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Asus P6T Deluxe

Published on 2nd December 2008 by Richard Swinburne

Stability

We reset the BIOS to its default values, dropped in a Core i7 965 XE to take advantage of the faster 6.4GT/s QPI bus speed and installed 12GB (all six slots) of Corsair memory at 1,066MHz. We also installed two Zotac GeForce GTX 280s in SLI to load the PCI-Express subsystem as well. The only fans cooling the system were for the CPU and the memory specifically, the rest of the motherboard heatsinks and heatpipes were left to sit without additional airflow.

Firstly we started Prime95 torture test to take up 90 percent of the available memory, then once that had warmed things up a bit we introduced 3DMark06 looping over the top. This was then left for 24 hours in order to see if the board was stable.

We came back a day after listening to fans whirr up and down to find the Asus P6T Deluxe was still completely stable and responsive: neither 3DMark or Prime95 had dropped off and the system wasn't chugging in anyway. This is an excellent result, despite the heavy stress of multiple PCI-Express cards and a full complement of memory.

Overclocking

We've already seen the Core i7 920 hit 4GHz easily on the P6T Deluxe - it was literally a case of increase the voltages a little to 1.35V on the CPU and Uncore, and 1.64V on the memory, then crack the base clock (bclk) up to 200MHz - here it would sit all day without even thinking about it. We tried for higher at the time but didn't have much luck on air cooling.

With the 965 XE the fastest base clock we could achieve was 215MHz, so not much higher anyway, but that was with the QPI value dropped from 6.4GT/s to 4.8GT/s in the BIOS to compensate, as at 215MHz bclk this ends up at a huge 7.73GT/s. From our original Core i7 performance article we found QPI frequency plays little part in total performance so this should be set as low as possible in order to negate its overclocking stress.

We also tried overclocking 6GB of Corsair 1,600MHz DHX+ memory (in the orange slots) and achieved 1,800MHz with the memory at 1.7V - the DRAM reference voltages help a bit to squeeze a few more MHz out of it, but it takes some time to ascertain the right value for a particular set of memory. The QPI/DRAM Core voltage is also critical to memory overclocking performance, but that's CPU dependent rather than motherboard. At 1.425V we couldn't hit much more than 1,800MHz stable, although we've seen 2,000MHz from the P6T, albeit with LN2 cooling.

Another positive was how Asus' P6T Deluxe handles a duff overclock - simply power it off, then on again, and it boots at its default values. It's a small but mostly stress free answer that doesn't require fiddling with the awkward clear CMOS jumper. This also makes the profile saving necessary, but we found that just two available slots weren't really enough.

Conclusions, Experiences and Value

For the longest time I've had such mixed thoughts over the P6T Deluxe - I was confused: was it workstation, enthusiast, gaming? Where does it fit? What about all the features, the software, the BIOS: what was Asus trying to achieve?

The "Super Hybrid Engine", as Asus dubs its TurboV and EPU-6 Engine, is a marketing faux. Don't get me wrong, in their separate parts the important software works very well as individual components, but together it's like Asus threw every meat imaginable into an old pan and called it a "Super Hybrid Meat Feast," essentially losing every individual flavour and unique worth in a cocktail that works against each other to just taste of meat.

Do we need SAS? Probably not, but the performance for SATA and eSATA are at least better than the JMicron controllers. However it's come to a point where the Express Gate SSD doesn't offer anything other than OMG Linux!!1111ELEVEN: a novelty that has worn thin with basic and generally uninspired updates. Since the P45 launched it appears we can now play online flash games quickly, which is about as unimportant as it gets, and we still can't install addons into the Firefox browser and there has been no community uptake of the SDK because Asus continues to keep it locked down. Our requests for a media player to make the perfect HTPC are still met with "we're working on it."

Asus' power saving, while all encompassing and quite fancy on the surface, generally doesn't work as efficiently as MSI's DrMOS and GreenPower, which keep things simpler and allows some degree of overclocking too. For the most part, its list of features feel a bit like basic tickboxes although Asus' EPU² certainly does work to save some power.

Overall, Asus lacks a certain finesse in design, simply layering feature upon feature upon feature in an attempt to bamboozle potential buyers.

But I still don't care.

It doesn't matter that the P6T Deluxe doesn't adhere to a strict category and annoys me in frivolous ways above. Having used the board for almost six weeks it just works well with all the testing, hardware changes, overclocking and BIOS flashes we've subjected it to; that's more than we can say for other X58 boards we've encountered so far.

The BIOS even from pre-launch of the Core i7 CPUs has been excellent, the onboard sound quality is pretty decent, the TweakIT software on its own is very intuitive and works well as we were using it to hit 3.8GHz with early B0 Core i7s back in September. The overall layout works for us and its really very stable - Asus has the basics right, which is important. While we'd love an LED or LCD readout to tell us what's happening during POST, since there's rarely any fuss over memory compatibility or overclocking problems as it just boots without a hoohar - we haven't felt the need for it, unlike other X58s where it's almost been constantly needed.

For £220 it performs as well as the more expensive MSI X58 Eclipse and certainly shows that an 8-layer PCB doesn't have to cost the earth. Despite the fact the MSI X58 Platinum isn't far off in price at just £10 more, we'd buy the Asus P6T over a Platinum that doesn't include SLI support and looks a little thin in comparison. At the time of writing the P6T Deluxe is one of the cheapest X58 boards available, bar the Gigabyte EX58-DS4 that can actually be bought for under £200 and the better featured UD5, which also includes SLI, that's £10 cheaper.

Whether it's worth it over these two we'll see in due course as the EX58-DS4 arrived on our doorstep today.

Final Thoughts

The Asus P6T Deluxe is a good value motherboard (which may be a little expensive for most) that works well and you can easily ignore the bits you don't want to use without losing out on the experience. It is an excellent backbone for some Core i7 shenanigans, despite the fact Asus could really do with a tidy up and consolidation in the future.