How reliable or trouble free is the Asus P5WD2?

[x-Max]

Im still cant decide on wether to go with the intel D955XBK or the Asus P5WD2. Ive always taken intel and they have always been so reliable and just plain out solid, not to mention excellent compatibility and ease. But my buddy, who im getting my computer off of, doesnt have any Intel boards in stock and has reccomended the Asus board. I dont know what to do. The asus is apparently a solid board, maybe even the best in its class. But the intel is plain, which is actualy the way i like it.

of course, my buddy is going to completely install either board, so i dont have to worry about complexity in setting bios and installing XP, since i know the Asus board is difficult to setup in the bios.

So anyhow, any comments on the Asus board.

 

[crimedog]

it's not difficult to set up, not at all. you can either run this board @ stock or extremely overclocked and it will be solid as a rock.

 

[d94]

it's not difficult to set up, not at all. you can either run this board @ stock or extremely overclocked and it will be solid as a rock.

 

[x-Max]

Thats nice to hear CrimeDog.

I say this because the Intel board is out of stock with the suppliers of the computer store where im getting my system from. And i have actually already agreed on the Asus board. I was just looking for input in case there was something wrong with it so that i could cancel my order and go looking for the Intel board elsewhere.

More opinions would always be nice. But so far so good.

I can sleep better now.

Max

 

[Alchemy1]

I don't have the regular board, but I have the Premium board and it has been nothing but good to me. I have had a little bit of a problem with temps, but I think that is my prescott and not the board.

 

[x-Max]

Excellent!

I had the choice between the non-premium and the premium but chose the latter. I completely do not need the added connectivity that the premium has but figured spending a few extra bucks wont hurt. Of course, the real reason i got it is because i suspect that the premium may still have a slight edge in performance over the non-premium. Although I cant be sure of this, i can only conclude that if they were different, then the premium would have to be the one with the slight edge in performance.

Max

 

[RangerXLT8]

P5WD2 Premium is better than a built by Intel in every aspect of OCiing, you cannot OC on a BB Intel board. P5WD2 Premium is the latest and greatest.

 

[bikinistud]

So what does the rest of your build look like? Do you plan to OC at all?

 

[x-Max]

I think you will be able to see my system now in my signature.

As for overclocking...Well, i dont know. Should I?

It sort of wouldnt make sense for me not to overclock.

Basically i want to, and whatever method i choose will be done professionally by the store im getting my system from. The main technical guy there is a serious overclocker himself and a close friend of mine who will do a solid job and will take responsibility and for any potentially occoruing damage.

The only thing is that i just cant see myself delving into liquid cooling. That doesnt exactly seem like a typical or standard thing to do.

But CPU or full system air cooling is a different story. I dont even know if air cooling my entire system is something that even makes sense, nor do i think it would be neccessary, but i do believe that air cooling my CPU is a must.

Any comments or reccommendations. I would like to go with the best CPU air cooling solution.

So far my buddy reccommended the ZALMAN CNPS9500LED CPU air cooler.

What do you guys think i should do.

The way i see it, if i have gone this far, and if my system is certainly overclockable, then i should spend a few bucks and rev my system into higher gear.

Max

P.S. On a side note, who makes the best Nvidia GeForce Cards, specifically for the 7800 GTX 512MB.

Thanks.

 

[pscout]

I think you will be very happy with that rig.

I have both the p5wd2 premium and non premium.

Both very easy to overclock and reliable.

I have an 830 in the non-premuim and a 551 in the premium both running above 4 ghz on air

They are great for Folding@Home ... would be a shame to not fold on yours.

We have a OCF folding team here http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21
with lots of helpful links/stickies to get you started and helpful folks to assist and some folks that like to have a little competitive fun.

I did have a problem with my first board when i received it (the premium), the memory controller would only run 1 of the memory slots ... but the vendor quickly replaced it.

No problems since (that is my first new board with a problem and i have built about 10 in the last year). Your buddy will sort out any unlikely problems.

If you fold or OC you probably want something better than the stock intel hsf.

I like the thermaltake Sonic tower the best ... various reviews have rated it better than the zalman. I also have several big typhoons as well with 830s (which run very hot esp oc'ed) - the sonic tower is better, as long as you run 2 decent fans on it.

Can't help with the graphics .... nothing high end here.

Enjoy

 

[x-Max]

I think you will be very happy with that rig.

I have both the p5wd2 premium and non premium.

Both very easy to overclock and reliable.

I have an 830 in the non-premuim and a 551 in the premium both running above 4 ghz on air

They are great for Folding@Home ... would be a shame to not fold on yours.

What do you mean by folding. I know what overclocking is, but what is folding?

 

[orion456]

I have the p5wd2 with bios 3.01. It works great, very stable voltages but I am having some problems controling the CPU voltage and deactivating their automatic fan controls. Sometimes only part of the CPU voltage table shows up in the bios and I'm not allowed to have voltages lower than 1.35, which is strange because the voltage range for the p4 830D is 1.25 to 1.4. Sometimes it won't let me control the fans using SpeedFan 4.26, and sometimes it does. Their Booster program sometimes doesn't make the system changes you ask for ie: a voltage change just doesn't happen. I think the board will need a few more bios upgrades before they get it right.

 

[MrNoClue]

I don't have the regular board, but I have the Premium board and it has been nothing but good to me. I have had a little bit of a problem with temps, but I think that is my prescott and not the board.

^^

Same as Alchemy1 for me... if you can cool that chip ok it ought to clock very nicely indeed, and the Asus is DEFINITELY the board to do it.... this is coming from an ex-Intel D865PERL user - Asus convertee!

 

[x-Max]

I got the Asus P5WD2 non premium version. Apparently they are identical with the only difference being added connectivity with the premium board. They both have the same performance and precision tweaking capabilities.

Anyhow, im picking up my system today, hopefully. But im not overclocking just yet. I will see if i need to before going in that direction.

I was always an intel board user. I like their boards, they never have problems with stability and compatibility. They are solid and definitely the reference when its comes to a standard base like unit.

But now ive made the switch to Asus, as they are also the reference, but for optimized specialized boards.

I hope i dont have any problems.

 

[Alchemy1]

The BIOS support from Asus doesn't seem to be as good for the non-premium as it is for the premium.

 

[x-Max]

Perhaps that is so.

But i think this would only be with respect to overclocking, which im not doing right now, and which i dont think i will be doing anytime soon.

I just got my system, i cant wait to set it up.

Black and beautiful.

 

[pscout]

What do you mean by folding. I know what overclocking is, but what is folding?

Folding is protein folding ... it is a scientific endeavour to understand the basic behaviour of proteins ... while it is basic research, its results get applied to various biology projects including the study of many diseases ... cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc etc.

The basic idea of the distributed computing effort is to utilize all that unused processing power from the millions of PC's out there that are doing nearly nothing most of the time when turned on.

The alternative is supercomputers which cost a ton of money and can't produce as much as millions of PC's that are internet connected around the world.

Here is a link to the folding project at Stanford : http://folding.stanford.edu/

There are other DC (distributed computing) projects out there as well ... with various objectives ... genome research, search for signs of extraterrestrial life by processing signals from radio telescopes (seti) .... Prime95 for looking for new prime numbers (which have mathmatical and scientific value) ...

I joined up to the OverClockers forum team (team 32 at Stanford) because I wanted to contribute something back for all the help i got here, and because I felt it was a waste of my computing power to just sit there consuming electricity, and because the science will probably help my kids ... maybe even someone a bit older like me.

The folding/DC activities are set up to run low priority in the background so you don't even notice they are there when you r using your machine.

I run mine 7x24 folding, but you don't have to ... any contribution helps.

You install some small software and it downloads pieces of work (basically number crunching), sends the results back, and downloads another. Stanford collects statictics on the work units and if you setup an id and team for yourself, you/the team gets points. Just a bit of fun ... but the basic reaearch is the cause.

There are some easy install packages on the links i posted above to fold for team 32 ... eg wedo's 1 click install. And there is lots of help in the folding forum here.


I hope you join up to our team or any of the other worthy causes ... it would be a shame to waste all that compute power you have in your new rig!

I think you will be very happy with your new rig.

Enjoy!!

ps. try a bit of overclock ... dead easy ... just make sure you have asus probe or speedfan (or there is a link somewhere to a fellow who has got MBM working on this mobo) ... just so you can monitor your temps. Have fun

 

[x-Max]

Overclocking i guess is not such a bad idea. But right now, im not sure i need it.

As for folding, well, thats pretty interesting stuff. I did hear about it a long time ago but never that folding was the name used to describe it. However, there is no way that i can use my new computer for folding since its not going to be hooked up to the net, as this is for privacy related reasons. As for the slow computer im using right now, well, i'll put it this way; this computer can hardly fold itself right now.

 

[pscout]

Overclocking i guess is not such a bad idea. But right now, im not sure i need it.

As for folding, well, thats pretty interesting stuff. I did hear about it a long time ago but never that folding was the name used to describe it. However, there is no way that i can use my new computer for folding since its not going to be hooked up to the net, as this is for privacy related reasons. As for the slow computer im using right now, well, i'll put it this way; this computer can hardly fold itself right now.

With your CPU you won't notice any speed difference unless you do some heavy workload stuff ... most of mine are oc'ed just to get to your stock speed ! Nice rig!

Too bad about not being on the net. You can sneaker net the work but not worth it ... plus your netted rig could not get any of the good workload for your new rig ... the DC client checks the hardware it is running on to see what it is capable of.

Enjoy and good luck.

 

[fritzman]

Hey... great rig. You will love the cooler... works great and looks cool as well.