ASUS P5E3 Deluxe WIFI/AP edition Mainboard Review   - Conclusion
Bluetooth 27 Sep 2007

Pricing of Gigabyte P35-DQ6 >>>

Conclusion

In terms of performance, this board is pretty speedy when compared to the other X38 boards out there. DDR3 and the slightly higher clock could be reasons for the slightly better performance. As you have read from the performance benchmarks, the X38 boards gives a big boost in CrossFire performance as it runs CrossFire in full Dual PCIe x16 instead of Dual PCIe x4 on the Intel P35 chipset boards.

This board has amazing options for overclocking. Adjustments of the CPUCLK, ASync settings, ram timing adjustments, voltage adjustments (see gallery for options).

In our tests, we have shown that the CrossFire performance did improve. The exception is the demo Lost Planet which show no improvement in CrossFire while the P35T-DQ6 registered an almost 100% jump in performance. I suppose Catalyst 7.9 might have some issues with it's CrossFire support for this game on X38 chipset.

Using the AI Tweaker in BIOS, with a E6300, we managed to overclock the board to 6x515MHz without any issues. In the o/c test, the cpu voltage is set to 1.45, CPU pll voltage to 1.54v, fsb at 1.22v, dram at 1.52, north bridge at 1.27v, south bridge at 1.20v. One nice feature of the BIOS is that the colour would change to Yellow and Red to warn you that the voltage supplied is a bit too much.

On top of the usual features on the board, I like the Express Gate function Powered by Splashtop. Express Gate is a BIOS add on which comes with the board. Currently, it allows you to use the Internet browser and/or SKYPE without even booting into your Operating System.  Although we can set up the options in Express Gate, it seems to be having problems identifying the network and we can't really surf the web with Express Gate. Perhaps a newer firmware will correct this problem. Although there are many other features on board, I would say that the Wireless LAN/AP is not really necessary. It adds up to the cost of the package.

In conclusion, this board is something that many are looking forward to. Full native PCIe Dual 16X. It is a pity that Gigabyte did not come out with a 4 PCIe full length slots, that wouldn't it be interesting to see if the board supports Quad and Tri CrossFire if there are more PCIe slots available on board. Definitely a YES.

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