- Oct 13, 1999
- 22,377
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Zap's Mini Review: Asus P5QPL-AM
(Purchased from Newegg for $49.99 with free shipping)
The Asus P5QPL-AM is a low-priced motherboard for socket LGA 775 based on the Intel G41 chipset for all Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. It was on special at Newegg for $50 shipped (normally $65 plus shipping) making it priced closer to G31 chipset boards, so it piqued my interest.
SPECIFICATIONS
Asus P5QPL-AM motherboard
Intel G41 chipset with ICH7
Supports socket LGA 775 Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad
Supports FSB 800/1066/1333
Two DDR2 slots for dual channel operation, 8GB max
one PCI Express 1.1 x16, one PCI Express x1, two PCI slots
four SATA 3Gb/s and one IDE
Realtek audio with 6 channels
Atheros gigabit ethernet
Intel GMA X4500 onboard video with VGA output
Micro ATX form factor
TEST CONFIGURATION
Asus P5QPL-AM motherboard
4GB (2x2GB) Patriot Viper DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 2.1v
Core 2 Duo E7300 (266MHz FSB, 2.66GHz stock)
BFG LS-550 power supply
Samsung 1TB 7200RPM HDD
HP DVD/CDRW
BIOS
AMI BIOS
CPU Q-Fan Control disabled/enabled
Voltages:
Memory 1.36-1.50v in 0.075v increments, 1.50-2.445v in 0.015v increments
NB Voltage auto/1.125v/1.175v/1.225v/1.275v
SB 1.5V Voltage 1.5v/1.6v
FSB 133-800MHz
Memory multipliers auto/667/800/1066
IMPRESSIONS
This is a really tiny board for micro ATX. Any smaller and it would be Flex ATX. The board is pretty basic except for the inclusion of gigabit Ethernet using an Atheros chipset. I have to admit that I?ve never seen a non-wireless Atheros chipset before. This board will make for a decent workstation or gaming setup because of the onboard graphics plus PCI Express x16 slot (1.1, not 2.0) and gigabit Ethernet.
The layout is really nice with the 4-pin +12v next to the PS/2 plugs, the 24-pin ATX on the edge and the four SATA ports along the bottom edge and out of the way of large graphics cards. That makes this board useful in a micro ATX gaming setup.
While Smart Fan (ahem, ?CPU Q-Fan?) is supported, it is just a basic enable/disable with no finer controls. This is a minor disappointment.
BIOS AND OVERCLOCKING
The AMI BIOS was really similar to the one on the Foxconn G45 chipset board I reviewed previously as far as layout and feel are concerned. Strangely enough, the Foxconn board had much more settings that would be of interest to overclockers/enthusiasts. While the Asus board allowed memory latency, multiplier and voltage adjustments, the multiplier adjustments left a lot to be desired since with my 266MHz (1066MHz) FSB CPU the lowest multiplier was 2.5x (667) so overclocking the CPU means eventually overclocking the RAM. The only saving grace was RAM voltages to a dangerous 2.445v.
One interesting thing was RAM undervolting to 1.36v. I?ve heard about vendors coming out with lower voltage DDR2 and DDR3, but that stuff seems pretty rare so this is of dubious value.
The CPU overclocking was actually pretty lackluster for an Asus board, probably because this was meant to be really low end. There were pre-set profiles of 5%/10%/15%/20% plus a ?test mode? that I?m not sure what it does. The FSB can be set from 133-800MHz. Yikes! Of course anything above 350-400MHz-ish is probably useless on a board like this, so I don?t know why they even include those speeds besides being a features checkbox. CPU multiplier is also available from the lowest 6x common to all Core 2 Duo CPUs to the maximum of the CPU (in the case of the E7300, 10x) in 0.5x increments.
Along with chipset and memory voltage adjustments, this all sounds great for overclockers, right? Uh, wait, where?s the CPU voltage adjustment? DOH! I was unable to clock much past 3GHz. At 3.33GHz (333MHz FSB, 10x multiplier) system would boot Windows but wouldn?t run Orthos or even World of Warcraft. I don?t know if it lacked CPU voltage (very likely) or if the memory wasn?t stable at 830MHz (not as likely, I ran at loose latencies and high voltages).
There was one very interesting possibility with this board. It has multiplier adjustments down to 6x and FSB down to 133MHz, and those settings actually worked!!! Unlike on the Gigabyte G31 chipset board where FSB settings started at 100MHz but actually didn?t work below CPU?s stock FSB, this board worked fine at 6x133MHz, meaning you can underclock any Core 2 Duo class CPU to 800MHz. Why would you want to? Well, to save electricity for a low powered server or workstation. But wait, the lack of CPU voltage adjustments, specifically undervolting, makes this almost useless. At least with the Gigabyte board you can undervolt and lower the multiplier.
This board has an interesting feature called Asus Turbo Key. It requires software to be installed and configured from the driver/utility disc. It basically turns your power switch into a turbo switch (while in Windows). This adds dynamic one-touch overclocking to make you feel better about the board being a sucktacular nonoverclocker.
The Asus Turbo Key software has three settings once enabled. The stock FSB of my setup was 266MHz. Here are the options available:
Race Car 268MHz
Jet Plane 273MHz
Rocket 279MHz
This is just a basic and nominal bump of the FSB. It is gimmicky, but does work as advertised. It does require the Asus Turbo Key software to be running in the background though, so I?d personally still clock it up on a more permanent basis from BIOS and leave EIST enabled to downclock the system as necessary.
IGP PERFORMANCE
This is the first time I will be testing the IGP (integrated graphics processor) as part of a motherboard review. The reason is that I was curious as to how good the ?best? Intel IGP can be. Technically the X4500HD is better, but it only adds video decoding to the vanilla X4500? I think. System was not overclocked and I used drivers from the driver CD.
Call of Duty 4 (seta cg_drawFPS 1)
(fresh install, no patches)
1680x1050, no AA, optimal settings 5-7 FPS
1680x1050, lowest settings 14-20 FPS
1280x768, lowest settings 18-33 FPS
640x480, lowest settings 37-75 FPS
OMG COD4 was actually almost playable if image quality is tanked! I?m actually surprised at two things. First, COD4 actually worked. Second, COD4 actually doesn?t look all that bad with stuff turned down. One interesting thing was that even at 640x480 the in-game menu (choosing teams/class) was really laggy
World of Warcraft (CTRL-R)
(patched to current as of 08/26/09)
1680x1050 resolution, location Darnassus
Preset Low 34-50 FPS
Preset Fair 22-30 FPS
Preset Good 13-17 FPS
Preset Ultra ?The igxprd32 display driver has stopped working normally.?
The presets are on the main slider bar in the video options. When I tested lower resolutions everything looked like absolute crap, so I tested at the monitor?s native resolution. This might be because there is always text and a lot of little details on the screen, unlike in COD4 where there are objects and textures. Not sure if I?m explaining it right.
WoW is actually pretty playable in Low and even Fair settings. Fair looks a hell of a lot better than Low. Setting it up all the way kills the driver, so I guess the game tries to do stuff that isn?t supported.
CONCLUSION
This board is a great value for $50 (or even $65) considering it is price-competitive with G31 chipset boards and has better integrated graphics.
Serious overclockers can pass on this board, but it can make for a nice gaming setup (with external graphics) or a nice non-gaming workstation.
(Purchased from Newegg for $49.99 with free shipping)
The Asus P5QPL-AM is a low-priced motherboard for socket LGA 775 based on the Intel G41 chipset for all Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. It was on special at Newegg for $50 shipped (normally $65 plus shipping) making it priced closer to G31 chipset boards, so it piqued my interest.
SPECIFICATIONS
Asus P5QPL-AM motherboard
Intel G41 chipset with ICH7
Supports socket LGA 775 Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad
Supports FSB 800/1066/1333
Two DDR2 slots for dual channel operation, 8GB max
one PCI Express 1.1 x16, one PCI Express x1, two PCI slots
four SATA 3Gb/s and one IDE
Realtek audio with 6 channels
Atheros gigabit ethernet
Intel GMA X4500 onboard video with VGA output
Micro ATX form factor
TEST CONFIGURATION
Asus P5QPL-AM motherboard
4GB (2x2GB) Patriot Viper DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 2.1v
Core 2 Duo E7300 (266MHz FSB, 2.66GHz stock)
BFG LS-550 power supply
Samsung 1TB 7200RPM HDD
HP DVD/CDRW
BIOS
AMI BIOS
CPU Q-Fan Control disabled/enabled
Voltages:
Memory 1.36-1.50v in 0.075v increments, 1.50-2.445v in 0.015v increments
NB Voltage auto/1.125v/1.175v/1.225v/1.275v
SB 1.5V Voltage 1.5v/1.6v
FSB 133-800MHz
Memory multipliers auto/667/800/1066
IMPRESSIONS
This is a really tiny board for micro ATX. Any smaller and it would be Flex ATX. The board is pretty basic except for the inclusion of gigabit Ethernet using an Atheros chipset. I have to admit that I?ve never seen a non-wireless Atheros chipset before. This board will make for a decent workstation or gaming setup because of the onboard graphics plus PCI Express x16 slot (1.1, not 2.0) and gigabit Ethernet.
The layout is really nice with the 4-pin +12v next to the PS/2 plugs, the 24-pin ATX on the edge and the four SATA ports along the bottom edge and out of the way of large graphics cards. That makes this board useful in a micro ATX gaming setup.
While Smart Fan (ahem, ?CPU Q-Fan?) is supported, it is just a basic enable/disable with no finer controls. This is a minor disappointment.
BIOS AND OVERCLOCKING
The AMI BIOS was really similar to the one on the Foxconn G45 chipset board I reviewed previously as far as layout and feel are concerned. Strangely enough, the Foxconn board had much more settings that would be of interest to overclockers/enthusiasts. While the Asus board allowed memory latency, multiplier and voltage adjustments, the multiplier adjustments left a lot to be desired since with my 266MHz (1066MHz) FSB CPU the lowest multiplier was 2.5x (667) so overclocking the CPU means eventually overclocking the RAM. The only saving grace was RAM voltages to a dangerous 2.445v.
One interesting thing was RAM undervolting to 1.36v. I?ve heard about vendors coming out with lower voltage DDR2 and DDR3, but that stuff seems pretty rare so this is of dubious value.
The CPU overclocking was actually pretty lackluster for an Asus board, probably because this was meant to be really low end. There were pre-set profiles of 5%/10%/15%/20% plus a ?test mode? that I?m not sure what it does. The FSB can be set from 133-800MHz. Yikes! Of course anything above 350-400MHz-ish is probably useless on a board like this, so I don?t know why they even include those speeds besides being a features checkbox. CPU multiplier is also available from the lowest 6x common to all Core 2 Duo CPUs to the maximum of the CPU (in the case of the E7300, 10x) in 0.5x increments.
Along with chipset and memory voltage adjustments, this all sounds great for overclockers, right? Uh, wait, where?s the CPU voltage adjustment? DOH! I was unable to clock much past 3GHz. At 3.33GHz (333MHz FSB, 10x multiplier) system would boot Windows but wouldn?t run Orthos or even World of Warcraft. I don?t know if it lacked CPU voltage (very likely) or if the memory wasn?t stable at 830MHz (not as likely, I ran at loose latencies and high voltages).
There was one very interesting possibility with this board. It has multiplier adjustments down to 6x and FSB down to 133MHz, and those settings actually worked!!! Unlike on the Gigabyte G31 chipset board where FSB settings started at 100MHz but actually didn?t work below CPU?s stock FSB, this board worked fine at 6x133MHz, meaning you can underclock any Core 2 Duo class CPU to 800MHz. Why would you want to? Well, to save electricity for a low powered server or workstation. But wait, the lack of CPU voltage adjustments, specifically undervolting, makes this almost useless. At least with the Gigabyte board you can undervolt and lower the multiplier.
This board has an interesting feature called Asus Turbo Key. It requires software to be installed and configured from the driver/utility disc. It basically turns your power switch into a turbo switch (while in Windows). This adds dynamic one-touch overclocking to make you feel better about the board being a sucktacular nonoverclocker.
The Asus Turbo Key software has three settings once enabled. The stock FSB of my setup was 266MHz. Here are the options available:
Race Car 268MHz
Jet Plane 273MHz
Rocket 279MHz
This is just a basic and nominal bump of the FSB. It is gimmicky, but does work as advertised. It does require the Asus Turbo Key software to be running in the background though, so I?d personally still clock it up on a more permanent basis from BIOS and leave EIST enabled to downclock the system as necessary.
IGP PERFORMANCE
This is the first time I will be testing the IGP (integrated graphics processor) as part of a motherboard review. The reason is that I was curious as to how good the ?best? Intel IGP can be. Technically the X4500HD is better, but it only adds video decoding to the vanilla X4500? I think. System was not overclocked and I used drivers from the driver CD.
Call of Duty 4 (seta cg_drawFPS 1)
(fresh install, no patches)
1680x1050, no AA, optimal settings 5-7 FPS
1680x1050, lowest settings 14-20 FPS
1280x768, lowest settings 18-33 FPS
640x480, lowest settings 37-75 FPS
OMG COD4 was actually almost playable if image quality is tanked! I?m actually surprised at two things. First, COD4 actually worked. Second, COD4 actually doesn?t look all that bad with stuff turned down. One interesting thing was that even at 640x480 the in-game menu (choosing teams/class) was really laggy
World of Warcraft (CTRL-R)
(patched to current as of 08/26/09)
1680x1050 resolution, location Darnassus
Preset Low 34-50 FPS
Preset Fair 22-30 FPS
Preset Good 13-17 FPS
Preset Ultra ?The igxprd32 display driver has stopped working normally.?
The presets are on the main slider bar in the video options. When I tested lower resolutions everything looked like absolute crap, so I tested at the monitor?s native resolution. This might be because there is always text and a lot of little details on the screen, unlike in COD4 where there are objects and textures. Not sure if I?m explaining it right.
WoW is actually pretty playable in Low and even Fair settings. Fair looks a hell of a lot better than Low. Setting it up all the way kills the driver, so I guess the game tries to do stuff that isn?t supported.
CONCLUSION
This board is a great value for $50 (or even $65) considering it is price-competitive with G31 chipset boards and has better integrated graphics.
Serious overclockers can pass on this board, but it can make for a nice gaming setup (with external graphics) or a nice non-gaming workstation.
or set the FSB manually?
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