ASUS Blitz Extreme and Formula (Intel P35)

Today, we are testing another two motherboards based on the Intel P35 chipset made by ASUS. We note it straight off that the PCB of both the motherboards is the same but is radically different from the ASUS P5K(3) series. The first board is named Blitz Extreme and is aimed for use with the DDR3 memory. The second board uses DDR2 and is aimed Blitz Formula. Both the motherboards relate to the "Republic of Gamers" series and are aimed at computer enthusiasts for whom engineers at ASUS have prepared a lot of interesting. The first thing that immediately attracts your attention is that on the north bridge there is a water block integrated into the general system for cooling the chipset, the power supply module, and another additional Crosslinx chip. This chip is aimed at symmetrical distribution of PCI Express bus lanes among the PEG slots: 8 + 8 and not 16 + 4 as is the way on other motherboards based on P35. This feature allows using the AMD Crossfire technology in the most powerful mode.

We were also able launching the system with two NVIDIA video cards in the SLI mode. But to this end, we had to use modified video drivers.

Computer enthusiasts will be pleased by the package bundle which contains varied items as well as the full version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Specifications

Retail boxes

Contents:

The major complaint about the motherboard is the incomplete implementation of all the motherboard's capabilities. If the buyer pays $300, then we assume he/she is entitled to get whatever needed for system assembly and not to have to come to the shop again for extra items. In this case, the buyer would have to return to the shop for two USB2.0 ports, to be more precise - to buy two more brackets for two ports on each (four ports altogether). The owner of the Blitz Extreme motherboard will have to buy two SerialATA cables and a few power supply adapters, because this version supports eight matching ports, whereas the board ships with only six cables and one adapter with two connectors. The owner of the Formula version board will not need extra SATA cables, but will need external thermal sensors (they are missing in the box). But we don't think they can be made available in a shop. We would also need power supply adapters for SATA devices on which ASUS decided to save.

Let's list what is in the package bundle. To start with, we say that additional items are in a separate box:

Inside the box, the buyer will find the documentation (user's guide + brief system assembly guide), as well as the software. These are primarily the DVD with ASUS proprietary drivers and utilities. Apart from that, the disk contains third-party software, including 3DMark 06 Advanced Edition. The other DVD contains the full version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Besides, both the motherboards come bundled with PATA and FDD cables, six SerialATA cables each (with one power supply adapter for two connectors), special Quick Connection Kit connectors, a cap for the rear panel, and a sticker with the ASUS logo.

Both the motherboards come bundled with a bracket for two USB2.0 and one Firewire ports. Besides, the package bundle includes two additional turbine fans which are installed on the radiators of the power supply module.

While on one of the radiators a fan is installed trouble-free, an adapter would be needed to install a fan on the other, narrower radiator.

On the same photo, you can see a kit of varied clamps, adapters, and connection pipes to link the water block to the water-powered cooling system.

The user also gets nine special rubber stands which can be glued to the motherboard, and assemble a system on the desktop.

Note that the audio subsystem is located on a separate board called SupremeFX II:

If the screen is removed, you can see both the board itself,

and the AD1988B codec:

Finally, the user gets an additional device named LCD Poster.

It is pluggable to the motherboard, and upon the system start-up it indicates the current state.

As regards the differences in the package bundles of both Extreme and Formula motherboards, there is only one - there three additional thermo sensors in the box for the Extreme board:

Using them, the user can measure the temperature of any system component. But what to do for the users of Blitz Formula - we have not yet come across such thermo sensors on sale.

Layout and Features

We have already disclosed the traits of these boards (regarding the water block and the additional Crosslinx chip), so we are drawing your attention to the general similarity of Formula and Extreme makes.

In fact, the only difference is about the type of the DIMM slots, for various memory standards. In all the remaining aspects, the boards are almost identical to one another and therefore they are of similar traits, especially in terms of system assembly. Actually, no problems will come up for the assembly operator: the latches of DIMM slots are not blocked by a PCI Express video card. The power connectors are positioned in a smart way over the board's edges: 24-pin - on the bottom edge, with a 8-pin on the right-hand. We note that the boards have retained a backward compatibility to the "old" PSUs, e.g. with 20+4 cables. At the same time, the unused pins of the additional connector are closed with a plastic lid:

Near the CPU socket, there is a 4-pin CPU_FAN connector for a matching cooler.

Besides it, there are seven (!) more 3-pin connectors: PWR_FAN - near the rear panel, CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN4 - near the north bridge, CHA_FAN2, OPT_FAN2 - near the south bridge, CHA_FAN1 - near DIMM slots, and OPT_FAN1 - in the left-hand corner of the board.

On the north bridge of the Extreme board, there is a water block connected to the radiator on the power supply module using a heat pipe. Also, using the heat pipe the heat from the south bridge is transferred to the north bridge. The south bridge is a "terminal station" for heat from the additional Crosslinx chip, which is also transferred with a heat pipe.

Note that on both radiators on the power supply module you can install turbine fans which come as bundled items. To install the fan on a narrower radiator, a plastic adapter is used.

Of course, we did not miss a chance to use the water block as per its intended purpose. To that end, we put out a Poseidon water-powered cooling system from the warehouse, which was purchased far back in 2002 and at that time it provided a really good level of cooling the processors. Surprisingly, the system started up without any issues (even despite the five-year-old water :).

As a result, at FSB = 500 MHz and Vdd = 1.6 V the temperature of the north bridge did not exceed 50 C. As regards the temperature of the south bridge and the Crosslinx chip, they stayed within admissible limits (you could safely put your finger on the radiator without any fear of burning).

Under the north bridge of the Extreme version motherboard, there are four slots for DDR3 (DDR3-800/1066/1333) memory partitioned into two groups of two slots in each. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.

On the Formula version motherboard, the configuration of memory slots is the same, except that DDR2 is used. The maximum memory capacity is 8 GB. Once voltage is applied to the board, the Power and Reset buttons turn illuminated (their illumination is still on when the system is in the stand-by mode).

On each of the boards, there are two PCI Express x16 slots (both with latches) which are meant for video cards.

Using the additional Crosslinx chip, the engineers at ASUS managed to bypass the inner limitation of Intel P35 chipset, because of which only 2 or 4 PCI Express bus lanes are allocated to the second PCI Express x16 slot. Now on the Blitz series motherboards, if two video cards are installed, there occurs a symmetrical distribution of of the bus lanes: 8 per each slot. Apart from the listed slots, each of the boards uses two "regular" PCI slots, two PCI Express x1, as well as one slot for the SupremeFX II sound card.

Both the motherboards use the ICH9R south bridge with a radiator. Therefore, the boards support 6 SerialATA II ports and allow merging disks into RAID arrays of levels 0,1,5, and 10.

To get support for the ParallelATA, we had to install additional chips onto the boards. In particular, the JMB368 chip is needed for the Formula version,

and on the Extreme version - JMB363 which also supports a couple of SerialATA II devices. Both the matching ports are brought over to the rear panel of the board. In the end, the user can plug eight hard disks (6 SATA + 2 PATA) in to the Formula version board, and 10 (8 SATA + 2 PATA) - to the Extreme version board.

Then, the boards use 12 USB2.0 ports: six ports on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in with plates (the board comes bundled with 1 plate for 2 ports).

Besides, the motherboards support the IEEE1394 ("Firewire"). For that, there is an additional onboard VT6308P controller made by VIA.

Therefore, the boards offer support for 2 Firewire ports: one mounted on the rear panel, with the other one connected with a plate (available in the package bundle). Near this chip, there is one of two Gigabit LAN controllers - Marvell 88E8001. The second controller, 88E8056, also made by Marvell, is installed near the rear panel.

Then - on the Formula and Extreme boards the audio subsystem Intel High Definition Audio is implemented as a separate board:

with AD1988B used as the codec.

The board's rear panel has a somehow nonstandard configuration:

As we can see, engineers at ASUS have completely given up support for the LPT port and COM ports. Nor there is a PS/2 connector to plug in a mouse. On the other hand, USB 2.0 ports are in abundance; there are two SerialATA II (on the Extreme version only), and a Firewire, as well as an optical and coaxial SP-DIF output. Besides, the special trait of the rear panel is in the button for clearing the CMOS settings, as well as a special connector to plug in the LCD Poster diagnostic device:

But you can clear the CMOS with the button only if the CLRTC_SW jumper is set to the right position (the jumper itself is positioned near the south bridge).

Now move on to examining additional features. First, it is the diagnostic LCD Poster screen which displays the current status of system boot-up, and upon successful completion of boot-up it displays the current time. As compared to the previous boards of the Republic of Gamers series, this device is more convenient than the LCD screen on the rear panel. The LCD Poster has a long enough cable, which allows bringing it closer to the user.

The second trait of these boards is about the Power, Reset, and Clear CMOS buttons.

The third trait is very interesting - on the board, there are five groups of LEDs: CPU LED, Memory LED, NB LED, SB LED, and FSB Frequency LED. The first four include three LEDs: red, yellow, and green. Depending on the voltage applied to each of the components, one of the LEDs lights up. For example: if Vcore is within 1.1V to 1.5V, the green one lights up (i.e., the voltage is normal), is it is within 1.5125V to 1.69375V - yellow LED is on (the voltage is excessive), and finally, if within 1.7V to 1.9V, the red LED is on, thus signaling to the potentially dangerous voltage. The FSB Frequency LED group is made up of five blue LEDs which indicate an approximate FSB range on overclocking.

Now on to the BIOS settings.

BIOS

The BIOS of both the motherboards is based on the AMI BIOS version and has almost identical settings (although that may change in future versions).

In the overclocking section, part of the settings are in charge of tuning the memory latency timings:

The next important parameter that affects the performance is setting the memory operating frequency.

The choice of available frequencies is in direct dependence on the selected Strap:

There is one more parameter that affects the memory subsystem performance - the "Command Rate":

In fact, the current BIOS versions impose certain limitations upon its use. In particular, in the synchronous mode the overclocked system does not run stably (in other words, the overclocking capability degrades).

There is a couple more parameters to adjust the secondary timings (sometimes referred to as sub-timings). This is the Transaction Booster

Dynamic Write Control (available only on the Extreme; BIOS v. 0802), and Static Read Control

Enabling these features results in the memory subsystem performance gain to the detriment of the overclocking capability (in some cases, to the detriment of stability - especially when the memory modules run at the breaking point).

Let's look into the system monitoring section.

Both the boards display the current values of the CPU and system temperatures, temperatures of the north and south bridges, as well as temperatures from two additional thermo sensors. Besides, the board keeps track of voltages, rotational speeds of all the eight fans, six of which having the (Q-Fan2) feature to adjust the rotational speed of the CPU cooler, depending on the temperature of varied components. For the CPU cooler, there is a separate kit of Q-FAN 2 settings, and for the coolers plugged in to CHA_FAN1 - CHA_FAN3 there is one kit of common settings.

The settings QFan2 for coolers plugged in to OPT_FAN1 and OPT_FAN2 are independent.

Both the motherboards are able retaining all the BIOS settings in the memory and loading them on demand. The boards support two independent profiles:

To handle the BIOS replacement, each of the motherboards offers the integrated EZFlash 2 utility:

You can update the BIOS version with the ASUS Update utility:

The monitoring of parameters can be tracked with either AI Suite (for the basic set of parameters) or with the PC Probe II (extended set).

Note that the boards offers support for the CrashFree BIOS 3 feature (restoring the damaged BIOS firmware using a CD or a flash disk).

Traditionally for motherboards made by ASUS, the BIOS supports display of the settings in multiple languages (Multilanguages BIOS).

The BIOS also gives access to tuning all the features of modern processors:

Overclocking and stability

Before we move on to overclocking, let's look at the power converters. The PWM of ASUS Blitz Extreme uses an 8-phase scheme in which there are no traditional capacitors (the so-called EL-Capless power design). The power supply module of ASUS Blitz Formula also uses the same scheme. Note that the boards use a 2-phase power converter for the memory modules.

Note that both the boards allow for installation of additional fans (which are available in the package bundle), which allows improving the power supply module (and the north bridge, unless a water-powered cooling system is used):

Now on to the overclocking features.

As compared to other ASUS motherboards based on the P35 chipset, we should note really wide ranges for voltage adjustment (especially the voltage applied to the north bridge, in terms of water-powered cooling) as well as the finer and more precise increments of voltage.

We note the independent adjustment of voltage on each of the memory channels:

and the precise tuning voltage applied to the memory controller:

There is a couple more of undocumented parameters to adjust the CPU power supply. This is CPU Voltage Reference:

Somehow or other, but we ran all the overclocking experiments with the disabled CPU Voltage Reference, Transaction Booster, and Static Read Control (let's wait for their description by ASUS). Therefore, as the practical experiments have shown, the boards in question (Blitz Extreme, Blitz Formula) offer the same capability. In particular, Blitz Extreme started up at 500 MHz, whereas the Formula version - at 516 MHz.

The slight difference can be attributed by the "higher" version of BIOS version in the Formula board. But in general, these results can't be regarded as high, since for testing the maximum FSB speed we decided to use a new E6550 processor whose FSB Wall has been shifted up to 560 MHz (while the CPU itself runs stably at >3.8 GHz). These results were produced on P5K3 Premium, but unfortunately none of the Blitz boards was able repeating that result. So programmers at ASUS have got something to work at in this direction.

Now a few words on the ASUS NOS (Non-Delay Overclocking System) mode in which overclocking is done on-demand. Simply put, the raise of FSB speed occurs at the time a resource-hungry application (e.g., a game) starts up. On closing the application, the system reverts to the rated frequency.

It is possible to overclock the system with AI Suite which includes tools for overclocking, monitoring, AI Gear, and AI Nap:

Performance

While determining the starting FSB speed, it turned out that the board overstated it by 1.3 MHz.

In our test setup, we used the following hardware:

Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.

Tests in games.

We have tested the Crosslinx technology and installed two ASUS GeForce 6600GT video cards (based on NVIDIA chips) in the SLI mode. Since Intel's chipsets do not offer official support for the SLI technology, we had to use modified drivers. The result has proved ambiguous - the SLI ran in many applications and provided the anticipated performance gain. However, at Unreal Tournament 2004 the operating speed of the two video video cards was lower than that of the single video card, and the test Quake3 failed to launch.

Clearly, the problem is in the video drivers, and ASUS boards have nothing to complain about. So once enthusiasts have polished the drivers or, which is less likely, NVIDIA shares SLI with Intel, the owners of ASUS Blitz motherboards will be able using both the NVIDIA SLI and AMD Crossfire technologies!

Final Words

Both the Blitz motherboards have left a positive impression. While in the case with the Commando motherboard (also from the Republic of Gamers series; based on Intel P965) it was not quite clear what the extra $100 was paid for, all is much simpler and clearer with Blitz motherboards. First, the retail price is not so high: for instance, ASUS P5K Deluxe sells at about $250-270, and ASUS Blitz Formula - about $280-300. At the same time, Blitz offers a few unique features inaccessible to users of other motherboards. In particular, this applies to the integrated system of water-powered cooling of the chipset (a water block on the north bridge). Secondly, the extended ranges of voltage adjustment, with a more precise increment. Thirdly, this is the Crosslinx technology which provides a symmetrical distribution of PCI Express bus lanes between the two video cards (owing to the additional video chip). Fourthly, the 2-phase power converter for the memory subsystem. In the end, the overclocking capability of Blitz series motherboards is really high. But unfortunately it has not been fully implemented by now. In particular, at the overclocking results, the boards lost to another product by ASUS - P5K3 Premium (at the maximum CPU clock speed: 3.5 GHz versus 3.75 GHz; at the maximum FSB speed - 500/516 MHz versus 556 MHz). However, engineers at ASUS are continuously improving the BIOS and regularly release new versions. By the end of this year, we will certainly come back to Blitz motherboards and once again verify their overclocking results.

If we forget for a while about the overclocking, then Blitz motherboards can boast a rich package bundle, support for various proprietary technologies (LCD Poster, diagnostic LEDs, additional buttons), as well as powerful and well elaborated BIOS features (we especially liked the system monitoring section). As regards the difference between the Blitz Formula and Blitz Extreme boards, there are only two: Formula supports DDR2, and the Extreme - DDR3. Besides, on the Extreme version two additional SerialATA II ports have been implemented.

Conclusion

• High stability and performance;
• 8-phase CPU power scheme;
• 2-phase memory power scheme;
• Two PCI Express x16 slots + ASUS Crosslinx technology;
• The Extreme version: Support for SerialATA II/RAID ( 8 lines; ICH8R + JMB363);
• The Formula version: Support for SerialATA II/RAID ( 6 lines; ICH9R);
• Support for one P-ATA link (Extreme - JMB363, Formula - JMB368);
• Two Integrated LAN controllers (Gigabit Ethernet);
• Support for USB2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire, 2 ports);
• A wide selection of ASUS' proprietary technologies (PC Probe II, EZ Flash 2, CrashFree BIOS 3, MyLogo 3, Q-Fan 2, etc.);
• Additional set of AI Proactive features (AI Overclock, N.O.S., AI Net 2, etc.);
• Fluid passive/active system for cooling the chipset and the power supply module;
• Power and Reset buttons;
• Rich package bundle (including the full version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R) and a sensible price.

• Not found.

• 8-channel audio subsystem is on the SupremeFX II board;
• The overclocking potentials have not been revealed to the full;
• On the rear panel, there are six USB 2.0 ports and a button to clear the CMOS; no LPT and COM ports, no PS/2 for the mouse;
• The Extreme model: On the rear panel, there are two SerialATA II ports;
• The Extreme model: Support for DDR3-1333 memory;
• The Formula model: Support for DDR2-1066 memory