Asus P5Q Deluxe - P45 Chipset with DDR2

Name: Asus P5Q Deluxe - P45 Chipset with DDR2 - Page 9
Brand: Asus

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, May 20, 2008, 05:00 PM EDT

Performance Summary: The Asus P5Q Deluxe performed well throughout our testing. In the synthetic SANDRA benchmarks, the board posted slightly lower scores than a comparably equipped X48-based system, but that didn't hold the P5Q back in the majority of our real-world application tests. In PCMark Vantage the P5Q put up some solid performance numbers, and it finished neck and neck with or slightly ahead of the X48 in our 3D rendering and encoding tests. It was only in the gaming tests that the P45-based Asus P5Q Deluxe trailed by a few percentage points.

Although we didn't receive a full retail-ready Asus P5Q Deluxe for testing purposes, we're still confident in drawing a few conclusions here. Even though there is still some obvious BIOS tuning work to do, the P45-based P5Q Deluxe's performance at this early stage was very good and we had no problems with instability to speak of. Overclocking was also quick and painless, power consumption was relatively low, and the chipset ran nice and cool. Taking all of these characteristics into consideration, we can't help but like the P45 and suspect it is going to be as popular as last year's P35.

Asus particular implementation of the chipset on the P5Q Deluxe was also good. The board is loaded with useful features like Express Gate, integrated power and reset switches, and quality passive cooling. The board's layout is also good for the most part, with the only potential issue being the placement of the first two expansion slots directly in line with the DIMM slots. We won't know final "street" prices for a few weeks, but expect pricing for this board to fall somewhere in between high-end P35's and mid-range X38 / X48 based offerings (Update: ASUS has informed us that the MSRP for this board will be $209). All in all, the P45 and P5Q Deluxe are not revolutionary, but its performance and features are sure to entice the mainstream crowd.

Good Performance
Myriad of Overclocking Options
Low Power Consumption
Runs Very Cool
Express Gate

Memory Scores Lower than X48
Not Available Yet

Tags: Asus, P45, DDR, DDR2, Chipset, Chip, P5Q, chips, P4, IPS, UX, IP

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com