Overclocking Results:

stock max. oc motherboard speed: 266 mhz 472 mhz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

PCSTATS got a taste of the nVIDIA nForce 650i Intel Edition chipset a few weeks back when we got our hands dirty with the ECS PN2 SLI2+ board. We're certainly expecting good results from the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 and a sweet set of Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C4 memory. If we're lucky, we may even break the 450 MHz FSB barrier the ECS PN2 SLI2+ was stopped at!

Before PCSTATS went ahead with the overclocking, we set the memory to run in DDR2-533 MHz mode as usual.

Starting at 266 MHz FSB, and moving up in 5 MHz increments, the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard sailed pass the 300 MHz FSB mark without any difficulty. At 330 MHz the CPU voltage required a slight tweak to 1.4V in order to keep the computer stable. So far so good.

The system started to experience some instabilities again, this time at 375 MHz FSB. At this point the nForce 650i SLI Northbridge voltage had to be increased to 1.4V to keep the system from BSOD'ing while loading Windows XP. The Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus was able to crack 400 MHz, and that's a pretty great feat.

At 410 MHz FSB the CPU voltage had to be increased yet again, this time to 1.5V. That allowed the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard to go as high as 435 MHz before we had to increase the voltage to the Northbridge once more. A jolt up to 1.5V did the trick. ASUS' P5N32-E SLI Plus reached 450 MHz FSB, but it still had a bit more to give. By comparison the ECS PN2 SLI2+ stopped dead at this speed.

The Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard topped out at an amazing 472 MHz FSB in PCSTATS overclocking tests! If you're into overclocking, you're certainly going to be very pleased with what the P5N32-E SLI Plus board can do for you.

Ton of options in the Asus BIOS:

Asus includes basic memory timing adjustments as well as some more advanced memory settings in the P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard BIOS. If you're a tweaker, you'll definitely spend quite a bit of time finding out what all the little adjustments do.

The FSB can be adjusted between 1066-3000 MHz in 1 MHz increments. Where the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard really shines is its voltage options. The CPU voltage can go as high as 1.9V, memory voltage to 3.425V, HyperTransport voltage to 1.95V, Northbridge to 2.75V, Southbridge to 1.85V and CPU VTT to 1.55V!! The CPU, memory, HyperTransport and Northbridge voltages options are high enough that you can quickly damage hardware, so adjust these options with care, and only go up that high if you really know what you are doing.

Prelude to Benchmarks

The details of how the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard test system was configured for benchmarking, including the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions are indicated below. In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms this nVIDIA nForce 650i SLI Intel Edition based system is to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system reference system #1 reference system #2 reference system #3 processor: intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (775) AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ (AM2) Intel Pentium D 840 (775) Clock Speed: 9 x 266 MHz = 2.4 GHz 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus (NF 650i SLI) ECS PN2 SLI2+ (NF 680i SLI) Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H (975X) Asus P5B-E (P965 Express) Biostar TForce P965 DLX (P965 Express) Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (P965 Express) Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H (P965 Express) MSI P965 Platinum (P965 Express) ASRock AM2V890-VSTA (VIA K8T890) Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF6150) MSI K9N SLI Platinum (NF 570 SLI) Asus M2-CROSSHAIR (NF 590 SLI) Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H (975X) Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2 (955X) Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 (945P) MSI P4N Diamond (NF4 SLI) Biostar TForce P965 DLX(P965) Videocard: MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E Memory: 2x 1024MB Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C4 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Intel EE6600 Refernece AMD Athlon64 FX-62 Refernece Thermaltake Jungle 512 Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Intel INF 7.22 nVIDIA Forceware 91.47 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 nVIDIA Forceware 9.35 nVIDIA Forceware 91.47 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Intel INF 7.22 nVIDIA Forceware 7.22 nVIDIA Forceware 91.47 Benchmarks: SYSMark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 Super Pi SiSoft Sandra 2005 PCMark05 3DMark05 3DMark06 FarCry Doom 3 Quake 4