We have all see the changes over the last few months. PCIe is phasing out PCI/AGP and Intel has decided that it would be a better solution to have the pins on the motherboard rather than the CPU. With all of these changes, comes the need/desire to upgrade but does that upgrade need to be an all or nothing scenario?
Lucky for me, and several of you, the 915P chipset allows for a migration of sorts. Yes it is PCIe and you must replace your video card, yes it is LGA-775 so you must replace your CPU but it does not require you to replace your memory.
It has been some time since I have been able to write about . I guess at times we get stuck into a pattern and find it hard to break out of it. Most of my recent boards have been of the ABIT / MSI variety and I have not had the joy of sitting sown and going over an motherboard since my P3V4X (yes, that’s a P-II/III motherboard) and coincidently, that motherboard just happens to be running my current firewall.
So we all know makes a solid motherboard, we also know from experience that they make a motherboard that can overclock with the best of them. Today I get to break out my comb and go over the . First things first, let’s see what she has in store for us.
Specifications
Form factor: ATX
Chipset: Intel 915P Northbridge/ ICH6-R Southbridge
CPU: LGA-775
FSB: 800/533/400
BIOS: Phoenix Award BIOS
Memory: 4x DDR or 2x DDR2 (Max 4GB DDR / 2GB DDR2)
PCIe: x16 (1) / x1 (2)
NIC: Marvell 88E8053 PCI Express Gigabit
IDE: 2x ATA133 / 4x SATA 150 (Raid 0/1)
Audio: C-Media CMI9880 High Definition Audio W/7.1-channel CODEC
Ports: RS232 (via Riser) / Parallel / USB 2.0 (8) / PS2 (2) / IEEE-1394 (2)
Unpacking the ASUS P5GDC Deluxe you are confronted with a no frills, let’s protect and ship it type of package. It is not plain vanilla mind you, but not all ‘gussied up’ to take out to your 5 star restaurant either, which is a good thing in my opinion; tell me what’s inside and package it for protection is all I need.
Included inside is all the cables one would need to install a 4 drive SATA RAID, of course there is a plethora of other cables included as well; I have just never seen 4 SATA cables shipped with a motherboard before, especially since they all had tip protectors on them Even the standard IDE cables are a nice black (much better than stock grey) with pull flaps labeled nicely. The rear I/O plate and riser attachments are also included in the assorted bags.
Looking over the motherboard itself we can plainly see the LGA-775 ZIF that ASUS has placed a protective plastic cover over so the pins are not accidentally bent during shipping. It’s probably a good idea to keep this cover around somewhere just in case. On the reverse side of the LGA-775 socket is the “ASUS Stack Cool”, an interesting solution to Intel's PWM heat related issues.
Just above the CPU socket is the Intel 915P which is cooled by a “noiseless” heatsink. The heatsink is of a decent size and does a fine job of cooling the chipset as it did not get too warm throughout testing. There is a fan header to the left of the heatsink so if you choose to use an active cooling solution, you can.
In terms of storage, ASUS has given you flexibility as well as versatility in the P5GDC Deluxe. The Intel ICH6R supports one PATA connection and four SATA connections. Intel's Matrix Storage Technology is present, and carries with it RAID 0, and 1 support, as well as Native Command Queuing (NCQ). ASUS is using the ITE 8212F IDE Controller for two UDMA 133/100/66 which supports RAID 0. 1. and 0+1. Notice in the above picture, the blue IDE connector is the ICH6R, the two red ones are the ITE 8212F.
The P5GDC Deluxe uses C-Media's CMI9880 CODEC to support Intel's new HD-Audio initiative. This allows for 7.1 sound (8 channels) with 24-bit precision and 192 KHz audio sampling rates. Unfortunately my AR wireless headphones only support 5.1 simulations on the SPDIF port, so I can not quantify the difference between the 7.1 output to my previous 5.1 output. I can say however, that the output when watching a DVD is what you would expect; a flawless reproduction of sound. Of course it takes a good set of headphones or speakers to reproduce what this chipset is able to dish out.
My absolute favorite piece of this particular pie is the ability of the rear connectors to adapt to what you plug into it, this is called Smart Jack. I know you (just as I) have tried reaching around the back of your case to plug the MIC in, missing the port the first 3 times is just a tad annoying. Well that was one in three, now there are 8 friggin ports back there. The C-Media deployed in the P5GDC Deluxe allows you to plug into whichever port you want, and assign what that value should be, in software. Like I said, suwheet!!!
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