- Jan 4, 2005
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Well, I got the board in my sig at Christmas and built a new system around it. Since then, I've been experimenting with Intel overclocking for the first time in quite a few years.
I have to report that the MicroATX P5E-VM HDMI board is a stunning little overclocker for what it is. For about a month I've been running the configuration in my sig, with a rock-solid 998 MHz overclock. At 1.525V CPU settings and 1.42V northbridge, I could not get past that point for love or money with Prime95 stability. (For those wondering: I've been running 12-13 hour tests overnight, because at some point I have to use this computer to do work.)
I'm running an e6750 Prime stable, 39C idle/62C load (supposedly), at 3.70 GHz. (The type of stuff I do almost never loads the system the way Prime does.) I might be able to squeeze another 100 MHz or so out of it, but I'm not interested in jacking up the voltage any higher than present, because my temps appear to be just fine and I want to keep them that way. (Plus I don't want to smoke the chip or the mobo.) So, a 1.04 GHz overclock, representing a 39% increase over stock. Man. This is by far the most successful OCing experience I've ever had. This thing scales significant heights now and getting an e8400 or e8500 might buy me a few hundred more megahertz in OCing, but at this level I'm not sure the expense and effort in swapping CPUs, dealing with the thermal paste mess and fighting the heat sink installation are worth it.
With MicroATX, one downside is that you won't be able to use any of those decadent, flagrantly crazy aircooler heat sink/fan combos like the Tuniq Tower. Scythe Ninja and even the Arctic Freezer 7 will not fit. In MicroATX builds, your options are typically limited. I went with a Zalman CNPS8700 low-profile cooler, but its operation is close to silent at reasonable speeds, appears to do a quite serviceable cooling job and it fits into my case. You can see the result here.
The system is just barely cramped enough so that an Arctic Freezer 7 will not fit, which is typical for a MicroATX build. Still with the Lian-Li case noted in my signature, not too many compromises had to be made.
Well, after a month of 3.64 GHz operation I bumped up the voltage one more notch on the CPU and the Northbridge, to 1.5375 and 1.43V respectively, to see if I could get past the FSB wall I was encountering at 455. Now, I've busted this thing through to 468 MHz FSB, successfully run 3DMark, but had Prime95 fail after two minutes. Spinning it back down to 463 MHz FSB, I'm running this little MicroATX board with e6570 at 3.70 GHz Prime stable for 10 hours, which is all I've had time for. Because 3DMark is influenced by CPU speed, I ran it several times and came out with my personal record of 11878, which means precisely nothing, but is still a bit of fun. Also, 3DMark06 has this nice little shooter game you can play once you buy the software. This system, needless to say, runs it maxed out. It also enables maximum eye candy in my favorite game, Oblivion, which I am hopelessly bad at but always come back to for more abuse.
The overclocking features appear to be pretty much comprehensive. The P5E-VM HDMI has a category in the BIOS called JumperFree Configuration, where most of the key OCing settings are located. Multiplier, FSB, Northbridge, CPU voltage, memory latency settings. As I understand it, the JumperFree config matches up pretty much identically to most of Asus's enthusiast-level motherboards. Given this board costs over $140, this makes sense.
Here is a screen cap illustrating my measurement, for what they're worth.">http://s9.photobucket.com/albu...rime_and_utilities.jpg</a> There have been some quite valuable discussions on temp measurement techniques on this board lately and I suggest checking them out; I'm too lazy to recap the ins and outs of successful temp measurements in our highly uncertain Intel environments at this point.
Here is a cap of the 3DMark Results. Based on previous readings in the video Card and OCing secitons, I'm pretty sure that if I were running this under XP, one could add about 1000 points to the result.
The Intel G35 Express, which this board is based upon, offers an IGP that is strong anough to run Aero and is DX10 compliant, for whatever that's worth. (It still gets only 1.0 in the Vista evaluation.) The G35 is Intel's most current MicroATX chip set. The real kicker is that the board sports an HDMI port that is supposedly fully HDCP-compliant. The user can adapt the HDMI port to DVI if necessary, and an analog 15-pin VGA port also is provided. within several weeks, I plan to pop a Blu-Ray drive into this system, couple it with AnyDVD HD, and experiment with Hi-def HTPC playback. (I don't have an HDCP-compliant monitor, so without AnyDVD, playback will not work on my system. Such is life in the DRM universe.) So I'll be putting this thing through its hi-def paces in the near future and I'll post again when my testing is complete.
Another beautiful thing Asus did with this board was to include an Intel ICH9R I/O chip, which is not a mandated part of G35 Express. Because of this. the P5E-VM HDMI board supports RAID 0, RAID 0+1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. Not bad for a MicroATX system. Of course, I opted for RAID 0 with a couple of inexpensive Seagate 7200.10 250GB drives, and the drives are basically inaudible. (Shortly, I'll buy an external 500GB drive for disc imaging.) The only thing I wish this board had is an E-SATA port, but I can buy a cheap plug-in adapter to do the same thing.
Asus also provides a useful module for those extremely annoying little two-wire/header connectors for things like that all-important Power switch, the Reset switch and so on, which are often badly marked out on even enthusaist motherboards. This little white module header makes those connectons painless and easier to deal with should you need to make future upgrades. 6 Sata headers are also provided, a full PCI slot, a PCI-E x1 slot and and a PCI-E X16 slot for video cards.
Memory support appears to be quite solid, providing 4 DIMM slots and a full slate of memory tweaking settings, most of which I have absolutely no clue about. I opted for DDR2-1000 RAM that was serious overkill for my applications but I wanted to have significant headroom for OCing, even the supposed best DDR2-800 memory did not offer enough guaranteed headroom to suit me, and I never expected to max out the RAM. Even with an 8 multiplier CPU (this is the only reason I'd think about installing an E8400 at some point) I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near the ultimate FSB barrier on this board. Even if I am, a 9 multiplier could take care of that, and as things stand now it's difficult to see a marginal utility to a CPU upgrade. Anyway, at some point I'm really tempted to do an upgrade from 4 GB to 8 GB (using two more of the same sticks of course). I hear through the grapevine that running 4 2GB DIMMS can cause havoc with OCed systems; getting Blu-Ray and an external backup drive are higher priorities at this point. At some point I'll probably do a Penryn upgrade out of sheer boredom. even my current CPU would make for an extremely luxy HTPC setup.
Apparently, MicroATX motherboards have a rep for not being tweakable, compensating for this by allowing for somewhat more portable systems and a couple of expansion slots, which you usually don't get with SFF. If my experience is anything to go by, this board changes all that. The BIOS on my board instance is dated 10/03/07, which is just before the P5E-VM HDMI was released in the United States. I've seen some extremely derogatory recent user reviews of this board on NewEgg (where I bought it). I couldn't be more pleased with this little beast. When I found out about it, it was just coming out. After the reading I was able to do on it, I just had a feeling that this board was going to be exactly what I wanted. It's turned out exactly that way, and with the HDMI port, this system will have a long and fruitful life in our household.
So, if you own this board, what are your experiences? If you do, are you happy with it? Are you using it for an HTPC setup with just the on-board video? Would you consider a high-performance MicroATX mobo? (This is pretty much the only one out there.) Of course, there's no SLI, But with the 9800x2 and 3870x2, that doesn't seem to be as serious a consideration for a decent system. Let's hear your thoughts.
***Update*** I've now run the system on Prime 25.6 for 13 hours and 36 minutes. I did have to bump the voltage again, it turns out. But at 1.55V my temps have not budged. Also, the safe limit for Core 2 Duo is 1.6V, so I'm at the limit of what I consider safe at this point.
I have to report that the MicroATX P5E-VM HDMI board is a stunning little overclocker for what it is. For about a month I've been running the configuration in my sig, with a rock-solid 998 MHz overclock. At 1.525V CPU settings and 1.42V northbridge, I could not get past that point for love or money with Prime95 stability. (For those wondering: I've been running 12-13 hour tests overnight, because at some point I have to use this computer to do work.)
I'm running an e6750 Prime stable, 39C idle/62C load (supposedly), at 3.70 GHz. (The type of stuff I do almost never loads the system the way Prime does.) I might be able to squeeze another 100 MHz or so out of it, but I'm not interested in jacking up the voltage any higher than present, because my temps appear to be just fine and I want to keep them that way. (Plus I don't want to smoke the chip or the mobo.) So, a 1.04 GHz overclock, representing a 39% increase over stock. Man. This is by far the most successful OCing experience I've ever had. This thing scales significant heights now and getting an e8400 or e8500 might buy me a few hundred more megahertz in OCing, but at this level I'm not sure the expense and effort in swapping CPUs, dealing with the thermal paste mess and fighting the heat sink installation are worth it.
With MicroATX, one downside is that you won't be able to use any of those decadent, flagrantly crazy aircooler heat sink/fan combos like the Tuniq Tower. Scythe Ninja and even the Arctic Freezer 7 will not fit. In MicroATX builds, your options are typically limited. I went with a Zalman CNPS8700 low-profile cooler, but its operation is close to silent at reasonable speeds, appears to do a quite serviceable cooling job and it fits into my case. You can see the result here.
The system is just barely cramped enough so that an Arctic Freezer 7 will not fit, which is typical for a MicroATX build. Still with the Lian-Li case noted in my signature, not too many compromises had to be made.
Well, after a month of 3.64 GHz operation I bumped up the voltage one more notch on the CPU and the Northbridge, to 1.5375 and 1.43V respectively, to see if I could get past the FSB wall I was encountering at 455. Now, I've busted this thing through to 468 MHz FSB, successfully run 3DMark, but had Prime95 fail after two minutes. Spinning it back down to 463 MHz FSB, I'm running this little MicroATX board with e6570 at 3.70 GHz Prime stable for 10 hours, which is all I've had time for. Because 3DMark is influenced by CPU speed, I ran it several times and came out with my personal record of 11878, which means precisely nothing, but is still a bit of fun. Also, 3DMark06 has this nice little shooter game you can play once you buy the software. This system, needless to say, runs it maxed out. It also enables maximum eye candy in my favorite game, Oblivion, which I am hopelessly bad at but always come back to for more abuse.
The overclocking features appear to be pretty much comprehensive. The P5E-VM HDMI has a category in the BIOS called JumperFree Configuration, where most of the key OCing settings are located. Multiplier, FSB, Northbridge, CPU voltage, memory latency settings. As I understand it, the JumperFree config matches up pretty much identically to most of Asus's enthusiast-level motherboards. Given this board costs over $140, this makes sense.
Here is a screen cap illustrating my measurement, for what they're worth.">http://s9.photobucket.com/albu...rime_and_utilities.jpg</a> There have been some quite valuable discussions on temp measurement techniques on this board lately and I suggest checking them out; I'm too lazy to recap the ins and outs of successful temp measurements in our highly uncertain Intel environments at this point.
Here is a cap of the 3DMark Results. Based on previous readings in the video Card and OCing secitons, I'm pretty sure that if I were running this under XP, one could add about 1000 points to the result.
The Intel G35 Express, which this board is based upon, offers an IGP that is strong anough to run Aero and is DX10 compliant, for whatever that's worth. (It still gets only 1.0 in the Vista evaluation.) The G35 is Intel's most current MicroATX chip set. The real kicker is that the board sports an HDMI port that is supposedly fully HDCP-compliant. The user can adapt the HDMI port to DVI if necessary, and an analog 15-pin VGA port also is provided. within several weeks, I plan to pop a Blu-Ray drive into this system, couple it with AnyDVD HD, and experiment with Hi-def HTPC playback. (I don't have an HDCP-compliant monitor, so without AnyDVD, playback will not work on my system. Such is life in the DRM universe.) So I'll be putting this thing through its hi-def paces in the near future and I'll post again when my testing is complete.
Another beautiful thing Asus did with this board was to include an Intel ICH9R I/O chip, which is not a mandated part of G35 Express. Because of this. the P5E-VM HDMI board supports RAID 0, RAID 0+1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. Not bad for a MicroATX system. Of course, I opted for RAID 0 with a couple of inexpensive Seagate 7200.10 250GB drives, and the drives are basically inaudible. (Shortly, I'll buy an external 500GB drive for disc imaging.) The only thing I wish this board had is an E-SATA port, but I can buy a cheap plug-in adapter to do the same thing.
Asus also provides a useful module for those extremely annoying little two-wire/header connectors for things like that all-important Power switch, the Reset switch and so on, which are often badly marked out on even enthusaist motherboards. This little white module header makes those connectons painless and easier to deal with should you need to make future upgrades. 6 Sata headers are also provided, a full PCI slot, a PCI-E x1 slot and and a PCI-E X16 slot for video cards.
Memory support appears to be quite solid, providing 4 DIMM slots and a full slate of memory tweaking settings, most of which I have absolutely no clue about. I opted for DDR2-1000 RAM that was serious overkill for my applications but I wanted to have significant headroom for OCing, even the supposed best DDR2-800 memory did not offer enough guaranteed headroom to suit me, and I never expected to max out the RAM. Even with an 8 multiplier CPU (this is the only reason I'd think about installing an E8400 at some point) I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near the ultimate FSB barrier on this board. Even if I am, a 9 multiplier could take care of that, and as things stand now it's difficult to see a marginal utility to a CPU upgrade. Anyway, at some point I'm really tempted to do an upgrade from 4 GB to 8 GB (using two more of the same sticks of course). I hear through the grapevine that running 4 2GB DIMMS can cause havoc with OCed systems; getting Blu-Ray and an external backup drive are higher priorities at this point. At some point I'll probably do a Penryn upgrade out of sheer boredom. even my current CPU would make for an extremely luxy HTPC setup.
Apparently, MicroATX motherboards have a rep for not being tweakable, compensating for this by allowing for somewhat more portable systems and a couple of expansion slots, which you usually don't get with SFF. If my experience is anything to go by, this board changes all that. The BIOS on my board instance is dated 10/03/07, which is just before the P5E-VM HDMI was released in the United States. I've seen some extremely derogatory recent user reviews of this board on NewEgg (where I bought it). I couldn't be more pleased with this little beast. When I found out about it, it was just coming out. After the reading I was able to do on it, I just had a feeling that this board was going to be exactly what I wanted. It's turned out exactly that way, and with the HDMI port, this system will have a long and fruitful life in our household.
So, if you own this board, what are your experiences? If you do, are you happy with it? Are you using it for an HTPC setup with just the on-board video? Would you consider a high-performance MicroATX mobo? (This is pretty much the only one out there.) Of course, there's no SLI, But with the 9800x2 and 3870x2, that doesn't seem to be as serious a consideration for a decent system. Let's hear your thoughts.
***Update*** I've now run the system on Prime 25.6 for 13 hours and 36 minutes. I did have to bump the voltage again, it turns out. But at 1.55V my temps have not budged. Also, the safe limit for Core 2 Duo is 1.6V, so I'm at the limit of what I consider safe at this point.
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