"Come, Watson, come!" he cried. The game is afoot..."

This quote from the short story, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, by noted Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle expresses the current marketplace in regards to the Intel 975X chipset. Although motherboards based on the Intel 975x chipset have not reached the retail market yet, the game is afoot as there have been numerous product release announcements from several suppliers over the past few weeks. We recently reviewed the Asus P5WDG2-WS and Gigabyte GA-G1 975X with promising results. We have several more 975X boards on the way to us for a complete roundup in the near future.

The Asus P5WD2-E Premium is a follow-up to the Asus P5WD2 Premium, which was based on the Intel 955x chipset. Both boards are targeted towards the enthusiast market along with the Asus P5N32-SLI. Due to the enhancements made on the 975X board, we can expect to see the 955X product move down to the middle of the market for the short term and then disappear based upon the performance and pricing of the 945P product line. Asus also offers the Intel 975X based P5WDG2-WS for the workstation market.

The chart above lists the standard feature set available to manufacturers using the Intel 82975X chipset. The Intel 975X Express Chipset enables full support for multiple 2x8 PCI Express graphics cards, Intel Memory Pipeline Technology (MPT), Intel Flex Memory Technology, 8GB memory addressability, and ECC memory support.

The Intel MPT has been enhanced over the 955X iteration to offer improved pipelining to enable a higher utilization of each memory channel resulting in better performance through increased transfers between the processor and system memory. Intel Flex Memory Technology allows different memory sizes to be populated and still remain in dual-channel mode.

The new architecture also supports both asynchronous and isochronous data traffic, with dedicated internal pipelines and specialized arbitration. In addition, the 975X chipset has improved electricals with optimized ball-out for better latency compared to the 955X chipset.We noticed small but not significant improvements in our test results.

The 975X chipset offers full support for graphic based PCI Express x16 lanes that can be configured as two PCI Express x8 slots for multi-view or GPU capability. The system currently supports ATI CrossFire technology.

Asus chose to augment this feature set with additional SATA II and PATA capabilities via the Marvell 88SE6141 chipset, additional LAN capabilities via the Marvell GbE 88E8053 chipset, and Firewire 1394a support via the TI TSB43AB22A chipset.

Let's see how this board performs against other 975X offerings.





Basic Features: Asus P5WD2-E Premium

Specification	Asus P5WD2-E Premium
CPU Interface	LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium 4 XE, Celeron D, and Pentium D processors
Chipset	Intel 975X - MCH ICH7R - ICH
Pentium D Support (Dual-Core)	820D, 830D, 840D, 840EE, 920D, 930D, 940D, 950D, 955EE
Front Side Bus	1066 / 800 / 533 MHz
Front Side Bus Speeds	100 - 450 MHz (in 1 MHz increments)
Memory Speeds	Auto, DDR-2 400, 533, 667, 800, 711, 889, and 1067MHz
PCI Bus Speeds	Auto, To CPU, 33.33MHz
PCI Express Bus Speeds	Auto, 90 MHz to 150 MHz (in 1 MHz increments)
Dynamic Overclocking	AI Overclocking - Auto, Manual, AI NOS, Overclock Profiles up to 30% Hyper Path 3- Auto, Enabled, Disabled PEG Link Mode
Core Voltage	Auto, 1.2000V to 1.7000V (in 0.0125V increments)
DRAM Voltage	Auto, 1.80V, 1.90V, 1.95V, 2.00V, 2.05V, 2.10V, 2.15V, 2.20V, 2.25V, 2.30V, 2.35V, 2.40V
MCH Chipset Voltage	Auto, 1.50V, 1.55V, 1.60V, 1.65V
ICH Chipset Voltage	Auto, 1.05V, 1.20V
FSB Termination Voltage	Auto, 1.20V, 1.30V, 1.40V, 1.50V
Memory Slots	(4) x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR2 667/533/400, non-ECC, ECC, un-buffered memory
Expansion Slots	(2) x PCI-E x16 (1) x PCI-E x1 (1) x PCI-E x4 (universal slot) (3) x PCI 2.3
Onboard SATA	Intel ICH7R: (4) x SATA II Marvell 88SE6141: (4) x SATA II
Onboard IDE	Intel ICH7R: (1) x UltraDMA 100/66/33 Marvell 88SE6141: (1) x UltraDMA 100/66/33
SATA/IDE RAID	Intel ICH7R: (4) x SATA II RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, and Intel Matrix Storage technology
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	(8) USB2.0 ports (2) IEEE 1394a FireWire Ports by TI TSB43AB22A
Onboard LAN	Marvell 88E8053 Dual PCI-E x1 Gb LAN
Onboard Audio	RealTek ALC882M, 8-channel + 2-channel multi-streaming capable HD Audio Codec featuring Dolby Master Studio technology
Power Connectors	24-pin ATX 4-pin 12V Plug 8-pin EATX 12V
Back Panel I/O Ports	1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x Parallel 1 x Audio I/O Panel 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Port 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out Port 1 x External SATA II Port 2 x RJ45 4 x USB
Other Features	AI Net2 Asus NOS Asus Ai Booster Utility CPU Lock Free Stack Cool 2 SATA-On-The-Go external connector
BIOS	AMI 0114 (11/25/05) & AMI 0206 (12/22/05)

The Asus P5WD2-E is a member of the AiLife product family and as such is a fully featured flagship board targeted towards the Intel enthusiast. The board ships with an extensive accessory package along with several dynamic overclocking features such as AI NOS (Non-delay dynamic Overclocking System), AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner with preset profiles), ASUS PEG Link (automatic performance tuning for single/dual graphics cards), ASUS HyperPath 3 (bios setting to reduce memory latency), Asus C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall), and the ASUS Ai Booster Utility Precision Tweaker software that allows control over certain system settings within Windows. The board also features the Stack Cool 2 design to dissipate heat to the opposite side of the motherboard and a fanless heat dissipation system. Update- Asus has informed us the Marvell 88SE6141 RAID functions are not supported on this board with the current bios.



ASUS P5WD2-E: Features

Asus designed a generally well laid out board with all major connections easily reached. The board is lacking most clearance issues and was very easy to install in a mid-size ATX case. The board layout is very similar to that of the P5WD2 Premium but differs with the additional SATA RAID and single PATA ports in place of the dual PATA ports along with the new PCI slot arrangement.

The DIMM module slots' color coordination is correct for dual channel setup. The memory modules are simple to install with a full size video card placed in the first PCI Express x16 slot. The power plug placement favors standard ATX case design and the power cable management is very good. The floppy drive port connector and 4-pin 12v EZ-Pug are conveniently located on the edge of the board along with the 24 pin ATX power connector.

The Intel ICH7R IDE port connector is located on the edge of the board and did not present any connection issues in our mid-size ATX case.

The Intel SATA II ports are conveniently located below the ICH7R chipset and above the primary IDE connector. The SATA II ports feature the new clamp and latch design. Asus did not include the new cable designs in their accessory kit, which greatly enhance the security of the SATA connections. The SATA II ports are color coded for primary and secondary operation. We found the SATA 1 and 3 ports were partially blocked when utilizing the NVIDIA 7800GTX cards in both PCI-E x16 slots.

The Marvell 88SE6141 PATA port connector and Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II RAID port connectors are located to the left of the bios chip. The Intel USB connector, IEEE1394a connectors, chassis panel, and Com1 serial port are located along the left edge of the board. The CMOS reset is a traditional jumper design located above the bios chip.

The board comes with (2) physical PCI Express x16 slots, (1) PCI-E x1 slot, (1) PCI-E x4 slot, and (3) PCI 2.3 slots. The layout of this design offers a very good balance of slots and allows for numerous add-in peripheral cards.

We did not have any issues installing an ATI X850 Crossfire Edition setup in the two x16 PCI Express slots. This configuration will physically render the PCI-E x4 and the first PCI slot useless. We did not have any issues utilizing either slot with video cards containing single slot cooling systems.

Returning to the CPU socket area, we find an ample amount of room for alternative cooling solutions. We utilized the stock Intel heat sink but also verified several aftermarket cooling systems such as the Thermaltake Big Typhoon would fit in this area during our tests. However, due to the large MCH heatsink, installation of large heatsink cooling solutions could be problematic.

The Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets are passively cooled with heatsinks that do not interfere with any installed peripherals. In fact this system kept the chipsets cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests. Asus places the eight-pin 12v auxiliary power connector at the top of the CPU socket area but out of the way of most aftermarket cooling solutions.

The rear panel contains the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, parallel port, LAN ports, and 4 USB ports. Located below the parallel port and to the right of the PS/2 ports are the Coaxial S/PDIF, Optical S/PDIF, and external SATA II ports. The LAN (RJ-45) ports each have two LED indicators representing Activity and Speed of the connection. The audio panel consists of 6 ports that can be configured for 2, 4, 6, and 8-channel audio connections.

The bios options are abundant on the Asus P5WD2-E, with memory voltage to 2.4v, and an extensive range of chipset, bus, and vCore voltage adjustments. Memory ratios are limited compared to the nForce4 Intel Edition boards but Asus did manage to offer enough settings to make the board competitive. The board fully supports manual memory timing adjustments or allows for an Auto setting that will set the memory to the SPD settings. You have the ability to overclock the system utilizing the AI Overclock profiles that have preset percentages or to use the AI N.O.S. feature that will dynamically overclock the system based upon system loads. The ASUS Ai Booster Utility Precision Tweaker software pictured above allows control over certain system settings within Windows.



FSB Overclocking Results

Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed
Processor:	Pentium 4 Smithfield LGA 775 840EE Dual Core 3.2GHz
CPU Voltage:	1.5500V-1.6000V (1.4000V default)
Memory Settings:	3-2-2-8 at 667MHz
Memory Voltage:	2.2V
NorthBridge Voltage:	1.50V
SouthBridge Voltage:	1.05V
Cooling:	Thermaltake Big Typhoon
Power Supply:	OCZ Power Stream 520
Maximum CPU OverClock:	270fsb x 16 (4327MHz) +35%
Maximum FSB OverClock:	305fsb x 14 (4274MHz) +52%

This board is an excellent overclocker considering the CPU utilized. At this overclock setting, the system was able to complete all of our benchmark test suites three consecutive times and run Prime95 and SuperPI without issue. We were able to overclock the FSB to 315 at the 14x multiplier, which resulted in CPU operation of 4410MHz, but could not complete our test suite.


Memory Stress Testing

Memory stress tests look at the ability of the Asus P5WD2-Eto operate at the officially supported memory frequencies of 667MHz DDR2, at the best performing memory timings that the Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL revision 1.3 will support.

Asus P5WD2-E Stable DDR667 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 slots populated - 1 Dual-Channel Bank)
Clock Speed:	200MHz (800FSB)
Timing Mode:	667MHz - Default
CAS Latency:	3
RAS to CAS Delay:	2
RAS Precharge:	2
RAS Cycle Time:	8
Voltage:	2.1V

The Asus P5WD2-E was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-8 at 2.1V.

We will now install all four available memory slots that are usually more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DDR2 modules on a motherboard.

Asus P5WD2-E Stable DDR667 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 slots populated - 2 Dual-Channel Banks
Clock Speed:	200MHz (800FSB)
Timing Mode:	667MHz - Default
CAS Latency:	3
RAS to CAS Delay:	2
RAS Precharge:	3
RAS Cycle Time:	8
Voltage:	2.15V

The Asus P5WD2-E was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-3-8 and only needed the voltage increased to 2.15V.



FSB Overclocking Results

Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed
Processor:	Pentium 4 955EE LGA 775 Dual Core 3.46GHz
CPU Voltage:	1.4625V (1.3000V default)
Memory Voltage:	2.25V
NorthBridge Voltage:	1.55V
SouthBridge Voltage:	1.05V
Cooling:	Thermaltake Big Typhoon
Power Supply:	OCZ Power Stream 520
Maximum CPU OverClock:	340fsb x 13 (4425MHz) +28%
Maximum FSB OverClock:	375fsb x 12 (4505MHz) +41%

The Asus P5WD2-E posted excellent results while overclocking the Pentium D 955EE, considering this processor's penchant for electricity. At these overclocked settings the system was able to complete all of our benchmark test suites three consecutive times and also run Prime95 and SuperPI without issue. We were unable to overclock the CPU beyond 385fsb due to thermal limitations, but we were able to boot into WinXP at 4.62GHz on air cooling. We will concentrate on the board's ability to reach 400fsb in our next roundup.



Test Setup

The Intel 975X chipset fully supports all dual core Pentium D processors in both stock and overclocked conditions. This chipset also supports the upcoming Cedar Mill processor range. Dual core really makes a difference in certain multi-tasking scenarios, as was demonstrated in the dual core performance preview. If you are interested in how the various chipsets perform in a real world multitasking setup, please take another look at that review.

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel Pentium 840EE (3.2GHz, 800FSB, Dual-Core, 2x1MB L2, HT) utilized for all tests
RAM:	2 x 512MB Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL revision 1.3 Settings- DDR2-667 as noted at (CL3-2-2-8)
Hard Drive(s):	2 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer), 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300R0 300GB 7200 RPM IDE (16MB Buffer)
System Platform Drivers:	Intel Chipset Software - 7.2.2.1006 NVIDIA Platform Driver - 6.82
Video Cards:	1 x XFX 7800GTX OC (PCI Express) for all tests
Video Drivers:	NVIDIA nForce 81.98 WHQL
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP2
Motherboards:	Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe Gigabyte GA-G1 975X Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal Asus P5WDG2-WS

General Performance & Encoding

The Asus P5WD2-E performance is near or at the top in all benchmarks. However, the differences between the Intel 975X boards are minimal, meaning that both Asus and Gigabyte have extracted like performance from their setups. The Intel 955X based Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal trails all boards in the benchmarks.





Memory Performance

The memory latency test continues to show an advantage for the nForce4’s memory controller. This continues to show NVIDIA’s ability to engineer and produce a competitive chipset; however, the 975X boards offer improved performance over the 955X in the latency tests.


Overclocking Performance

The overclocking performance graphs have been added to the standard benchmark test suite and should allow for a better comparison on the overclocking capabilities of tested boards. For more details on the specific overclocking abilities of this board, please refer to the Overclocking and Memory Stress Test section in the Basic Features section.

The front side bus overclocking results are impressive for the Intel 975X boards and exceed those of the Asus P5N32-SLI at this time. The production release BIOS for the Gigabyte GA-G1 975X board improved its overclocking abilities by over 10%. The 0206 release BIOS for the Asus P5WD2-E offered similar gains over the 0114 test BIOS.



Gaming Performance

The Intel 975X platform offers a very competitive gaming platform when compared to the NVIDIA nForce 4 Intel Edition SLI. The performance of the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe is still at or near the top in the benchmarks. We will be revisiting the performance of the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe with the 955EE and 950D processors in our next 975X roundup, since the board has full support for this processor range now. We have listed the minimum and maximum frame rates attained next to the product label where applicable.



Disk Controller Performance

With the variety of disk drive benchmarks available, we needed a means of comparing the true performance of the wide selection of controllers. The logical choice was Anand's storage benchmark first described in Q2 2004 Desktop Hard Drive Comparison: WD Raptor vs. the World. The iPeak test was designed to measure "pure" hard disk performance, and in this case, we kept the hard drive as consistent as possible while varying the hard drive controller. The idea is to measure the performance of a hard drive controller with a consistent hard drive.

We played back Anand's raw files that recorded I/O operations when running a real world benchmark - the entire Winstone 2004 suite. Intel's iPEAK utility was then used to play back the trace file of all IO operations that took place during a single run of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004. To try to isolate performance differences to the controllers that we were testing, we used the Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA drive in all tests . The drive was formatted before each test run and a composite average of 5 tests on each controller interface was tabulated in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark.

iPeak gives a mean service time in milliseconds; in other words, the average time that each drive took to fulfill each IO operation. In order to make the data more understandable, we report the scores as an average number of IO operations per second so that higher scores translate into better performance. This number is meaningless as far as hard disk performance is concerned as it is just the number of IO operations completed in a second. However, the scores are useful for comparing "pure" performance of the storage controllers in this case.

Our testing results in RAID 5 with the Intel ICH7R and Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II chipset were successful but we did not have time to properly test the NVIDIA storage controllers for this article. We will have published RAID results for all tested boards in our next 975X roundup along with results from the NVIDA based P5N32-SLI.


Firewire and USB Performance

After looking at many options for Firewire and USB testing, we finally determined that an external USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 hard disk would be a sensible way to look at USB and Firewire throughput.

Our first efforts at testing with an IDE or SATA drive as the "server" yielded very inconsistent results, since Windows XP sets up cache schemes to improve performance. Finally, we decided to try a RAM disk as our "server", since memory removed almost all overhead from the serving end. We also managed to turn off disk caching on the USB and Firewire side by setting up the drives for "quick disconnect" and our results were then consistent over many test runs.

We used 1GB of fast 3-2-2-8 system memory set up as a 450MB RAM disk and 550MB of system memory. Our standard file is the SPECviewPerf install file, which is 432,533,504 bytes (412.4961MB). After copying this file to our RAM disk, we measured the time for writing from the RAM disk to our external USB 2.0, Firewire 400, or Firewire 800 drive using a Windows timing program written for AnandTech by our own Jason Clark. The copy times in seconds were then converted into Megabits per second (Mb) to provide a convenient means of comparing throughput. Higher Rates therefore mean better performance in this particular test.

Possibly the most striking finding in our Firewire and USB throughput tests is the performance of an external hard drive connected to Firewire 800. Firewire 800 matters and should be a standard option at this time. Our benchmarks show Firewire 800 is up to 46% faster than a drive connected to the more common Firewire 400, and about 29% faster than USB 2.0.



Ethernet Performance

The current motherboard test suite includes LAN performance measurements. All of these boards utilize PCI Express controllers with the only difference being the supplier of the core logic.

The Windows 2000 Driver Development Kit (DDK) includes a useful LAN testing utility called NTttcp. We used the NTttcp tool to test Ethernet throughput and the CPU utilization of the various Ethernet Controllers used on the Intel 975x motherboards.

We set up one machine as the server; in this test, an Intel system with an Intel CSA Gigabit LAN connection. Intel CSA has a reputation for providing fast throughput and this seemed to be a reasonable choice to serve our Gigabit LAN clients.

At the server side, we used the following Command Line as suggested by the VIA whitepaper on LAN testing:

Ntttcpr -m 4 ,0,‹server IP› -a 4 -l 256000 -n 30000

On the client side (the motherboard under test), we used the following Command Line:

Ntttcps -m 4 ,0,‹client IP› -a 4 -l 256000 -n 30000

At the conclusion of the test, we captured the throughput and CPU utilization figures from the client screen.

The Marvell 88E8053 PCI Express x1 LAN solution exhibits excellent throughput along with acceptable CPU utilization rates. The Broadcom 5789KFB option on the Gigabyte board offers excellent throughput with very good CPU utilization compared to the other solutions. The Marvell 88E8062 PCI Express x4 LAN solution continues to offer the highest standard throughput of the tested options.

All standard Ethernet tests were performed with standard frames and the NVIDIA Active Armor suite was disabled unless otherwise noted. Gigabit Ethernet supports Jumbo frames as well and provides a further reduction in CPU overhead. We added another test scenario in which ActiveArmor and Jumbo frames were enabled on the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe board via the 6.82 WHQL platform driver set. This is shown for illustrative purposes and shows the favorable impact of this technology.



Audio Performance

We limited audio testing to the Rightmark 3D Sound version 2.2 CPU utilization test and tested with sound enabled to show the performance effects on several games. The Rightmark 3D Sound benchmark measures the overhead or CPU utilization required by a codec or hardware audio chip.

The BlueGears/HDA Mystique 7.1 Gold has the highest overall CPU utilization rates of the audio solutions tested. BlueGears has confirmed a new driver release this month that will offer improved performance in several areas. The RealTek R1.29 driver release continues to improve CPU utilization rates over previous releases. The Sound Blaster X-FI has the lowest rates with the Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit solution on the Gigabyte 975X board following closely. Let's find out how these results translate into real world numbers.

The Battlefield 2 numbers are very interesting as the Realtek ALC882 audio solution creates a 9% loss in frame rates overall, but continues to be plagued with stuttering in certain scenes. Serious Sam II has an average loss of 22%, Half Life 2 at 23%, Call of Duty II at 6%, Splinter Cell at 5%, and F.E.A.R. at 14%. The surprising number is the performance of the Sound Blaster X-FI in Serious Sam II with a 37% decrease in frame rates with the 2.07 driver set compared to 44% with the release drivers. Serious Sam II clearly sounds better on the X-FI and Mystique 7.1 Gold, but after repeated listening, the Realtek ALC882M is correctly generating the audio streams in the game.

Obviously, if you are a serious gamer, then a dedicated sound card is still a requirement to ensure consistent frame rate averages across a wide variety of games. We noticed in our Battlefield 2, Serious Sam II, and Half Life 2 testing that the ALC882M solution would stutter in intensive scenes, creating frame rates in the low teens momentarily. The 1.29 release has greatly improved the minimal frame rates, but certain sequences still stutter briefly compared to the other audio solutions. Gigabyte has provided updated drivers for the SB Live! 24-bit solution and we will post those results in the next article.

The ALC882M audio solution displayed excellent sound characteristics in music, video, DVD playback, and games throughout our testing and should seriously be considered as the main audio component if on-line gaming is not your priority. Specifications for the Realtek ALC88x audio family can be located here.



Final Words

The Asus P5WD2-E Premium is a very good solution for the Intel Enthusiast looking for a well designed and manufactured board with numerous options. The ability to fully utilize up to three PCI based cards is definitely a plus as the current market for PCI-E based peripherals is minimal. The performance of the board was outstanding in all testing phases and stability, while very good overall, could be improved with BIOS updates.

While not completely detrimental to our overall opinion of the board, we did run into a couple of nagging issues. Our Microsoft 2000 and 4000 USB keyboards were not properly detected at post several times, which generated a keyboard error. This did not occur with an older Microsoft Digital Media keyboard or several Logitech models.

We witnessed small CPU voltage spikes when overclocking our dual core processors. As an example, the 955EE processor was set to 1.4625V for the maximum FSB overclock testing and would vary from 1.44V up to 1.49V while testing. Although our memory would run completely stable at 2.1V with the 3-2-2-8 settings at DDR2-667, we had to increase the memory voltage to 2.25V at the same range settings when overclocking the 840EE or 955EE. The 7800GTX 512MB card used in the 955EE testing phase required the use of the 12V 4-pin Ezplug in order for the card to remain stable during the 3DMark tests.

These issues did not occur on the Asus P5WDG2-WS or Gigabyte GA-G1 975X boards. We have to wonder why Asus did not include their excellent 8-phase voltage regulator power design that can significantly lower operating temperatures while reducing input ripple current and output ripple voltages. In fact, both of our Intel EE processors ran on average about 6 degrees C higher than on the Asus P5WDG2-WS and 3 degrees C higher than on the Gigabyte board. We believe that the 8-phase solution would have addressed some of the voltage and temperature issues that we witnessed while improving its overclocking performance even further. While the board's overall stability is very good, we feel like Asus has some minor work to do on the BIOS at this time.

With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.

In the video area, the inclusion of two physical PCI Express x16 slots that fully supports x8 bandwidth operation for two graphics cards is an important step for Intel with this chipset. The board fully supports ATI CrossFire mode in our internal testing. We are still waiting on the X1800XT MasterCard to arrive for further CrossFire testing, but we did not notice any issues with the X850XT CrossFire solution and 5.13 driver set.

In the on-board audio area, this board has an excellent implementation of the Realtek ALC882M High Definition Audio Codec. The software provided has Jack-Sensing, S/PDIF Out support, interrupt capability, and Dolby Master Studio support. The ALC882M will encode digital audio contents to real-time Dolby Digital streams for pass through via the S/PDIF ports to an AC-3 decoder for playback. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and gaming areas is very good while performance in certain games has improved tremendously with the R1.29 driver release. If you plan on playing on-line action type titles, we highly suggest a dedicated sound card at this time, but the onboard capabilities of the ALC882M will satisfy the majority of users.

In the storage area, the Asus board offers a wide variety of storage options with additional SATA RAID ports. The board fully offers Intel's excellent Matrix RAID system and offers Hot Swap, NCQ, and 3Gb/s capability. Asus supplements the Intel SATA II capability with the Marvell 88SE6141 SATA II chipset featuring support for Hot Swap, NCQ, and 3Gb/s operation along with an external SATA II port. The board offers the standard eight Intel USB ports and two IEEE 1394a ports utilizing the TI TSB43AB22A chipset. However, we still believe that Firewire 800 should have been offered on the Asus P5WD2-E board, since it is their premium offering.

In the performance area, the Asus P5WD2-E consistently offered excellent performance while exceeding the other solutions at various times. Asus offers their HyperPath3 BIOS option that effectively reduces memory latencies even further on the Intel 975X chipset. The board's performance with the 955EE CPU was excellent and is an indication of a well engineered solution. While we are very satisfied with the overall performance of the board, we feel like it is not as polished as the P5WDG2-WS or as stable at the extreme edge as the Gigabyte GA-G1 975X.

The Asus P5WD2-E Premium is a very good board that could have been excellent with the inclusion of their 8-phase voltage regulator solution and some further BIOS improvements. While we are very confident that Asus will address the BIOS issues, we are left wondering what could have been with this board. We will hold our final opinion on this board until we complete testing on other 975X based solutions. In the meantime, the game is definitely afoot.