![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , December 08, 2003
- Author:
- Keith Dugger
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
P4S800D-E Deluxe
ASUS keeps the market motivated by developing the P4S800D-E Deluxe based on the SiS655TX chipset. Will that and a ton of features allow this "Deluxe" board to compete with the Intel chipset boards?
Subsystem Testing
Audio – Subjective Listening
The SoundMAX 6-channel audio codec met our challenges with ease while reproducing clean sounds during our subjective listening tests. Barry Manilow, er, I mean Barry White’s ultra low voice was pristine during all testing sessions. No sound defects were noted during this phase.
Audio – Microphone Port Testing
I used a Labtec Desk Mic 524 to test the MIC_IN port. I recorded audio with the Microphone Boost option both enabled and disabled and then replayed this over and over at various volume settings. There were not any noticeable defects; however, the port was more useable with the Boost option enabled.
Audio – In Game Testing
To accurately test the audio during gaming sessions, we took benchmark measurements with sound enabled and disabled using Jedi Knight 2 and Comanche 4.
It’s understandable that the process of processing sound will have an affect on game play. It is, however, how much affect this has that is a concern to gamers. A drop of 14% in the Jedi Knight II pass is a higher than desirable margin, but at frame rates in the high one hundreds, this will most likely only cause a slight problem. As you can see, this impact is lessened to slightly more than 9% in our Comanche 4 test.
All in all, this is a very acceptable implementation of a sound subsystem. Quality of sound is first rate and system impact is not far from our benchmark.
USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394
Pairing a USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394 external drive from ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD with TCD Labs’ HDTach program gives us the ability to evaluate the capabilities of the onboard USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 controllers. The first test is with the drive connected to the USB 2.0 port and the second is with the drive connected to the IEEE 1394 port.
A price of 36.4% is quite high for the use of a USB device and at that cost, one would expect blazing performance. The truth is actually opposite; the CPU bank was robbed, but read and write performance fell short of this drive’s potential. Random Access Time (RAT) and Read Burst Speed (RBS) were both good showings for USB.
At the other end of the spectrum is the IEEE 1394 controller posting numbers close to expectations in all areas. Read and write averages were only slightly lower, but RAT and RBS scores were right on target. The CPU utilization was a bit elevated, but no where near that of the USB controller.
Network Utilization Tests
A cross-over cable connected to the Intel Gigabit NIC in my home machine provided the pathway for testing the ASUS P4S800D-E Deluxe single on-board NIC. These are conducted by performing two series of tests. First, transferring approximately 600MB of various-sized MP3 audio files both upload and download and, second, transferring a single file of approximately 600MB both upload and download. To measure performance I used both Window Task Manager to get CPU utilization and Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter to measure the performance of the network subsystem itself.
ASUS utilizes the Marvel Gigabit Ethernet controller on the P4S800D-E Deluxe.
The small files tests required an almost 40% CPU utilization to only achieve 35-40 MB/s transfer rates. This poor performance still allows for CDR-sized transfers in around 20 seconds; however, 50 MB/s is closer to the showing a Gigabit controller should be making.
The large file tests improved on the transfer rates dramatically and came closer to our needs, but the CPU requirements were still high. This performance hit will impact usability if transfers are occurring during other system use.