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Overclocking

The P5RD1-V allowed itself to be pushed to 924 MHz on the front-side bus (that's 231 MHz, quad-pumped) with a Pentium 4 670 processor. Overall, we've come to expect a bit more headroom out of the motherboards we review here, but I keep telling myself that a few years ago, super-affordable motherboards like today's didn't even have a mention of overclocking in the BIOS, let alone any headroom. Again, not too shabby at all for a $92 USD motherboard. A screenshot set of the relevant overclocking options in the BIOS looks as follows:

The adjustable ranges of the various options you see there are as follows:

• CPU Frequency is adjustable from 100 to 400 MHz in 1 MHz increments
• Memory Clock Mode can be set to Auto, Sync To CPU, and Async Manual Mode
• Memory Frequency (in Async Manual Mode) is adjustable from 100 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz increments
• PCIE Frequency is adjustable from 100 to 255 MHz in 1 MHz increments
• DDR Voltage optoins are 2.50V, 2.60V, 2.70V, and 2.80V, along with an Auto option
• Vcore Voltage Select is adjustable from 1.1000 to 1.7000V in 0.0125V increments
• Over NB Core Voltage 1.2V options are Auto, Disabled, and Enabled
• Over PCIE Voltag 1.8V options are also Auto, Disabled, and Enabled
• Ratio CMOS Setting is dependant on the processor (Pentium 4s have a locked range)
• DRAM 1T/2T Command options are (obviously) 1T/2T
• DRAM CAS Select is adjustable from 1.0 to 3.5 clocks in 0.5 clock increments
• DRAM tRP Select is adjustable from 2.0 to 5.0 clocks in 1.0 clock increments
• DRAM tRCD Select is adjustable from 2.0 to 4.0 clocks in 1.0 clock increments
• DRAM tRAS Select is adjustable from 2.0 to 15.0 clocks in 1.0 clock increments
• Refresh Rate Select options are 15.625, 3.9, 7.8, 31.3, 62.5, and 125 microseconds

The general tweaking capabilities of this board are interesting, but it is all a moot point if it maxed out at a mere 231 MHz on the FSB. Users with high-quality RAM will be able to get more of a memory bandwidth/latency improvement with this board as opposed to a processor clock speed improvement. The 1.0-clock CAS option was not something I've seen on previous boards -- what good it does, I'm not sure, as I have never seen CAS1 DDR DIMMs.

Final Thoughts

The ASUS P5RD1-V tells two stories -- one is short, and the other is long.

The short and sweet of the matter is that the P5RD1-V is a superb LGA775 motherboard for the price. With reasonably powerful integrated video, four slots supporting dual-channel DDR400, four PCIe and three PCI slots, SATA w/ RAID, and a bunch of other goodies, $92 USD isn't that much to ask for. Since LGA775 motherboards probably still command the highest of premiums over other types, it really isn't much to ask for.

What's the long story? Well, I want to get the bad and the ugly off my back: I wasn't too impressed with the audio/SATA issues. I'll grant ASUS some points and say that the problems all appeared to be on the software side, but really -- it's unacceptable that the drivers supplied with the motherboard did not work as intended. I shouldn't have spent 1.5 hours attempting to get sound working. I shouldn't have spent two hours attempting to get Windows installed on a SATA hard drive. That is just unacceptable. A novice user would either return the product and get an alternative, or merely give up on building their own computer altogether.

That said, I experienced no other problems with the P5RD1-V. Even with the very tight memory timings used, never was there a stability issue. Performance-wise the P5RD1-V is highly competitive with its designated competitor: Intel 915G-based motherboards. What I mean by "highly competitive" in this case is that the 915G gets served by the P5RD1-V. I didn't expect the P5RD1-V to win any memory bandwidth benchmarks, as it was using 400 MHz DDR memory, as opposed to the 533/667 MHz DDR2 in the other systems. Interestingly enough, in a number of tests, the P5RD1-V is highly competitive even with the creme-of-the-crop nForce 4 for Intel system. Features, stability, and performance all for a bargain-bin price to boot? Could it be?

Why, yes ... and you'll even get some kickbacks! Namely, overclocking capabilities and ASUS' industry-known quality. I don't want to sound like I'm sucking up to ASUS here, but I take a certain amount of comfort knowing that a motherboard is built and backed by ASUS -- I haven't yet had one fail on me in my years of geeking it out.

My verdict? The ASUS P5RD1-V is a motherboard to look out for, and the Radeon XPRESS 200 chipset that powers it is a very powerful double-punch from ATI's products department. The TV-out feature of the integrated graphics core is an awfully nice touch that makes other solutions seem lacking. The three keywords for any motherboard purchasing decision should be stability, features, and performance -- and in that order. The catch is that with those three keywords usually comes a fourth, and it's inverse: price. Fortunately for us, the P5RD1-V is an extremely affordable solution for the still-somewhat-costly LGA775 platform, largely thanks to the low-cost ATI chipset. Had I not pulled out some hair over the audio and SATA issues, I would have given this motherboard an Editor's Choice award, but I believe that at least Value is well-deserved.