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ASUS, SUPERMICRO
and TYAN SEABURG MOTHERBOARDS
Asus DSEB-DG
Asus' DSEB-DG is a strange board in that
non-conformist Asus style. As you will see,
its slot configuration is not like the others, and
neither is its embedded devices / ports. Here
are its specs as shown on the Asus website:
|
KEY
SPECIFICATIONS
|
Processor |
2 *
LGA771 sockets
support:
Quad-Core Intel®
Xeon® Processor
5300/5400 Series
Processors
Dual-Core Intel®
Xeon® Processor
5100/5200 Series
Processors |
| FSB |
FSB
667/1066/1333/1600MHz |
| Core
Logic |
Intel® 5400 Memory
Controller Hub (MCH)
Intel® 6321ESB I/O
Controller Hub (ICH) |
|
Memory |
8 *
Fully-Buffered DIMM
DDR2 533/667/800
Reg. ECC, Maximum up
to 64 GB |
|
Storage Interface |
Intel® 6321ESB
support 6 SATA2
300MB/s ports
Marvell® 6145 * 2
support 8 SATA2
300MB/s ports |
| RAID
Support |
Intel® 6321ESB: 6
SATA2 300MB/s ports
Intel Matrix Storage
(for Windows only)
(Support software
RAID 0, 1, 10 & 5)
LSI® MegaRAID (for
Linux/Windows)
(Support software
RAID 0, 1, 10)
Marvell® 6145 * 2
Total 8 SATA2
300MB/s ports
(Support software
RAID 0, 1& 10) |
| NIC |
Quad-LAN:
Intel® 6321+ Intel®
82563EB Dual Port
GbE LAN
2 * Intel®
Intel®82573L GbE LAN |
|
Onboard Gfx |
XGI
Z9s VGA Controller /
32MB DDR VRAM |
Expansion Slot
|
2 *
PCI-E x16 Gen2 |
| 1 *
PCI-E x8 (x8 link) |
| 2 *
PCI-X 100/133 MHz |
| 1 *
PCI 32bit/33 MHz
|
| Form
Factor |
SSI
EEB 3.61, 12" x 13" |
|
|
|
|
 |
Asus' differentiation comes from its slot layout,
quad-LAN, KVM-over-CAT5 port, on-board graphics, and
power efficiency. Power consumption is one
aspect of motherboard design that engineers can
truly flex their muscle and talent. Note also
that there is a SAS version of this board (DSEB-DG/SAS),
where an LSI 1068 controller is embedded on-board
for additional SAS RAID storage capabilities.
The slot configuration of the DSEB-DG is actually
the most sensible for those looking to use two
dual-slot graphics cards for CrossFire action.
Doing so will cover the PCI-33 and a PCI-X-133 slot,
both of which are the most outdated. The PCIe
x8 slot is still available for a RAID card, such as
those hot new 1.2GHz dual-core units, far better
than an embedded controller which cannot be
replaced.
The four NICs are pretty redundant for
workstation users, and the on-board video is also
useless. No audio, no firewire, and only two
stinkin' USB 2.0 ports in the back, and two USB 2.0
port headers internally. Clearly, this board
is a server board.
Here are the CPU and Memory test results:
|
Motherboard |
Asus DSEB-DG |
|
CPUs |
Intel Xeon X5482 3.2GHz / 1600MHz FSB /
12MB L2 cache |
|
Memory |
4x 1GB
SimpleTech DDR2-667 FB-DIMM |
|
Memtest86, L1, L2, Main |
52461,
unk, 20916 |
|
Idle Power Consumption, "Max battery"
setting |
212W |
|
Prime95 |
4.978 ms |
|
SuperPi Mod, last # |
15.047 s |
|
Cinebench 10, 1 CPU |
3658 |
|
Cinebench 10, n CPUs |
22421 |
|
WinRAR 3.62 |
2092 KB/s |
|
DVD Shrink 3.2 test |
11:16 |
|
3DMark03 CPU Tests 1/2 |
186.8 /
34.8 |
|
3DMark05 CPU Tests 1/2 |
8.0 /
11.7 |
|
3DMark06 CPU Tests 1/2 |
2.626 /
3.110 |
So we took this opportunity to
test 2x HD2400 low-end cards in single and
CrossFire mode to find out if Seaburg really
supports CrossFire, and the difference in
performance on a system with virtually no CPU
bottleneck possible. This is what we found
out:
|
Motherboard |
Asus DSEB-DG |
|
CPUs |
Intel Xeon X5482 3.2GHz / 1600MHz FSB /
12MB L2 cache |
|
Memory |
4x 1GB
SimpleTech DDR2-667 FB-DIMM |
|
Graphics |
1x Gigabyte Radeon HD2400 |
2x Gigabyte Radeon HD2400 in CrossFire |
Factor |
|
3DMark 03 Score |
4137 |
6782 |
1.64 |
|
GT1 |
124.8 |
193.2 |
1.55 |
|
GT2 |
24.2 |
43.5 |
1.80 |
|
GT3 |
20.4 |
37.3 |
1.83 |
|
GT4 |
35.5 |
51.9 |
1.46 |
|
FR Single |
600.5 |
1213.8 |
2.02 |
|
FR Multi |
2518.1 |
4755.7 |
1.89 |
|
Vertex |
30.0 |
46.0 |
1.53 |
|
Pixel Shader |
49.5 |
77.7 |
1.57 |
|
Ragtroll |
15.5 |
27.6 |
1.78 |
|
3DMark 05 Score |
3624 |
5427 |
1.50 |
|
GT1 |
16.0 |
22.9 |
1.43 |
|
GT2 |
10.6 |
17.1 |
1.61 |
|
GT3 |
18.0 |
26.2 |
1.46 |
|
3DMark 06 Score |
1669 |
3101 |
1.86 |
|
SM2 |
545 |
997 |
1.83 |
|
GT1 |
4.098 |
7.671 |
1.87 |
|
GT2 |
4.983 |
8.953 |
1.80 |
|
HDR |
626 |
1167 |
1.86 |
|
HDR1 |
5.663 |
10.608 |
1.87 |
|
HDR2 |
6.854 |
12.741 |
1.86 |
Wow! As we can see here,
CrossFire improved these benchmarks by an
average of 72%. Although these cards are
outdated and low-end, this is good enough
evidence to show that CrossFire provides
substantial benefits AND works on the i5400
chipset.
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