Asus P5Q Pro Review

RA1D - November 23, 2008
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Testing:

For this review, I tested the motherboard with a QX9770 processor, Mushkin Redline memory, and a Sapphire 4850. The CPU multiplier was set to 8 in order to match the Q9450's locked setting. The testing suite consists of a series of scientific and gaming benchmarks that stress the board and other components. The results are posted along with the scores from other motherboards using the same components. The benchmarks were run at both stock and overclocked settings.

Testing Setup:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (333 x 8)
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro P45
Memory: Mushkin XP2 Redline 8000 2 x 2GB 5-5-5-12 2T
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 w/ Catalyst 8.11
Power Supply: Mushkin 800w Modular Power Supply
Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.11 1TB SATA 32MB Cache
Optical Drive: Asus BC-1205PT BD Combo Drive
OS: Windows Vista 32-bit SP1

Comparison Motherboards:

Overclocking:

Settings:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (450 x 8)
Memory: Mushkin XP2 Redline 8000 2 x 2GB @ 5-5-5-12 2T DDR2-1080

In order to overclock the system, I raised front side bus speed while keeping the CPU Ratio at 8. Memory was set to DDR2-1080 and timings were manually set to 5-5-5-12. CPU voltage was set to 1.6V, CPU PLL = 1.6V, FSB Termination Voltage = 1.3V, DRAM Voltage = 2.0V, and NB Voltage = 1.4V. All other settings were left in AUTO. Through trial and error, the board was able to reach a stable 450 FSB with the quad core processor which resulted in a 3.6GHz overclock. If you plan on using a dual core, the P5Q Pro should be able to hit even higher front side bus speeds.