New Build: Asus P5E64 WS Evolution

[zapionics<alt>]

Finally I've done it, no more talk, the new system is built

Motherboard: Asus P5E64 WS Evolution X48 DDR3 Workstation
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale
HSF: Zalman CNPS 8700 NT
Thermal paste: Arctic Silver 5
RAM: Corsair XMS DDR3 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC12800 XMP Dominator
Video card: Sapphire HD 4870 512MB GDDR5
Sound card: None; using on board High Def 8 channel
Hard drives: Western Digital Raptor 150GB system drive
Western Digital Caviar 500GB data drive
Optical drive: Asus 20x DVD Burner (LightScribe) Black SATA
Floppy drive: none
Case: Lian Li A17B Black
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 850w
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
Monitor: Samsung 2243bw LCD 22" widescreen 8000:1 5ms

Just a note about the vid card; I could have gotten a 280 or waited for the 4870x2... but ... the 280 is very noisy and double the price for only 5fps more in Crysis... and the micro-stutter issue killed dual cards and SLI/crossfire for me...

I went with Vista 64 because a) I wanted to experience Vista and make my own mind up and ... b) I wanted to try out 64bit... if I strike too many issues with apps I will swap over to 32bit.

One of my objectives was to build a quieter system, which I think I've achieved.

The build was smooth overall (how could it be otherwise with this case?) but there were a few issues:

• The PS was a tight fit and I had to push it in firmly. (I dont think the PS case is up to spec, maybe 1mm out.)
• The vid card is very heavy, here I was worrying about the HSF and it turns out that the vid card is the real weight concern...
• No current driver on ATI's download page for the HD 4870 yet! Using a "hotfix" - not very good IMO, although it seems to work ok.
• The HSF was a very tight fit next to the Evolutions passive cooling heat sinks and pipes,but it seems to sit snugly. I hated its CPU attachment method as it seemed to require three hands to accomplish it but somehow I managed...

Running the DDR at 1600Mhz without a hitch, Prime95 and Memtest tested perfect. Currently sitting at 3.8Ghz, DDR400. The system doesnt feel too snappy, but then I'm not used to Vista yet...

Installed S.T.A.L.K.E.R., patched it for a 3d test... whoa nelly! Oh, yes, its snappy! Every game setting is maxed out - all options enabled at 1680x1050 res and I'm seeing absolutely smooth gameplay. This system is a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. killer.
The monitor delivers a nice pic, although the viewing angle is critical. Blacks are just ok, detail remains but cant get shadows it to true absolute black. Nothing spectacular and certainly not a patch on my old CRT, however the extra realestate is very nice.
I cant run 3dmark06. Just crashes at the splash screen. Patch?
The Asus PC probe utility seems to be quite useful.
The G.P. diagnostic daughter card seems handy but there isnt a long list of codes in the user manual and the ones that are there seem to be the "happy" variety and I suspect there will be many unlisted ones.

Vista seems ok so far, although there is a bit of a learning curve to know where everything is. I do like that 3d tiled feature... dont know how long the novelty of it will last tho. System score is 5.8, all 5.9's except for CPU.

The real test will be Crysis... but that will have to wait until tomorrow ...

[ctal]

Really nice, Zap! Congratulations.

I would think you should be able to do 4 gHz pretty comfortably with an E8500, perhaps with a slight voltage boost. How are your temps? Before you answer, I suggest that you read this if you already haven't:

Real Temp - Documentation

Good luck with the new system!

Regards,
-- Al

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

Installed S.T.A.L.K.E.R., patched it for a 3d test... whoa nelly! Oh, yes, its snappy! Every game setting is maxed out - all options enabled at 1680x1050 res and I'm seeing absolutely smooth gameplay. This system is a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. killer.

The real test will be Crysis... but that will have to wait until tomorrow ...

nice system...

although I was wondering why you used S.T.A.L.K.E.R as the litmus test...S.T.A.L.K.E.R always seemed to scale pretty well and I never had any issues playing the game at high resolutions with all settings maxed...like you said Crysis will be the true test...also 1680 x 1050 doesn't seem like a true test of graphics prowess...even with my last video card (X1900XT) I always used 1920 x 1440 as the default resolution for any game I played (except Crysis)...I try not to game at anything lower then that with all settings maxed (except AA...I usually try to use 4X at the bare minimum)

[sammy2066]

Why didn't you wait for Nehalem?? EPIC FAIL!!

[ATINUT]

I've never heard of the board you ordered before, but it does look like it's going to be a good one.

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by ctal

Really nice, Zap! Congratulations...

Thanks ctal... i'll check out that doc about temps and post some figures. According to PC Probe its idling around 5 above ambient (25c).

Originally Posted by polonyc2

...also 1680 x 1050 doesn't seem like a true test of graphics prowess...

True, but its the monitors native res and I just wanted to see how the system "felt". I will try some proper benchies once I'm happy with all the config... it "feels" like its doing about 100+fps...

Originally Posted by sammy2066

Why didn't you wait for Nehalem?? EPIC FAIL!!

fair question! I could wait another six months... the answer is that I have been waiting forever already... and this chipset (48) now has very mature products out in the wild like this P5E64! I wouldnt take X58 for the same reasons I didnt take X38... but I may jump for X68 once that comes out ... and the biggest reason for upgrading now is that I still havent played Crysis !!

[sammy2066]

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

fair question! I could wait another six months... the answer is that I have been waiting forever already... and this chipset (48) now has very mature products out in the wild like this P5E64! I wouldnt take X58 for the same reasons I didnt take X38... but I may jump for X68 once that comes out ... and the biggest reason for upgrading now is that I still havent played Crysis !!

Well justified! I'm almost feeling the same technological void in my life at this point.

[zapionics<alt>]

I've struck a problem of some kind; when I power off the system and pull out the power cord and then power it back up and hit the start button, the fans spin up and the lights come on but then it powers off almost immediately. About 2 seconds later it powers up normally. A warm restart is ok, its only when I'm doing a cold start that this behaviour happens.

I tried swapping out the PS with no difference. Anyone seen this kind of thing before ?

[zapionics<alt>]

Ok, it looks like this is "by design".
Some info over here (crazy design but what would I know?)

Ok, now that thats settled, I will move onto some benchmarks.
Stay tuned...

[raging bull]

just curious: why P5E64 WS Evolution over theP5E3 Premium.....
and what's your thinking on the painted copper? will those regular copper heat sinks just oxide/patina?

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by raging bull

just curious: why P5E64 WS Evolution over theP5E3 Premium.....
and what's your thinking on the painted copper? will those regular copper heat sinks just oxide/patina?

Sry I havent posted in a while, been extremely busy!
This board is very very sweet, I am really impressed with it so far.

Differences to the P5E3... hmm... I think there are more voltage tweaks in the BIOS and more vcore and vdimm... extra PCI-e ...and the TPM... couple more internal SATA... energy saving HE 95 (although it seems to switch off with the overclock) ... 8 phase power... and i think it just looks damn sexier... actually the TPM was a very desirable feature for me at the time... and of course I expect WS board to be very reliable...

But I've been spending the little amount of free time I've had lately getting to know Vista 64 and Crysis... heh heh running the system at 400 fsb with 333 strap, 1600 dram, vcore at default. I have upped the vdimm 2 tenths due to a crash in Crysis... btw I'm running Crysis 64 bit version and DX10 with all very high settings except for volumetric which I left on high. The game is stunning and very playable, fps seems to be around mid 30's or 40's most of the time but it plays very well. I think I'll comment about the game later in the gaming forum.

The heatsinks are anodised... blue

Still to do benchies... currently getting a copy of Office 2007 and some other apps organised... still migrating some data...

Vista 64 feels like a service pack upgrade to Xp... although i love the abiltiy to view the windows in 3D on the desktop ... the GUI doesnt feel very snappy even with the 4GB... but apps are quick...

problems so far;... hmm.... Crysis crashed and locked up 3 times so far... getting spots in shadows... seems like many ppl are with Vista 64 and its a graphics driver issue ... but its not bad enough to cause me any grief... got a new keyboard (microsoft natural) and I cant power on using the space bar anymore, that feature is only available for PS2 interface and this is USB... cannot switch off the feature to throttle down the CPU when no load, BIOS setting has no effect...

On board sound is really very good...
bit of a learning curve here as I work out whats software and hardware
the system is very much quieter than my previous rig,
will post again soon...

[ATINUT]

TPM is the Trusted Platform Module, and is required to be enabled, if you wish to use Bitlocker Drive Encryption. Note that Bitlocker Drive Encryption is easily hacked, if somebody get's access to your system. All they have to do is take the cover off your case, and spray the memory with some sort of cold air, and I believe the drive too, and bingo, the Bitlocker Drive encryption is busted, as Bitlocker Drive encryption stores portions of itself and so on, in your system memory.

Vista 64 runs good on 4GB's of ram, but it runs even better on 8GB's.

On my board, I still haven't started using the onboard sound truly, as my soundcard still works perfectly fine, and my intention at this point and time is to use my soundcard, until it ultimately croaks, or I decided to say heck with it, pull out my soundcard and start using onboard.

[zapionics<alt>]

Well, there is a problem with setting vcore in the bios, the value shown doesnt agree with either Asuses supplied PC Probe utility or with CPU-Z. This is really dissappointing on a high end board... seems to be up to 0.30 out. I'm running version 0401 of the bios. There is a newer version out now but they dont list any fixes that I need.

Does anyone know of a utility I can use to see the value for vDimm? and the MCH? from Windows Vista. Actually there are many voltages I'd like to monitor from Windows...

[zapionics<alt>]

I flashed the latest BIOS 0506 without any problems.
I still notice a discrepancy in vcore reported in BIOS versus CPU-Z... but more seriously I'm getting random crashes in explorer... blue screens...

this was happening prior to the flash, but I had stabilised it by upping the vcore... currently I have it at 1.28...

This is an E8500... any recommendations on vcore for this CPU?

[ctal]

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

This is an E8500... any recommendations on vcore for this CPU?

I'm running an E8500 totally stable at 3.8gHz with 1.23V (per SpeedFan and CPU-Z), on a Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6. I'm pretty sure I could go significantly faster than that with some voltage boosts, but I haven't tried to.

Not sure what to suggest about the instability you are experiencing, other than trying it with Vcore higher. I'd feel comfortable going to 1.35V or so, assuming your cooling and temps are good. That's what I've been running an E8400 at, in a different system, also at 3.8gHz. It too has been totally stable, running on a Gigabyte GA-EX38-DQ6.

Regards,

-- Al