyman. i'm using the regular P5Q. i found the link to the 0703 bios here:


http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...d.php?t=189437&page=21

post 515, the guy has a link to various p5q board bios variations.

 

[rickyman123]

Originally posted by: tenax

Originally posted by: rickyman123


are you using regular P5Q or are you using "-E","Pro","Deluxe", or the most expensive one? if you are using the regular P5Q, what is your heatsink? where do you get P5Q bios version 0703?

hey rickyman. i'm using the regular P5Q. i found the link to the 0703 bios here:


http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...d.php?t=189437&page=21

post 515, the guy has a link to various p5q board bios variations.

i have almost the pc spec as you:

Asus regular P5Q
e8400
ati 3450

(right now i need to find a retail hsf for my board). i just dont know which one will fit.

 

[tenax]

i think most will fit this board. i'm using an enzotech extreme. i have 2 challenges when looking for a hs for my system...making sure it can fit within the heatsinks ..and height in general due to it being an htpc case. i think you will find basically any heatsink will fit..there is good clearance around the socket on all sides as the heatsinks for mosfets, nb etc are not that tall. i only ran into one concern when i tried to orient the fan a certain way and the heatpipes on it pushed that heatsink over a bit that is on the right side on the board. but i had 3 other ways i was able to turn the heatsink, any of which worked fine.

 

[rickyman123]

Originally posted by: tenax
i think most will fit this board. i'm using an enzotech extreme. i have 2 challenges when looking for a hs for my system...making sure it can fit within the heatsinks ..and height in general due to it being an htpc case. i think you will find basically any heatsink will fit..there is good clearance around the socket on all sides as the heatsinks for mosfets, nb etc are not that tall. i only ran into one concern when i tried to orient the fan a certain way and the heatpipes on it pushed that heatsink over a bit that is on the right side on the board. but i had 3 other ways i was able to turn the heatsink, any of which worked fine.

do you have a pic of this heatsink with your board? if so, can i see it? if not, that is okay also.


Thank You

 

[tenax]

http://www.xoxide.com/enzotech-ultra-x-120.html

i don't, but there's a pic of the heatsink so you can get an idea. 120mm fan on top..i also have a thermaltake typhoon..similar footprint and it would fit as well based on my experience. i switched out the typhoon last year from my htpc case as it was a bit tall. it fit, but didn't allow for enough clearance to the roof of my case. this gave me another 3/4 of an inch compared to the typhoon. as you can see, the heatpipes on this contacted the heatsink on the right hand side of the board by i'd say 1/8 of an inch..but they fit with no issue when i tried the other 3 "positions" available. i have it mounted so the pipes are
oriented facing the ram slots. reason for that is:

a) the fan which sucks air in and blows it down on the processor, also effectively blows down on the 4 of the 8 power phase modules (black cubes on top and right hand side of processor socket)

b) it keeps a really clear path to my ram slots in case i need to do something there.

the enzo is quiet, runs cool and i really like that it comes with a slot based fan speed controller. works very well. also comes with a tube of as5.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: tenax

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Are you not getting a "MB" or "motherboard temperature" reading using ASUS PC Probe II? Because I'm assuming that the MB reading is the NB temperature (I could be wrong though). I'm not sure how much I trust the app though - the CPU reading is quite a bit off.

i am, amber..in 3 programs, i get consistent temps in both motherboard and cpu so i'm feeling pretty confident in those.

Yeah, I don't know. Something about that app just makes me not want to trust its readings...

What do you think :roll:?

*pats my miniature nuclear reactor *

 

[tenax]

yeah, not my favorite ap. aside from changing the skin, it's pretty much the same ap i used on my asus board in 1998 i think that actually had more features, lol