How are the ASUS P43/P45 boards?

mkawa · Post by **mkawa** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:43 pm

snake plissken wrote:With al the quality issues mentioned here concerning Asus boards I have been looking at some Intel boards. I found this Intel DP43TF (P43) board, with the ATX power connector in the right place and no unnecessary crap features. You have no software features like EPU6 or the gigabyte thing, and yes you cannot overclock, but thats OK. You do have an intel gigabit NIC and the quality of intel boards should be quite good (we use them in al our computers at work and never had a board failure). I also think the power consumption should be OK, because this is a simple board - The power saving soft from Asus or gigabyte doesn't make a large difference I think. Has anyone here already used this board or got any experience with intel boards?

http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/m ... erview.htm

i've also been looking at this board. it just came into stock at buy.com; if someone else doesn't take the plunge soon i just might

nici · Post by **nici** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 3:41 pm

I would probably have got that intel board if i hadn't altready got the base P5Q in my system. It works just fine, but hte atx connector is in a horrible place on the board, the BIOS is not very user friendly( or just completely different from Phoenix and Award) and it reports temps all wonky, sometimes the whole system is supposedly running at -40c and sometimes +123c. Which makes automatic fan control run the fans too fast of too slow. Speedfan can control two headers, the CPU and the Chassis. The chassis controls two headers on the board, which is suboptimal. But so far it's stable, and, uh, the heatsinks look nice...

snake plissken · Post by **snake plissken** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:15 am

prism_emf wrote:Has anyone been able to confirm that the Gigabyte boards only support ACPI1.0b? It's such an old specification that it seems weird Gigabyte wouldn't have updated their ACPI support, especially as they use the same basic BIOS versions as the other manufacturers...

Or, maybe they just choose to pass on newer ACPI versions and do power management with their DES chip?

I sent an email to gigabyte to ask if it wasn't a mistake and they confirmed that ACPI 1.0b is the version used.

ReelMonza wrote:ACPI support depends on core logic , afaik , p45/ich9 has ACPI 3.0b

I'm not sure about that, the Gigabyte GA-EP45T-EXTREME, a 275 euro P45 board also only supports ACPI 1.0b (actualy I think ALL gigabyte boards only support ACPI 1.0b)

mkawa wrote:if someone else doesn't take the plunge soon i just might

Let us know, because I'm very interested. I did notice one little thing on the DP43TF board, that is the 4-pin power connector placement. It's below the CPU socket, the gigabyte board has this connector on the topside of the board.

batka · Post by **batka** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:01 pm

Hi!

I read through this thread and others, about EPU-4 and EPU-6 Power saving feature of Asus Boards, and I see there are quiet a lot bad opinions on that.
I also read This article about their opinion and EPU-6 and, as I see, they seem to conclude that EPU doesn't work when some wants to overclock the machine.

But how good is the EPU feature of Asus boards, if actually someone don't want to overclock?
Is it working? How much it can reduce the idle power consumption, for example in a HTPC usage?

I'm thinking to build a HTPC which will run 24/7, no gaming, but net browsing, and occasionally DVD playback. I want a mobo/processor solution which draws as less power as possible. I saw these Asus board and the marketing on this EPU-4 and EPU-6 feature, and I wonder whether that is really saves some power?

flapane · Post by **flapane** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:57 pm

Yeah unfortunately EPU doesn't work in OC, sad to hear isn't it.
At stock, intel e5200 uses about 4w with epu 4ways and 6w without.
What about P5QL PRO (p43) I bought 15 days ago? It overclocks well, and the northnridge is really cold.
Any data about power consumption of this mobo?

p.s Of course that's another planet compared to DFI Ultra-D I owned, but I didn't want to pay another 150 bucks.

batka · Post by **batka** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:13 pm

flapane wrote:Any data about power consumption of this mobo?

So maybe could you specify here about your setup, and the total power usage from the wall, and idle and when using?

flapane · Post by **flapane** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:15 pm

detailed specs in the link in my sign.
Unfortunately I don't have any power meter atm.
I suppose something under 90w in idle, and some 190w in full (cpu+gpu).

batka · Post by **batka** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:01 pm

batka wrote:Hi!

I read through this thread and others, about EPU-4 and EPU-6 Power saving feature of Asus Boards, and I see there are quiet a lot bad opinions on that.
I also read This article about their opinion and EPU-6 and, as I see, they seem to conclude that EPU doesn't work when some wants to overclock the machine.

But how good is the EPU feature of Asus boards, if actually someone don't want to overclock?
Is it working? How much it can reduce the idle power consumption, for example in a HTPC usage?

I'm thinking to build a HTPC which will run 24/7, no gaming, but net browsing, and occasionally DVD playback. I want a mobo/processor solution which draws as less power as possible. I saw these Asus board and the marketing on this EPU-4 and EPU-6 feature, and I wonder whether that is really saves some power?

Hi!

Just wonder if anybody is using this EPU-6 feature?

batka · Post by **batka** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:01 pm

batka wrote:
batka wrote:Hi!

I read through this thread and others, about EPU-4 and EPU-6 Power saving feature of Asus Boards, and I see there are quiet a lot bad opinions on that.
I also read This article about their opinion and EPU-6 and, as I see, they seem to conclude that EPU doesn't work when some wants to overclock the machine.

But how good is the EPU feature of Asus boards, if actually someone don't want to overclock?
Is it working? How much it can reduce the idle power consumption, for example in a HTPC usage?

I'm thinking to build a HTPC which will run 24/7, no gaming, but net browsing, and occasionally DVD playback. I want a mobo/processor solution which draws as less power as possible. I saw these Asus board and the marketing on this EPU-4 and EPU-6 feature, and I wonder whether that is really saves some power?
Hi!

Just wonder if anybody is using this EPU-6 feature?

Just wonder if anybody is using this EPU-6 feature?