Asus, as we have mentioned before, is one monster of a company, they are pretty much into everything now and have still managed to produce some high quality hardware (some of their software could use some work though.) So, With the launch of the i7 it is no surprise that Asus is one of the first out of the gate with an X58 based mainboard. Dubbed the P6T Deluxe, this board sports both Crossfire and SLI support, native DDR3 1333MHz for all three of the i7s Intel is releasing and a host of other very nice features. How does it stand up to the Intel reference board? Well take a look below to find out.
*** New Information on Pricing:
Asus has stated there will be two versions of the P6T Deluxe, one with the OC Palm MSRP $329 and one without MSRP $299.***
Product: Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: October 30th 2008
Product cost: $309
Manufacturer: Asus
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff
{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories:
The P6T Deluxe arrived in a rather large box, with all of the usual marketing hype on just about every available surface. That is not to say that everything on the box is useless, there are some very good selling points; such as the use of 5000 hour VRMs and all solid capacitors (although most high end board use these now anyway), Built in SAS RAID controller (RIAD 0 and 1), as well as a few other unique features. But as with most hardware purchases it is not the box or the marketing we are buying but the goodies inside.
The P6T ships with a decent range of parts including two SAS cables, for the onboard SAS controller, the OC Palm (I will cover this below), an SLI connector, a fan to use on the heat-pipe system if you are cooling the CPU with water and the usual allotment of SATA and PATA cables.
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{mospagebreak title=OC Palm}
OC Palm:
This is probably one of the most interesting accessories that Asus has put in with the P6T Deluxe. The OC Palm device is small (about the size of a point and shoot digital camera), with an LCD display and several buttons (enhancing the impression of it being a camera), It connects to your system via a USB port and has a few uses. Its primary purpose is to give you a live, real-time overclocking and monitoring tool for your system but, it can also display a number of Yahoo widgets (you can move back and forth between them). For overclocking support you have a couple of options, you can use the TurboV plug-in or simply adjust the clock speed up or down in 1MHz intervals by pressing one of the two top buttons.
The buttons can be swapped and even changed to launch applications. I found this device to be an excellent method for monitoring the system during applications that ran in Full Screen (I.E. gaming)
The Widget side is a nice feature but not one that I would use personally, there are not many things that I want to watch that much, system temps, CPU and memory usage are more what I would want from this device. However after playing around with the Yahoo widgets I found them to be a little on the bland side for this type of monitoring.
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{mospagebreak title=Features and Specifications}
Features and Specifications:
The P6T comes with a pretty nice feature set, the highlights are listed below:
16+2 Phase power, as with many of the P45 series the P6T will have full 16 phase power, but Asus has added in an additional two phases just for the OPI/Memory controller inside the CPU. This should allow for cleaner and more efficient power distribution to the CPU.
Onboard SAS controller:
Powered by a Marvell 88SE6320 you can bring enterprise class storage and performance to your desktop in RAID 0 or 1 configurations.
EPU 6 Engine:
This is another handy feature, in my testing of the i7 I found that while the CPU was energy efficient, the system as a whole was not. With the Asus Energy Processing Unit you can dynamically adjust power on the board and peripherals to get the best power savings and performance out of your new i7 system.
TurboV:
TurboV is the name of the overclocking utility for the i7 platform, just as AI Suite was for the past platforms. It allows for very specific adjustments to the system (down to .02 for voltage) so that you can get the most performance out of your system. TurboV can be run from inside Windows and changes the BIOS settings in real time without the need for constant rebooting. The OC Palm can also work through the TurboV API and gives you an added level of control.
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OC Palm:
I mentioned the OC Palm under accessories but it is another feature and gives you “front end” access to the TurboV functions.
Crossfire X and SLI support:
Here is something we have all been waiting for, a single board that allows for both Crossfire and SLI support. The P6T Deluxe supports them both giving you the freedom to choose the GPU flavor you like best.
Express Gate:
Express Gate is a small Linux distro stored away on a small SSD. It allows for quick and easy access to the internet, e-mail skype, without the need for any other OS. You could unpack this mainboard plug in your CPU, memory, GPU and PSU. Turn the P6T on and be on the internet within a few seconds. You do not even need a hard drive, of course this would be a complete waste of this board but it is a nice feature even if it is not used much.
Tri-Channel DDR3 support for up to 24GB:
On the Intel reference board (the DX58SO) there were still the traditional 4 ram slots this means that for tri channel you are left with an odd man out. That fourth stick of memory can add capacity but does nothing for performance. Asus decided to take things a little farther. They threw six DDR3 slots on the board giving you support for up to 24GB of triple channel goodness. Asus has also added in Native support for DDR3 -1333 for the i7-965, 945 and 920, giving you an edge over the Intel reference board even at stock settings.
{mospagebreak title=Board Layout}
Board Layout:
The layout of most modern boards leave a lot to be desired, but with increasing RAM demands, the need for larger cooling products, dual and tri GPU configurations it is hard to sandwich everything in.
Asus has done a pretty good job in getting the P6T as clean as possible. As you can see from the images below they have allowed for longer GPUs by tilting the majority of the SATA ports (you will still lose two in an SLI or Crossfire setup). Asus have also done something that I praise them for; they have kept the PATA port. Intel for some reason has removed this from the majority of their new boards, meaning you have to use a SATA DVD-RW etc on your system. Granted SATA drives are not as expensive as they were they are still problematic in most systems (many Transcoding apps won’t work with them). They have widened the gap between the RAM slots and the Primary GPU slot, moved the CMOS battery to the top of the board and rotated it by 90 degrees also. One issue I did encounter though was when I installed a fan on the Northbridge heatsink. Since I was using the ThermalRight 120 Xtreme, my Northbridge fan ended up being too tall and hit the side of the ThermalRight120. The new retaining clips on the PCI-e slots are easier to reach from either side and do not require much force to unlatch.
In all the P6T is a very nice board to work with and well laid out.
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{mospagebreak title=BIOS}
BIOS:
As with the DX58SO, the Asus P6T is going to be a whole new ballgame once you are in the BIOS.
Although the basic Asus BIOS layout is the same, what you find inside is going to take a little while to get used to.
You will find new terms like BCLK, QPI, UCore, and a few others.
However you will still find 99% of your tweaks and overclocking settings in the AI Tweaker page.
For some good information about what each one of these is and how they affect performance take a look here and grab the i7 OC calculator here.
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{mospagebreak title=Overclocking}
Overclocking:
My overclocking here is not what I would call spectacular, it is not bad for a first run on a new platform.
I was able to bump the i7 965 up to 3.9GHz with very little effort. Over that became a headache, as I was able to get into windows at up to 4.2 but it would crash as soon as I opened anything (including the start menu). At 4.1 and 4.0 I could run CPUz but not much else. For non BIOS overclocking you can startup TurboV and get the same results from inside windows or using the OC Palm device.
Final quick OC numbers were:
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These are the settings that allowed me to run through all of my tests without failure.
{mospagebreak title=Performance – Subsystems}
Performance – Subsystems:
For my testing I used the following system:
Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.2 GHz)
Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition (BIOS 0806)
QIMONDA 3 x 1GB DDR3 1067
Zotac GTX 280 AMP! Edition 1GB (two for SLI Testing)
Seagate Cheetah 147 GB 15k RPM SAS HDD
Mushkin 1KW PSU
Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate (w/SP1)
nVidia 180.43 drivers
Memory:
With three channels of memory to play with the i7 is head and shoulders above all of the other systems in terms of memory bandwidth and the P6T Deluxe shows us even better results.
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Stock 133×24 (3.2GHz) |
OC 145×27 (3.9GHz) |
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Drive Performance:
With support for SAS drives I thought I would see what type of boost you would get from running one.
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As you can see the performance gain over standard SATAII is almost worth the extra price.
Audio:
Audio from the P6T was very well done, featuring an ADI AD2000B 8 Channel sound CODEC I was able to get very full sound without any stuttering or performance issues.
{mospagebreak title=Performance Applications}
Performance – Applications:
PCMark Vantage:
One of standard tests for the numbers crowd. We run this as more of a baseline than a full on performance test.
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Stock (3.2GHz) |
OC (3.9GHz) |
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32-Bit |
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64-Bit |
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What a difference an SSD makes! With an SSD in the lead we saw numbers in the 11k range however running an SAS drive those drop down into the 6k range at stock speeds losing almost 50% of the score we saw with the Intel X25 SSD. Overclocked scores pushed the P6T into the low 7k range.
LightWave 3D (9.3 x64):
LightWave 3D is one of the industry standards in 3D animation and works well as a real world application test.
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Stock 3.2GHz |
OC 3.9GHz |
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The P6T Deluxe shows off the i7 EE 965 performance even better than the DX58SO did as it is able to shave the single frame render time down to 3:15 at stock speeds and under 3 minutes when overclocked to 3.9 GHz
Cinebench R10 x64:
On the opposite side from LightWave 3D is Maxon’s Cinebench. This test is a synthetic that measures your CPUs ability to render images and your GPUs ability to render OpenGL.
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Stock 3.2GHz |
OC 3.9GHz |
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Again it looks like the P6T Deluxe is a faster board than the DX58SO beating the stock score by 148 points. Overclocking the P6T with the i7 965 gets us scores that outpace even the monster V8 system we used in our i7 Eval.
Photoshop:
Photoshop (as I am sure most of you know) is the industry standard for image manipulation and can be rough on a system with its high memory needs and CPU based filters (Until CS4 is released). For testing I use the DriverHeaven.net Photoshop benchmark. This test runs a single image through multiple filters and times each run.
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The P6T at stock has a hair (.5 seconds) faster overall than the DX58SO and traded off the individual filters. The times while overclocked were simply amazing.
AutoGK 2.45:
My Transcoding tests on the i7 showed that although the i7 had power to spare and that AutoGK 2.45 will make use of the extra threads and cores the real issue is memory and HDD. In the DX58SO with the Intel X25 SSD the i7 was able to encode a 2 and ½ hour movie in just over 34 minutes. On the P6T Deluxe with a 15k RPM SAS drive that time lengthened to 35 minutes. Overclocking showed good performance gains and was able to overcome the lack of the fast SSD with an encoding time of just over 32 minutes.
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Stock 3.2GHz |
OC 3.9GHz |
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HyperPi 0.99b:
HyperPi, as I have mentioned many times before, is a great test of a systems CPU to RAM to HDD speed and stability.
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Stock 3.2GHz |
OC 3.9GHz |
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On the DX58SO we saw times that were less than what we expected from the available memory and HDDs used. However on the P6T the times come back into line with what we would expect from the a 3.2GHz system running 8 concurrent 32MB runs of HyperPi.
{mospagebreak title=Performance Gaming}
Performance – Gaming:
For my gaming tests I wanted to run DX10 for as many games as possible, DX10 seems to have the biggest performance impact on a system (both CPU and GPU). All test were actual in-game performance with frame rates measured with FRAPS.
Categories were:
Stock CPU Single GPU
Stock CPU SLI
Overclocked CPU Single GPU
Overclocked CPU SLI
3DMark Vantage:
As with our inclusion of PCMark we use this test as a baseline for system performance and not a final test.
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Stock 3.2GHz |
OC 3.9GHz |
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Single |
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SLI |
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We get good results from the P6T in both Single and SLI modes. The addition of PhysX does artificially increase the CPU score but as this is only a base line test (and bragging rights) it is not an overly large concern.
FarCry2 (DX10):
FarCry 2 is n unusual addition to the FarCry saga, although ostensibly the follow on to FarCry it does not have the Crytek engine. It can still have hefty impact on your system at high resolutions. For testing I ran through the first few errands of the game. Settings are shown below.
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The P6T with the Zotac GTX 280 puts up some good numbers in Single card mode, although we did see a slight loss in performance while overclocked. When you drop in a 2nd Zotac GTX 280 fir SLI we see something phenomenal; FarCry2 at 1920×1200 in DX10 with all the eye-candy on running at a blistering 98 frames per second at stock CPU speed and just a hair under 100 FPS while overclocked.
Dead Space:
Dead Space is another new title and one that seems simply owned by nVidia. For testing I ran through Level One.
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Although extremely fast the numbers here are boringly fast with frame rates over 160 FPS with a single card and nearing 300 with SLI.
Crysis Warhead DX10:
The Crysis twins are possibly the roughest games on a system that have come along in some time. Speculation for this has ranged from the large texture files to poor coding on Crytek’s part. You can make your own call on that. For testing I ran through the "Call Me Ishmael" level.
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At 1920×1200 with everything set to “enthusiast” the single Zotac GTX 280 1GB AMP! Edition GPU was struggling to get me to 19 Frames Per Second. The same card with the i7 965 Overclocked to 3.9 GHz topped out at just over 20 FPS. But with the addition of a 2nd GTX 280 we had very playable frame rates even with the game settings maxed out in DX10.
Crysis (x64 DX10):
Crysis, even more so than Warhead, is hard on a system, our testing with a single Zotac GTX 280 1GB Amp! was hurting under the strain of this game running at 1920×1200 all settings at “Very High” in DX10, x64 mode. But when I dropped in that 2nd GTX 280 is was a whole different ball game; suddenly I had frame rates in excess of 40 and a game that looked stunning and was very playable. For testing I ran through the Contact Level.
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky (DX10):
I am not really a big fan of the Stalker series, they remind me too much of Oblivion and is defined by long periods of boredom and walking punctuated by short exciting battles. The graphics are pretty well done although the textures and background tended to look over exposed and pixilated to me, like a picture enlarged too much. For testing I ran through the first few missions through reinforcing Clear Sky’s position in the swamp.
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Performance wise Stalker puts a hurting on a system slowing a single GTX 280 down to just over 23 FPS at 1920×1200, DX10, and everything else maxed out. Overclocking the i7 965 did manage to squeak out another 6 FPS but it was not until I dropped the 2nd GTX 280 in that I had a smooth and playable game at high resolutions.
{mospagebreak title=Value}
Value:
The Asus P6T Deluxe should hit the market with a $309 price tag but that should quickly fall as production is ramped up and i7 availability increases. Realistically this is not too far out of line with current board prices. Performance will certainly cover the $30-$40 difference and the ability to run both SLI and Crossfire makes the P6T a good buy in my opinion.
Warranty for the P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition will follow the standard 3 year warranty offered on all Asus boards.
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
The Core i7 is a revolutionary design from Intel, to make the most of it you will need a board that follows this lead. The Asus P6T Deluxe is one of those boards. Out of the box performance was excellent. I saw very few glitches during normal use and found even the SAS setup to be simple under Vista. Asus’ continued support for x64 shows up on the P6T also with x64 versions of all drivers and applications on the support DVD. The added bonus of 6 DIMM slots allowing for larger Tri-Channel memory setups is a great feature for the x64 crowd.
Looking at the added in features such as the OC Palm Asus gives a nice tool for the constant tinkerer, for those that always need to tweak this or adjust that you now have a device you can use to do this without rebooting into the BIOS or opening up an application. Although I did find the Yahoo widgets to be lacking it still does add some additional “fun” things you can throw onto the OC Palm.
Gaming under SLI was simply amazing on the P6T Deluxe. For the first time I saw very playable frame rates at high resolutions (maxed out) in Crysis and Crysis Warhead. I had just about written those games off due to poor performance.
Overclocking the P6T was also simple, I had three choices for my overclocking, TurboV inside windows, the OC Palm (using TuboV) and the BIOS. All yielded good results and were easy to use once I had a good grasp on the new terms for the i7.
Asus has a history of making high quality first run products and it looks like the P6T Deluxe will be another one. If you are considering the i7 as your next upgrade I would make sure you have the P6T Deluxe OC Palm edition on your shopping list.
The P6T Deluxe OC Palm is awarded our Best on the Planet award for features and performance.
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