ASUS Blitz Extreme Review with CrossFire (against IP35 Pro)

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ASUS introduces another new member to its Republic of Gamers boards. This time, it is the Blitz Extreme. Blitz Extreme is based on the Intel P35 chipset. This board supports all series of Intel LGA775 processors including the FSB1333 processors.
" n7 Y9 s+ J6 X# c" s8 jThe Blitz Extreme challenges the chipset limitation of P35 by introducing CrossLinx, making CrossFire performs at Dual 8x instead of 4x+16x. Not only that, it comes with the Fusion Block System - an effective 0dB fanless design cooling system with a chipset waterblock that adds onto a power user´s existing watercooling circuit to help keep operations cool. Additionally, SupremeFX II not only increases the sound quality, it also enhances aesthetic value. The Blitz Extreme also adopts the Intel P35/ICH9R chipset and supports cutting-edge DDR3 dual channel memory and CrossFire Technology - making it the Overclocker and Gamer´s first and best choice.
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( C7 Z/ q6 U% j3 S+ q7 L& x! x- BThe Blitz Extreme uses the Intel® P35 Express Chipset is the latest chipset designed to support 8GB of dual-channel DDR3 1066/800 MHz and DDR2 800/667 MHz memory architecture. It also supports 1333/1066/800 FSB (Front Side Bus), PCI Express x16 graphics and multi-core CPUs.

2 A$ @, s; [7 E: [  p: YThe BIOS has lots of options for you tweaking the system to extreme performance. The led lights on different parts of the board (red, yellow, green) shows you the voltage range applied. The board also comes with a Clear CMOS button at the back panel, this allows overclocking tests to be done with ease without having to opening up the case to clear cmos. In addition, the LED poster comes with the package. The package also comes with a FREE game STALKER. It also bundles in 3Dmark06.
4 O1 u) j8 f  w! JSo with such a good feature set and the CrossLinx, will it be able to boost the CrossFire performance against conventional P35 chipsets? Let's read on.
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Gallery
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The board comes with 2
PCI, 2 PCIe x1 and 2 full length PCIe x16 slots. Just behind the PCIe slots are the chipsets, they inculde the WInbond I/O chip, VIA 6308P 1394 controller, Marvell GbE PCIe, JMB363 SATAII controller and another GbE controller. Noticed that there is no audio codec chip on board. That is because it is found on the add on card needs to be slotted onto the board. Next to the first blue PCie slot is a CrossLinx chip. Beneath it is a IDT chip that is capable of splitting the north bridge's PCIe x16 into 2 x PCIe x8.
; ]1 m% z9 V8 C! WAt the bottom left corner you will see the red coloured 1394 pinout together with 3 blue coloured pin out for USB brackets. There is also a On/Off and reset switched in between them. Near the front panel is 6 SATAII ports and 1 IDE connector. The south bridge ICH9R sits right above it. To its right is 4 DIMM slots for fitting in the DDR3 modules. Notice there are no fans on board, the chipsets are all cooled using heatpipe for a noiseless PC.
On the back panel, you will find the PS/2 Keyboard (no ps2 mouse port), S/PDIF out/coaxial, 2 xeSATA, 4 USB, 2 GbE and 4 USB ports. There is also a Clear CMOS button for easy clearing of CMOS without having to open the casing. Additional USB ports and 1394 ports is provided via external brackets.
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Chipsets
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Intel P35 North Bridge	Intel ICH9R south bridge
Marvell GbE controller	Jmicron JMB363 SATAII controller
Marvell GbE Controller	IDT PCIe switch splits PCIe x16 into Dual PCIe x 8

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ASUS Blitz Extreme R.O.G Intel P35 Mainboard Review Intro 4/6 Bluetooth 14 Aug 2007 Pricing of ASUS p35 / ]+ u! O! T! S& d) }9 [8 x " l3 m# W! @% d4 O7 y# ?( a7 R>>> [url=http://stat.dealtime.com/DealFrame/DealFrame.cmp?BEFID=1717&crawler_id=812077&dealId=6n8oTfQRHDxHfHbc2s3OFg==&prjID=ds&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newegg.com%2FProduct%2FProduct.asp%3FItem%3DN82E16813131190%26ATT%3D13-131-190%26CMP%3DOTC-d3alt1me%26cm_mmc%3DOTC-d3alt1me-_-Motherboards%2B-%2BIntel-_-ASUS-_-13131190&DealName=MB%20ASUS%20P5K%20PREMIUM%2FWIFI-AP%20P35%20775&MerchantID=300168&category=77&MT=sfo-pmt7-2&DB=sdcprod&MN=&code=238&HasLink=yes&frameId=0&AR=1&RR=1&NG=&GR=1&ND=1&FPT=DSP&NDS=&NMS=&NDP=&MRS=&CT=6&linkin_id=3038720&DMT=11&VK=3038730&searchID=5fb2f7e555a66137aa8a41d0&PD=44362950] 4 g/ Z) ?0 m4 R) p7 Q/ e1 R0 k# S$239.99 at % T* L; s3 O$ i: _# \Newegg.com[/url] BIOS Screen shot 1 In the BIOS, you can set it to AI auto overclock. In the option CPU Level up, you can just select what CPU you would like to transform it into. It will set the parameters for you. FSB Strap enables enable a FSB 800 Processor to act as if it is a FSB1066 processor of FSB1333 by setting the corresponding parameters. This is especially useful for overclockers. ASync RAM ratio. In this case, the maximum support is DDR3-3200 from the BIOS. The values available are in correspondence to the FSB Freq chosen. FSB Freq can be upped to 800MHz and PCIe freq can be upped to 150MHz Transaction booster helps boost performance. Turn it off if you use the board to benchmark against other boards. CPU Voltage can be set up to 1.90v. Usually, we avoid setting anything beyond 1.45-1.5v unless you use water cooling.

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BIOS Screen shot 2
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FSB termination voltage can be set to 1.80v	North Bridge voltage can be upped to 2.03v
DRAM voltage can be set to a high of 3.04v. Not really advisable to set it above 2.1v	South bridge voltage can be set

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BIOS Screen shot 3
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PLL voltage can be adjusted to 2.0v	CPU Information page
CPU,System temperature readings off the BIOS	You can save your settings as a O.C Profile to be loaded for different system scenarioes. (e.g OC/Gaming vs Normal use)

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Benchmarks
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Systems Compared
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/ `) l8 \' w7 ?/ v/ z, NIntel P35
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• ASUS Blitz Extreme (DDR3)
• Universal abit IP35 Pro (DDR2)
• Intel QX6700 Quad Core processor
• 2 x 1024 MB Samsung DDR3-1066 (total 2GB)
• 2 x 1024 MB Corsair CMX1024A-8500C5 (total 2GB)
• ASUS EAH2600XT (Catalyst 7.7)
• Hitachi 7K80 SATAII HDD
• Windows XP SP2

Benchmark Tests Run
Memory Benchmarks
- SiSoft Sandra 2007 Memory Benchmarks
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- PCMark2005
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Graphics
. t( s( Y1 ?# w. r( d3 ~, T* Y- 3DMark2005 (1024x768x32)
- 3DMark2006 (1280x1024x32)
- DOOM3 (1600x1200x32)
- Riddick (1600x1200x32)
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- S  ~. h1 C2 K* |. B: d% O2 ?0 tBenchmarks

   

* t( _- q% g8 S3 X3 u1 bCPU FSB is still a valid and important criteria when judging systems performance. We measured the CPU FSB of the various boards with a QX6700 processor installed no these boards. On our test board, the IP35 Pro is rated at 266.0 while the ASUS Blitz is higher at 267.3. The boards are run with single or dual ASUS 2600XT graphics card with Catalyst 7.7.

From the SiSoft Sandra XI benchmark, the ABIT IP35 Pro running DDR2 modules at DDR2-1066 C5-5-5-15 2T while the ASUS Blitz runs DDR3 at DDR3-C7-7-7-20 2T. The results are posted as below :

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Benchmarks PCmark2005

   

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7 w, S" `. y  l' T; A- O" fPCmark2005 tests a number of important items in today's computing world. File Compression, Encryption, Decryption, Audio Conversion, Web Page Rendering, WMV Video Compression, DivX Video Compression, Physics Calculation and 3D, Graphics Memory etc.
As we have mentioned in the previous page, the CPU CLK might have an impact on the performance of a board. In this test, we see that the performance of the 4 boards.
From the results it can be seen that running CrossFire did not improve the PCMark05 results. Running with a single 2600XT graphics card, the score between the two is around 100 points.
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Benchmarks - 3Dmark2005/3DMark2006

   

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The board is paired up with an external ASUS 2600XT + Catalyst 7.7 driver. With a single 2600XT, the ASUS Blitz scored 9540 versus 9533 on the abit IP35 Pro. In CrossFire mode, the score soar to 14442 on the ASUS Blitz and 14176 on the IP35 Pro.

! x5 u- w& U8 t% pThe 300 point difference would be attributed to the Dual PCIe x8 interfaces (thanks to IDT PCIe switch chip) versus the Dual 4x on the IP35 Pro. it registers a 1.8% jump in performance over traditional P35's 4x+4x CrossFire solution.
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The same can be said with 3Dmark06. With CrossFire enabled, the score of ASUS Blitz is 8708, way higher than the Ip35 Pro running in Dual 4x PCIe. With just one card, the difference is only 7 points.

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Benchmarks - DOOM3


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  L% b' ]* G4 T5 v+ QAt 1600x1200 with ASUS 2600XT with catalyst 7.7 driver. We see that the score difference between the two boards is only 0.1 fps.
6 w/ I$ Z; K$ N6 S" I+ P3 mWhen CrossFire is enabled, the differences enlarged. On the ASUS Blitz, it scored 101.3 and abit IP35 Pro scored 92.3 fps. Apparently the dual 8x on the Blitz Extreme gives the CrossFire performance a boost by almost 9fps (or 9.7%).

Benchmarks - Riddick
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In the game Riddick benchmarked the external  ASUS 2600XT graphics card. Using a single card, we can see that both scored around 29fps. When we pair it up with another and ran CrossFire, the difference is around 2fps or 3.5%.

Benchmarks - F.E.A.R

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7 V9 I9 T- o# x; v: mWith an external graphics ASUS 2600XT at max/max (1024x768) setting, we get 35 fps with a single card. With CrossFire, ASUS Blitz Extreme scored 58 fps while the abit IP35 Pro scored 55 fps. A 5.45% difference is registered.
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Conclusion
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ASUS Blitz is not only a mainboard, rather it is a complete DIY/overclocker's dream solution. With its vast amount of features and options available in the BIOS. It makes the board one of its kind that stands out from the crowd.
One of the most innovative solutions on this board is the CrossLinx chip. This chip enables the North bridge 16x pcie lane to be split into Dual 8x. This greatly enhance the performance of CrossFire on P35 boards as traditional P35 board only supports CrossFire in a 16+4 which downgrades to a Dual 4x solution. As we have seen in the performance charts, the difference can be quite substantial if the board is paired up with 2 similar cards running CrossFire.  

The BIOS also comes with an amazing range of settings for overclockers. In fact, the ranges are in an insane range. Some of the voltages can go so high that it might just burn out the components on board. So, unless you are watercooling your board, you might need to consider small deltas of changes. For a complete range of options available in the BIOS, please see gallery.
! x1 _7 s( v& l& s: rIn terms of overclocking, the board is able to run it at 525 x6. That is much higher than any of the boards we have tested before.
& o' Z& F+ _& NOverall, the Blitz Extreme will appeal to ATi graphics card users as it will be able to tap more power in a dual configuration. It's advantage over traditional P35 will be the selling point until X38 comes out. So, if you are after something that is very overclockable and can adapt water cooling solution with heatpipe and Dual 8X CrossFire design, ASUS Blitz Extreme is the only board that can do it.