ASRock P45R2000-WiFi Motherboard Review

[Eldonko]

3D & Gaming Benchmarks

3D & Gaming Benchmarks

This section will provide an overview of stock vs. overclocked 3D results in synthetic benchmark and gaming situations. CrossFire is enabled for all tests and comparisons will be made to show performance increases in overclocked situations.


3DMark Vantage Benchmark:

3DMark Vantage is the latest release by Futuremark, creators of the 3DMark suite. This program is the first Futuremark version of 3DMark designed exclusively for Windows Vista. 3DMark Vantage consists of 2 CPU and 2 GPU tests as well as and 6 feature tests all of which are very hardware intensive. Four presets are available to allow for those with older PCs to benchmark just as easily as those with cutting edge hardware. For our testing, we will use the Performance setting with all other settings at default. The build version is the latest patched version of Vantage v1.0.1.

Results: Similar to 3DMark 2006 upon it’s release, Vantage performance relies heavily of graphics card performance, with modest gains going from 3000Mhz on an E3110 to 4005Mhz, an improvement of about 9%.


3DMark 2006 Benchmark:

Futuremark 3DMark 06 has been the worldwide standard in advanced 3D game performance benchmarking for a few years now. A fundamental tool for PC users and gamers, 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests. 3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today. The tests below use 3DMark 2006 defult setting and a resolution of 1280x1024.

Results: 3DMark 2006 has a bit more reliance on CPU power so we see more of an improvement with a CPU overclock than we do with Vantage. A gain in 3DMarks of 26% is noted in 3DMark 2006, quite impressive for only an increase in CPU speed.


World in Conflict Benchmark:

The World in Conflict in-game benchmark is a great test to show video card performance in real gaming situations. Under the Graphics menu in options, you can choose a variety of video settings and there is a "Run Benchmark" button. The actual benchmark uses all of the game’s graphic capabilities and is a good indication which settings will be optimal for a user’s system. For the tests below resolution was set to 1680x1050 and graphics was set to “High” which gives fullscreen anti-alias at 2x and anisotropic filtering at 2x.

Results: The World in Conflict benchmark shows a respectable gain in frames per second, an improvement of 16% or an extra 7 FPS. This tells us that not only overclocking a video card will improve your gaming experience; those extra CPU Mhz also contribute to FPS.

 

[Eldonko]

CrossFire Benchmarks

CrossFire Benchmarks

This section will provide an overview of single card vs. CrossFire performance. For CrossFire testing, two different brands of the ATI HD3870 were used; a MSI model and a HIS ICEQ model. The cards have slightly different speeds, the MSI runs at 800/1125 (GPU/Mem) and the HIS runs at 780/1126. The MSI card was installed in PCIE slot 1 and all tests were completed using Catalyst 8.6 drivers and Windows Vista Home Basic 64bit. Additionally, all CrossFire comparisons will be ran at overclocked CPU settings (4005Mhz/593Mhz 7-6-6-20).

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3DMark Vantage Benchmark:

The first 3D benchmark test for CrossFire is quickly becoming the new standard among benchmarking enthusiasts, Futuremark 3DMark Vantage. Performance settings will be used and all other settings remain at default to allow other users to compare their results.

Results: CrossFire results are really where the ASRock P45R2000-WiFi shines with gain in Vantage 3DMarks (Performance preset) of 3,115 or an improvement of 64%.


3DMark 2006 Benchmark:

The second 3D benchmark test for CrossFire is among the most common in the enthusiast world, Futuremark 3DMark 2006. To be comparable to other users’ systems, all settings remain at default, including the resolution which is 1280x1024.

Results: Not quite the impact CrossFire had on Vantage, but close nonetheless. We see a 54% gain in 3DMarks when adding a second HD3870 and running the benchmark in CrossFire.


World in Conflict Benchmark:

For World in Conflict tests, resolution is set at 1680x1050, Detail is set to High, all other display options remain at default settings.

Results: In a gaming benchmark that simulates gaming situations, the performance gained when running CrossFire vs. a single card is outstanding. When adding a second HD3870, FPS improves 82%!

 

[Eldonko]

Voltage Regulation & Heat Analysis

Voltage Regulation & Heat Analysis

Voltage Regulation

When evaluating a board’s voltage regulation, we first need to know what a few voltages refer to. More specifically vcore - BIOS set vcore, vcore in windows, and vcore under load. In theory these numbers should all be the same but load line droop (commonly known as Vdroop) is an intentional part of any Intel power delivery design specification.

Droop by definition is the real voltage delta from idle to load on a motherboard. Vdroop is usually larger for quads due to the extra power going through the voltage regulation integrated circuits and some boards have larger vdroop than others, depending partly on the quality of the voltage regulation of the board.

What we will look at on the P45R2000-WiFi is vdroop and how smooth the voltage line on an overclocked system is over a 5 hour period. For these tests OCCT monitoring is used.

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For the overclocked tests, the voltage set in the BIOS for the Xeon chip is 1.475v, giving 1.450v idle and 1.385v load. Taking this into perspective it is not perfect, but not really that bad either. Ideally we like to see .02-.03v droop from idle to load but the P45R2000-WiFi gives closer to .065v droop on a 45nm chip. Setting 1.475v in the BIOS, a user may be surprised when they only see 1.385v under load, almost a full tenth of a volt below BIOS levels. It is also important to note the more voltage used, the harder the motherboard voltage regulation ICs must work and the higher the droop will be. Considering this board has a maximum of 1.6v available in the BIOS, users shouldn’t expect much over 1.49v load on a 45nm duo and even less with a quad. ASRock likely restricted vcore to 1.6v so users would not use more voltage than the voltage regulation transistors and ICs can handle safely.

Over the five hour test period, there are vcore fluctuations of 0.06v (4.4% ripple). This ripple is mainly due to vdroop and overall the line is pretty stable. Overall, voltage regulation is about average, but still decent for a budget board. It would, however, be nice to see more voltage available in the BIOS than 1.6v. A max of about 1.49v under load limits the board in terms of overclocking.


Heat Analysis

The Northbridge on the ASRock P45R2000-WiFi runs exceptionally cool, even without high-tech heatpipe cooling. Measuring the Northbridge heatsink with a digital thermometer temperatures hover around 34-36C, even when the system is at full load and Northbridge voltage set to Very High. We did replace the stock thermal paste with Artic Silver 5, but still this temperature is outstanding. ASRock was bang on when they saved users a few dollars by using a cheaper aluminum heatsink.

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For CPU and board temperatures, everything things looks good. There are no particular hot spots on the board and even at 4005Mhz stressed for five hours, temperatures remained in check.

 

[Eldonko]

Long-term Impressions & Conclusion

Long-term Impressions & Conclusion

Long-term Impressions

Overall, the long-term impressions of the ASRock P45R2000-WiFi are largely positive. Solid capacitors and overall build quality are quite strong, the chipset very runs cool, and voltage is stable. On the negative side voltage regulation and the BIOS need work so the board is not really an overclocker’s dream.

Solid caps are said to be more durable than older style caps and the board seems to be designed on a solid platform so we have no concerns there. Chipset and mosfet temperatures remain very low, even using the highest voltages available for NB and running orthos to produce heat. Cool parts are generally durable parts and we have no long-term worries whatsoever seeing a chipset running under 40C.

Speaking with ASRock tech support the clocking issues were said to be memory compatibility related, but even with two BIOS updates the issues remain for all memory kits we use for testing (both DDR2 and DDR3). For the long-term, it appears that ASRock is willing to work on the BIOS but at this time it is impossible to predict if memory issues will be resolved. Additionally, voltage settings labelled as high, medium and low are not ideal and vdroop could use some work. Hopefully in the next BIOS update ASRock will fix the memory issues and change the NB, SB, PLL, and VTT voltages to actual voltages instead of settings like “high” which really leave too much guessing room for many users’ comfort.


Conclusion

In terms of motherboard features for a low price, ASRock has a sure winner with the P45R2000-WiFi. The board provides users with CrossFire support, 7.1 HD audio, WiFi capabilities, overclocking and monitoring software and many other perks. All the features tested in this review worked as promised and setup was quite straightforward. As showcased in the CrossFire tests, the improvements when running CrossFire on a P45 chipset board and an overclocked system were nothing short of outstanding. Overclocking was not very user friendly due to issues with memory, but even with the problems an overclock of 33% was achieved, which is nothing to complain about. Adding to the benefits of CrossFire, great audio, and WiFi - Hybrid DDR2/DDR3 and out-of-the box support for Intel’s latest processors give an average user just about everything they would need in a board.

Features are great, but we also need to highlight some of the negatives discovered when attempting to overclock the board. First, when running the 1333FSB jumper (or default jumper) the board was not even stable at stock speeds and XMP without loosening TRD to 10. If a user did not know his way around a BIOS, an RMA would be the first thing they would do. Second, the board would not overclock much at all without utilizing the 1600FSB mode and could not get a PC8000 kit of DDR2 to stock speeds no matter what the FSB mode. One plus on the BIOS side is ASRock came out with the second BIOS for this board only a few weeks after the first, which shows they are willing to address issues, but just aren’t always successful. Additionally, the voltage regulation could use some work as we saw a vdroop of 0.065v. This was also under a relatively low power 45nm duo, throw a 65nm quad in the works and droop would only be worse. The delta between BIOS set voltage and load voltage is also a little concerning, especially when the max vcore available is 1.6v.

P45R2000-WiFi's build quality is much improved over older ASRock designs, with all solid capacitors. However, the layout issues that most people seem to hate remain. The 24 pin ATX power connector is located next to the CPU and may be an obstacle for users with bottom mounted power supplies or larger CPU heatsinks. The PCIE slots are also not very convenient for users that want to use aftermarket air or water cooling due to the close proximity. In our case the blocks fit, but just barely and we were lucky to have waterblocks with the barbs facing upwards.

To sum this all up, the features on the board work great, and there is something for everyone. That said, the P45R2000R-WiFi should do well for users who want a solid upgrade for an older system or even for the enthusiast looking to build a HTPC or similar. ASRock definitely gets points for a P45 board at a reasonable price, but P45 offerings from ASUS under $150 will make it a tough purchase decision. It all comes down to whether you are willing to sacrifice some overclocking performance for some pretty handy features.



Pros

- CrossFire support
- Hybrid DDR2/DDR3
- HD 7.1 audio
- WiFi
- Quality design, with solid capacitors
- Very cool running chipset
- 45nm and FSB1600/1333 CPU support with stock BIOS


Cons

- Tough to overclock unless you are lucky enough to have compatible memory
- Voltage regulation could be improved
- Board layout (oddly placed 24pin, close PCIE slots)
- Very limited availability at this time

Thanks to ASRock for sending us this motherboard​

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