Copyright
1996-2025
by TSW
(Nikolay Tuzhilin)

Last updated: 22.01.2025

• Notes
• Graphics benchmark
• Chipset specifications
• Motherboard overview and specifications
• Sound

Notes

"-VM" version means low overclock capability. According to messages on various forums maximal result is 290MHz with integrated video and 320MHz with external videocard. My overclock limit without PCI-E bus speed increase is only 286MHz and to improve memory stability (it works at 358MHz) I had to increase voltage up to 1.85V. If increase PCI-E bus frequency up to 118MHz, CPU will overclock up to 320MHz. But although system seems stable enough (according to various test programs) Civilization IV will lock the system with 0x0000008e BSOD with any overclock (even 3%). So, for a while I keep standard CPU frequency, and have to mention that it steel fast enough!

According to the  motherboard manual to enable EIST technology you have to select any power scheme except  "Always on" and "Office/home". E6400 will reduce voltage and frequency multiplier when idle down to 1.1V and x6 (1600MHz).

After installing water-cooling system I was able to overclock CPU up to 2.62GHz with the following BIOS settings:

• Memory: PC-5300 (actually it is PC-6400) and it works at 408MHz, 5/5/5/15

• CPU frequency: 327MHz

• PCIe frequency: 120MHz

Graphics benchmark

See the numbers here.

If one overclocks CPU up to 2416MHz but slows down memory to keep it inside specification (at 302MHz) 3DMark overall result does not change! It supports the fact that integrated graphics performance greatly depends on memory subsystem.

G965 has programmable structure and supports hardware vertex and pixel shaders, but has low fillrate. So in simple tests old G945 has higher FPS!
There are drivers (Q4`2007) that support hardware shaders, but they still do not greatly improve performance and in overall the same as with software emulation.

Impact of driver version on performance result is significant. E.g. the multi-texturing fillrate with 14.25 driver version was just 1000MTexels/s which is much lower then even G945. With version 14.25.50 the fillrate was increased to reasonable 1700MTexels/s.

Chipset specifications

According to Everest the GPU clock is just 400 MHz! The Intel motherboard specification also confirms this value. But according to Intel documentation the core clock must be 667MHz!

The first version of G965 specifications claims DirectX 10 support, but was later revised to 9.0c only.

Intel 945/965 Express Chipset Family

Video Adapter Intel G965 Chipset - Graphics Controller 0 [C-2]
GPU Code Name Broadwater-G
PCI Device 8086-29A2 / 1043-81EA
Bus Type Integrated
GPU Clock 400 MHz
RAMDAC Clock 400 MHz
Pixel Pipelines 4
TMU Per Pipeline 1
Vertex Shaders 1 (v3.0)
Pixel Shaders 4 (v3.0)
DirectX Hardware Support DirectX v10
Pixel Fillrate 1600 MPixel/s
Texel Fillrate 1600 MTexel/s

E6400=5000+(2.6G)=PXE965(3.7G), 60C max! (at75% S&M),

• DRAM CAS# Latency = 5/4
• DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay = 5/4
• DRAM RAS# Precharge = 5/4
• DRAM RAS# Active to Precharge = 15/12 (8-10)
• DRAM Write Recovery Time = 6
• DRAM TRFC = 42
• DRAM TRRD = 15
• Rank Write to Read Delay = 25
• Read to Precharge Delay = 15
• Write to Precharge Delay = 25

Values are very approximate as differentiation between runs is great (especially in multithreaded mode).

Asus P5B-VM overview

AI Lifestylestyle Series

LGA775 Intel® Quad-core Processor Ready

Intel G965 Chipset

Dual-Channel DDR2 800

AI Gear

AI Nap

ASUS Advanced Q-Fan

Q-Connector

CrashFree BIOS 3

EZ Flash 2

MyLogo2

C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall)

Noise Filter

SATA on the Go

IEEE 1394a interface

High Definition Audio

GreenASUS
The motherboard and its packaging comply with the European Union's Restriction on the use of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). This is in line with the ASUS vision of creating environment-friendly and recyclable products and packaging to safeguard consumers' health while minimizing the impact on the environment.

Asus P5B-VM specifications

Sound

Note: Till drivers build 6110 there were no sound from "Stereo mix" output of SoundMAX integrated soundcard in Windows XP. So there were no equalizer with my SoundGraph iMON, no record of ingame sounds or internet audio and etc. I solved this problem with Virtual Audio Cable and Ghost.

As bonus you can declare front panel headphone output as distinct sound output, as if you have the second soundcard. In Windows Vista there are no such problem as it allows to record from any output and the speakers and headphones are different sound outputs. By the way, Vista allows to adjust sound level independently per application.

Overall performance of this system (except 3D graphics) is very good and impressive comparing to the old system. Video encoding is very fast. The response and image update in Photoshop CS2 are instant.