Sound Tests - Subjective Listening

While onboard audio still has a way to go before replacing high-end discreet sound solutions, Intel's HD audio is one of the better solutions available, and in the case of the ASUS P5WD2 Premium, the onboard audio is very good, at least when compared to the standard AC'97 that typically comes with most boards.

Sound Tests - Performance in Gaming

We fired up UT2003 and ran through the Inferno demo and collected numbers at 640x480 (Min detail) and 1280x1024 (Max detail).

At the lowest resolution, we see the CPU take the hardest hit, losing about 24 frames per second with the onboard sound enabled. A loss of about half a frame occurs at 1280x1024, which is basically nil. Considering the market the P5WD2 Premium is aimed at (the enthusiast), most buyers will own high-end cards, but in any case, the onboard audio will not make an impact in gameplay at high resolutions.

Network Performance

We used to test the networking speed, and Windows Task Manager for CPU usage. We copied a number of game patches and driver updates, totaling 758MB to and from the ASUS P5WD2 Premium, to our EPoX EP-5LWA+ machine (now running a P4 560). We also performed the same test with a folder zipped to 761MB.

Both systems were connected via a CAT-5E crossover cable, which should prevent any bottlenecks that would arise with a standard 10/100 router.

Small Files Test - 758MB Total

	Time to Copy	Ave Transfer mB/sec	CPU %
Upload	0:24.6	33.94	12
Download	0:25.9	26.56	13

Large File Test - 761MB Total

	Time to Copy	Ave Transfer mB/sec	CPU %
Upload	0:22.3	35.88	10
Download	0:24.5	32.11	11

The P5WD2 Premium proved sufficient in its tasks. The ISO image was faster to upload and download as well as scoring a slightly lower CPU usage during the upload tasks.

Overclocking

We paired the ASUS P5WD2 Premium with a Koolance EXOS-Al and cranked the fan speeds to maximum. With our water-cooled setup, we managed a final overclock of 322FSB.

The system did POST at 330FSB, but errored out before Windows began loading. Anything higher than 322FSB had varying degrees of success, but the system was far from stable. It's worth mentioning that with default voltage, out of the box, we managed a 317FSB overclock which isn't too bad.

Final Words

ASUS put together a fine package in the P5WD2 Premium. Performance was solid and the board was problem free out of the box which is something we don't see enough of these days. We were quite happy with pushing our 3.73 Extreme Edition past 4.5GHz, and although we've had mildly better success with other boards, we'll still take a free ~700MHz boost anyday. We're not completely sold on the Stack Cool 2 PCB, but perhaps it'll work better with an air cooler rather than the Koolance we used. Since there's no active cooling built into the board, nearby components will warm up a little more without a CPU fan creating turbulance in the area.

If you were to gloss over the benchmarks, your first reaction may be "what's the big deal?". For the most part, the Intel 955X shows little to no improvement performance-wise over the 925XE, but if performance were the only criteria, then you'd be missing the point. Unlike the 925XE, the 955X based ASUS P5WD2 Premium supports Intel's Dual Core CPUs, which may or may not be in your immediate future, but it's a nice feature to have if you're firmly entrenched in the Intel camp. Regardless, the P5WD2 Premium was a little quicker overall than the EPoX board, especially in gaming performance.

Speaking of gaming, we'd still lean towards the nForce 4 SLI (and possibly ATI's Crossfire) if money were no object and you're solely interested in gaming performance. Buying two video cards isn't for everyone though, and with a solid graphics card, the P5WD2 Premium should still be sufficient as a solid base for your next gaming PC. We feel it's worth mentioning that this is for Intel based PC gamers as we've seen almost everywhere else, including here at VL, gamers looking for the fastest FPS crunching rig they can will still want to seriously consider AMD.

While we can argue all day about the merits of Dual Core, gaming performance, and 2% to 5% performance deltas between platforms, one thing that is clear as day is the ASUS P5WD2 Premium packs a big bucket of features in a motherboard package, especially with the paid options of the WiFi/TV Tuner card and remote. You can configure no less than eleven hard drives in various RAID arrays or single drives, two video cards, Dual Core support (as well as FSBs up to 1066MHz), HD Audio, and dual Gigabit LAN. Of course, one thing that will come up is the price, and at (with no WiFi card), it's not going to be cheap.

Pros: Good overclocker, good performance, rock solid. C.P.R. is a very useful feature.

Cons: CMOS reset jumper placement could be better. Stack Cool 2 had little impact.

Bottom Line: While Intel gamers may want to consider a board using the nForce 4 SLI or possibly ATI's Xpress 200 CrossFire chipset, those looking for an all-round fast and reliable motherboard will want to take a look at the ASUS P5WD2 Premium. The full package with all the options looks to be a fine choice if you're building a massive HTPC media center. Oh, and it's got game as well.

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