Asus P5E-VM HDMI: A microATX C2D board for gamers?

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 10:53 pm

butters · Post by **butters** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 11:58 pm

Yay! I've been anxiously awaiting G35, and the Asus boards (this one and the ATX version) are very nice, but I'm going to hold off to see what Gigabyte does with this chipset. The Asus boards are missing eSATA and optical SPDIF, both of which would be nice to have for my intended usage.

I'm also a bit disappointed that only one of the video outputs is digital. Does anyone know whether this is a board or chipset limitation?

In any case, this is pretty much ideal for a MythTV box. Intel's open-source graphics driver for Linux/Xorg is even money to work properly out of the box on any distribution.

IMHO, board vendors should be pushing upmarket with integrated graphics. It's nice that they're starting to do value enthusiast boards like this in the $125-150 range with solid-state caps and a liberal BIOS. But I think there's a market for integrated graphics in the $150-200 midrange enthusiast segment. If I'm paying $200 or more for a motherboard, it better have integrated graphics. Why not?

As much as the AnandTech crowd hates to admit it, there are brief periods where they aren't gaming and could power down their 8800GTX if they had integrated graphics (and a monitor with multiple inputs). Eventually I'd like to see the discrete GPU reinvented as an on-demand accelerator that shares video outputs with the low-power integrated GPU.

Scoop · Post by **Scoop** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:14 am

butters wrote:Eventually I'd like to see the discrete GPU reinvented as an on-demand accelerator that shares video outputs with the low-power integrated GPU.

I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but that sounded like you wanted to go back in time like 10 years when 3Dfx came out with the 3D-accelerator Voodoo card

ktriebol · Post by **ktriebol** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:45 am

I too am very impressed with board. Actually my interest lies more with the ATX board (P5E-V-HDMI). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find this board available for sale anywhere in the U.S. Could it be a licensing issue with onboard HDMI? If anyone knows where I can obtain this board in the U.S. I would love to hear about it.

Rhialto · Post by **Rhialto** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 5:34 am

The board I was waiting for to replace my Fatal1ty F-I90HD.

Voldenuit · Post by **Voldenuit** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:28 am

Wow. Thanks Mike, an excellent review, and I'll be looking forward to using this board in my next build.

As a matter of curiosity, what were the northbridge temps under load at stock and overclocked? Did they go down when you disabled the IGP?

I also have a vested interest in whether the board will accomodate tall chipset coolers in combination with tower coolers. Will it fit a Thermalright HR-05/HR-05 IFX in conjunction with an Ultra 120 Extreme/Ultima-90/Zerotherm BTF90/Scythe Ninja?

A rough measurement using the board picture from the review seems to indicate it will fit an Ultima-90 with a HR-05, but it would be good to have confirmation, especially if Mike can eyeball the larger coolers on the board.

My rough blocking doesn't take into account skew and aspect ratio, so it may not be 100% accurate.

Interesting that you reached 485 FSB on the board. This was the same figure Anand reached on the G33-powered ASUS P5K-VM.

butters wrote:Yay! I've been anxiously awaiting G35, and the Asus boards (this one and the ATX version) are very nice, but I'm going to hold off to see what Gigabyte does with this chipset. The Asus boards are missing eSATA and optical SPDIF, both of which would be nice to have for my intended usage.

After the way Gigabyte handled Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R users, I don't expect much from them. In addition to being a poor overclocker, Gigabyte went through several reversions of adding and subsequently removing overclocking options from BIOS revisions.

I'm also a bit disappointed that only one of the video outputs is digital. Does anyone know whether this is a board or chipset limitation?

I have a feeling this is a chipset limitation, as the G33 needs a separate SDVO riser card to support DVI/HDMI, and it looks as though the G35 is the same. That's my guess as to what the small PCB next to the first PCIEx1 card is.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:04 am

Voldenuit wrote:Wow. Thanks Mike, an excellent review, and I'll be looking forward to using this board in my next build.

As a matter of curiosity, what were the northbridge temps under load at stock and overclocked? Did they go down when you disabled the IGP?

I also have a vested interest in whether the board will accomodate tall chipset coolers in combination with tower coolers. Will it fit a Thermalright HR-05/HR-05 IFX in conjunction with an Ultra 120 Extreme/Ultima-90/Zerotherm BTF90/Scythe Ninja?

First, let's give credit where it's due: Every SPCR article passess across my desk, I do edit everything actively, but the review was written by Lawrence, as the byline clearly states; he deserve your praise.

Hopefully Larry can answer your questions about NB -- I don't think the temps were seriously high; NBs routine run up close to 100C w/o instability.

As the pics on page 2 show, there's good clearance all around the CPU socket; I'm quite sure any of the big coolers will fit. I tried positioning a bunch of the biggies on the board over the wknd and saw no fit issues with Ninja, U120E, & a couple new ones from Asus & Gigabyte.

Voldenuit · Post by **Voldenuit** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:19 am

MikeC wrote: First, let's give credit where it's due: Every SPCR article passess across my desk, I do edit everything actively, but the review was written by Lawrence, as the byline clearly states; he deserve your praise.

Heh, my bad.

Sorry Lawrence! I guess I was too excited and dove right past the credits and into the article.

I've been waiting for months for this motherboard read the Reg review, but it was rather sparse on details.

Anyway, let me offer my belated and previously misplaced congratulations for your salutory effort in performing this review.

Voldenuit · Post by **Voldenuit** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:46 am

butters wrote: The Asus boards are missing eSATA and optical SPDIF, both of which would be nice to have for my intended usage.

There is an optional SPDIF bracket mentioned in the manual for the P5E-VM HDMI. It plugs into a connector at the bottom of the board and has a wire link to a PCI bracket with a SPDIF port.

Purchased separately.

Jools · Post by **Jools** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:42 am

I'm in the process of building my new machine with this very board at the minute. A bunch of reviews have came out [including SPCR's] since I bought it, so I'm glad it's a doozy...

Here's the final specs I chose:

Antec NSK3480
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E (120mm) + 2x Arctic Cooling 9225PWM (92mm)
Corsair HX620W
Asus P5E-VM HDMI
Intel C2Q Extreme Edition QX9650 "Yorkfield"

OCZ Vendetta + Arctic Cooling 9225PWM (92mm)
OCZ 8GB Platinum (CL5-4-4-15)
2x Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB 32MB (RAID0) + 2x Nexus DiskTwin
LG GSA-E50L Slimline External USB DVD+/-RW
Creative X-Fi Xtreme (PCI Express)

I'm going to use my 8800GTS until the G100/D9E series comes out in a few months, so I'll be able to say how well the 3480/P5E-VM performs as a (quiet) mATX gaming rig.

I'll also post details of how my build went (including some tips) in a few days, including stress testing & gaming temps. All three of the AC 92mm PWM fans (1 HSF, 2 case) are going to be ganged into the CPU fan header, which will help keep it quiet at idle.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 11:20 am

Voldenuit wrote: As a matter of curiosity, what were the northbridge temps under load at stock and overclocked? Did they go down when you disabled the IGP?

The system temperature reported by the board never exceeded 34C so I don't think it was the northbridge temperature. From touch memory, I can't recall if there was a difference whether the IGP was disabled or not, but then again I would have had to wait for the temperature to stabilize to be sure. I wouldn't be concerned about it - it's not the hottest chipset heatsink I've felt by far.

Jools wrote: All three of the AC 92mm PWM fans (1 HSF, 2 case) are going to be ganged into the CPU fan header, which will help keep it quiet at idle.

I strongly recommend against this. I had 2 very low power fans connected to a single fan header in the past... 3/7 times the header eventually died altogether.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:37 pm

Lawrence Lee wrote:
I strongly recommend against this. I had 2 very low power fans connected to a single fan header in the past... 3/7 times the header eventually died altogether.

Hmm, that's something I'd expect on older mobos with very low spec fan headers, but these days most headers should be able to handle 5w+. At least for msi boards off the top of my head they state it can handle 6w. I'm currently running both my 92mm off one header without any issue. Anyways just mentioning my thoughts since I'm currently doing this

Btw, the undervolting on the asus is still miles ahead of many other mobo makers for the recent bearlake series. Off the top of my head, only gigabyte has low undervolting options. Asus seems to be second, and gigabyte/abit/ecs/foxconn/etc seem to have completely ignored manual undervolting, which is a major turnoff to the ip35 pro.

Overall a very well documented review, I hope to see more in the future. Thanks!

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:07 pm

great review - I always like seeing the power consumption figures, especially when MBs tend to be very similar performance wise. Is there any kind of consensus as to whether mATX boards consume less power than full ATX boards of a similar spec? Eg. basic P35 vs. basic G33, without IGP enabled?

I'm not constrained by space, but I have also never used more than 1 PCI slot in my PC, so it's not as if I need a full ATX board, but on the other hand mATX boards tend to be slightly more expensive. Any ideas?

awx · Post by **awx** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:32 am

A very timely review. I just ordered one of these to go in an Antec 3480 with an Intel E2160 1.8 ghz CPU. I really hope this board is stable.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:53 am

Anyone know if this board will take a e2160 or e2180 past 3Ghz?
If so then this will be the perfect board for my next system.

ktriebol · Post by **ktriebol** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:56 am

AWX, do you mind sharing where you ordered your board from?

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:37 am

Not having eSata at this price point is a deal breaker for me. I think a poor decision on the part of Asus.

mhv10 · Post by **mhv10** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:26 am

For Home Theater, I'm curious if digital audio can be routed out the HDMI connector, and if not, whether it is a motherboard-specific implementation detail, or a general limitation of the G35 chipset.

Thanks for any info!

protellect · Post by **protellect** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:02 am

mhv10 wrote:For Home Theater, I'm curious if digital audio can be routed out the HDMI connector, and if not, whether it is a motherboard-specific implementation detail, or a general limitation of the G35 chipset.

Thanks for any info!

unlikely, there is no other hdmi motherboard with this capability.

however it looks really, really nice.

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:45 am

Greg F. wrote:Not having eSata at this price point is a deal breaker for me. I think a poor decision on the part of Asus.

You do know that any SATA port can be converted to eSATA, right? I've seen adapters for under $5; they're all the same -- just a PCI cover plate w/1~2 jacks with cables than run out to the SATA jacks on the motherboard. Here's one from newegg.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:02 pm

MikeC wrote: You do know that any SATA port can be converted to eSATA, right? I've seen adapters for under $5; they're all the same -- just a PCI cover plate w/1~2 jacks with cables than run out to the SATA jacks on the motherboard. Here's one from newegg.

Also, many eSATA enclosures come with an adapter as well. The Vantec Nexstar and the Antec MX-1 being two of the most popular ones.

Locklear · Post by **Locklear** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:34 pm

Perfectly timed review as I have this board laying on my desk right now. If I only had the NSK2480B case to put it in...

Looks like Asus hit a homerun with this one. Only thing that might ruin it for me is if the HDMI port doesn't transfer audio. The box says 'Superb quality Multi-channel audio' next to the HDMI logo, so I assume it's in there. But you never know. The manual is very lacking in information about these things.

awx · Post by **awx** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:59 pm

ktriebol wrote:AWX, do you mind sharing where you ordered your board from?

Hey, NewEgg has it listed as "in stock". Mine hasn't been shipped yet but they have charged my card.

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:51 pm

No, Mike, and Lawrence, I did not know that. I thought something was different. Thank you for informing me. And thanks for doing it in a simple straight forward way. People on other forums would have used the occasion to somehow prove their schlong longer. It's one reason I like this forum.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:55 am

Maybe I am behind the times, but 2 PCI-E X1 was too exotic to me. 2 traditional PCI would be a better fit for my needs, what a pity.

ktriebol · Post by **ktriebol** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:31 am

Thanks for the info, AWX. Newegg must have just started carrying this board because I have checked them in the past with no luck. The one I REALLY want is the P5E-V HDMI and I see that Newegg still does not carry that board. Just my luck!

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:03 pm

thanks for the review, Mike.

a question - how's audio quality on this board? if used for htpc, will an additional sound card be needed?

kb9skw · Post by **kb9skw** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:25 pm

I will have this board delivered tomorrow to replace a GA-G31MX-S2 that was giving me fits. I was planning on purchasing the GA-G33M-DS2R but the P5E-VM HDMI was only $5 more and has so much more to offer.

List of specs is something like this:

Antec NSK3480 w/ 430 watt Earthwattts PSU
Asus P5E-VM HDMI
Intel Dual Core Pentium E2180
OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB DDR2 800
Arctic Fan 12 PWM - ACF12PWM
Scythe"KAZE-JYU" SY1025SL12M (one intake, one heatsink)
Thermalright Ultra 90 K8
Thermalright LGA775 Bolt-Thru-Kit
Samsung 80GB SATA HDD

More to follow this weekend.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:15 am

kb9skw please tell me how it overclocks with that chip. It seems the p5e-vm hdmi may be the only decent overclocking matx c2duo board out. I would love to have a e2180 @ 3.4ghz in a matx case.

sganimefan · Post by **sganimefan** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:31 pm

Has anyone tried to install a Zalman CNPS8700 and see if it'd fit?

Asus P5E-VM HDMI: A microATX C2D board for gamers?

Asus P5E-VM HDMI: A microATX C2D board for gamers?

eSata

Anyone know if audio out the HDMI port is supported?

Re: Anyone know if audio out the HDMI port is supported?

Re: eSata

Re: eSata

alright