Asus has long established itself as a reliable and high-quality manufacturer. They annually produce thousands of models in different segments. Of course, this was not always the case. But the times when no one knew about Asus have already passed.
The manufacturer began to seize its advantage more than 20 years ago. In 2009, his motherboards were almost the only high-quality product. Asus P5P43TD and its Pro version turned out to be good platforms for creating a simple and powerful system.
Diversity
You just need to figure out that the motherboard came out in two versions. They are almost identical and differ only in a couple of functions. Over time, they changed their appearance a bit, moving from brown textolite to black and taking on a few new elements.
The chipsets on both motherboards are the same, but the south bridge has been slightly redesigned, due to which ICH10R appeared in the older version instead of ICH10. As it later turned out, the letter R indicates the presence of integrated RAID control. In the Pro version, it is located in the chipset and makes it possible to build “RAID arrays” for SATA devices.
These changes entailed an increase in SATA channels, the appearance of a special controller on the board. Following changed the dimensions and weight of the Asus P5P43TD Pro.
Packaging
Since motherboards appeared on the market in 2009, then almost no one thought about packaging. Almost all components were produced in ordinary inexpensive boxes. They had few distinguishing features.
The same thing happened with this model. She was placed in a blue cardboard box. There were practically no graphic decorations on it. In the middle was the product model. The manufacturer highlighted the features of this board for the buyer. Indicated the type of memory, gigabit network and a couple of technologies. Do not miss the opportunity to talk about the Turbo Key.
In the upper right corner indicated processors that can work with Asus P5P43TD motherboard.
At the very bottom on the front side of the box is the slogan for this model. It reminds customers of the availability of Xtreme Phase. This technology uses a 12-phase power conditioner.
The reverse side of the box is busy with a huge amount of information. It describes all the main advantages of the previously described technologies and functions. There is an image of the heroine of the review. Under the photo there are icons in several rows that expand the already known data.
Equipment
A review of the Asus P5P43TD and other boards should start with the bundle. This is an important point that not everyone pays attention to. In fact, he can say a lot and tell you, for example, whether you need to buy additional cables and accessories.
The company does not differ in generosity, so this time it was also not surprised by the variety. However, inside there is everything you need.
Asus P5P43TD motherboard received several kinds of instructions for using and installing the platform. There is a disk with drivers and proprietary utilities. This is all complemented by one IDE cable, a pair of wires for SATA, a blank for the interface panel and a sticker from the manufacturer.
Appearance
Both boards are slightly different because they received different technologies, but in general they are almost identical. Made on brown or black textolite. There are a lot of elements, and they are densely and evenly placed over the entire surface.
The Asus P5P43TD Pro version looks very nice and presentable. She acquired multi-colored details: red slots, orange radiators and white connectors.
Both boards are made in the ATX form factor. In the case, the platform can be fixed with six screws, the holes for which are not quite well distributed. As a result, part of the board remains unattached. Staggers and hangs insecurely. Therefore, in the process of dismantling and other operations, you should be careful and careful.
When you connect SATA cables to the Asus P5P43TD Pro motherboard, you need to hold it, just like when installing RAM and power. Some advise you to immediately connect everything to the platform, and then transfer it to the case. So you can avoid damage to tracks, breakdowns and deformations.
Details
As already mentioned, there are many elements on the platform. They are located tightly to each other and in some cases prevent the connection of cables.
Near the north and south bridge of Asus P5P43TD are radiators. Such passive cooling is on hand system. Unusual aluminum radiators effectively cope with their task and keep the chipset from overheating.
If you place a dual-slot video card on the platform, it will not prevent the connection of other elements, including RAM, as is the case with other models. Such placement does not even interfere with the operation of the cooling system.
At the same time, SATA slots that will be completely blocked will suffer from connecting the video card. The graphics accelerator is fixed thanks to the latches of the slot, so it will not be difficult to dismantle it.
Questions may concern the IDE connector. Despite its favorable location as a whole, it is easy to reach it only with a long train. Otherwise, you may not reach there.
Despite this seemingly perfect layout of the Asus P5P43TD, finding the flaws is not difficult. For example, the connectors for the front panel have a remote location. In this model, there was already no place to activate the FDD drive. Of course, now this would not have raised any questions; in 2008-09, some still continued to use floppy disks.
Food
As the tagline says, we are dealing with a 12-phase power circuit. It uses armored core chokes and solid electrolyte capacitors. Now this is not unusual, then it was a good indicator of the quality and productivity of the product.
Inductors worked to eliminate the high-frequency squeak of coils that appeared during system loads. If you use capacitors, then increased the likelihood of increasing the life of the model.
To connect power, you need to use a four-pin connector. And that was the whole problem. If dual-core models would work without problems in this case, then when connecting a quad-core chip there were too few pins, given its need for power and possible overclocking.
Interfaces
The characteristics of the Asus P5P43TD certainly include the available slots on the board. We mentioned all the internal ones, there were those who “live” on the interface panel.
So, in the back we can see three pairs of USB, which are scattered. There is also 1 slot for a PS / 2 keyboard or mouse. A strange decision, given that in 2009, not all accessories were transferred to USB.
The remaining connectors were also in a single copy. You can see the parallel LTP port , there is an optical SPDIF, a network connector, COM port and External SATA. In the Pro version, you can notice the place for IEEE 1394a, which is responsible for connecting arrays.
The last port is universal, therefore it opens up a lot of possibilities: from creating computer networks to connecting railway drives, printers, etc.
BIOS
You can find out the specifications of the Asus P5P43TD motherboard in the BIOS. For this model, it was based on AMI code. Previously, such an interface was familiar to everyone, since there were practically no visual changes.
To make changes and adjust settings, go to Ai Tweaker. From here, it is possible to regulate various indicators that are indirectly related to overclocking: an increase in frequency, memory, voltage on all elements. Here you can easily set memory timings and provide support for SPD.
The latest extension helps in automatically tuning overclocker RAM.
Customization
The AI Overclocking section allows you to change the characteristics of the Asus P5P43TD Pro. In user mode, you can easily manually adjust the metrics. But you need to do this if you understand what each parameter is responsible for and what it can affect.
From here, you can change, turn on and off the processor technology, which is designed for chips made by the 45 nm process technology. You can immediately influence the processor factor with an indicator of 6 to max.
Immediately adjust the frequency of the system bus and PCI-e bus. In the first case, the range is from 133 to 800 MHz, in the second - from 100 to 180 MHz. In both cases, 1 MHz is taken per step.
The memory frequency also easily changes in the range from 533 to 1066 MHz. The step depends on the settings of the FSB.
The whole unit can change the supply voltage on the processor, north and south bridges, as well as memory. In the case of the processor, the range is 0.85-1.75 V, at the north bridge the run-up is from 1.1 to 1.25 V, at the south bridge it is 1.5-1.6 V.
A variety of technologies are regulated from here. They can be turned on, off, or set to automatic operation.
Analysis
To monitor the characteristics of the Asus P5P43TD motherboard, you need to go to the Power section. Here you can view the temperature of the motherboard and processor, monitor the rotation speed of the fans of the main and case coolers.
In this menu there are voltage indicators of the processor core and main power lines. From here, the operation of the fan, which is located on the processor, is regulated.
Overclocking
In order to properly overclock and test the potential of the motherboard, it is important to choose a balanced system and choose a good processor. For example, tests with Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 were often met.
Interestingly, the dual-core chip turned out to be more active and was able to raise its frequency to 440 MHz, but the quad-core version rose only to 425 MHz. Even without knowing the initial performance of the processors, it is not difficult to guess that they are too low.
If you select a platform with a wider range of settings, you can increase these values at times. Therefore, this model is not very suitable for overclocking. But even the initial overclocking indicates a good motherboard potential.
The cooling system showed itself well. During overclocking, it barely warmed up, which means that it is not afraid of loads and overheating. If you devote more time to overclocking and abandon automatic tuning, you can achieve good results and high performance.
Proprietary technology
Continuing the theme of overclocking and improving the performance of the Asus P5P43TD, you need to turn to the Turbo Key. The manufacturer announced this technology at the time of purchase, indicating it on the box. This is another way to increase the efficiency and speed of the system.
To do this, just click on only one button. After pressing Power, instant overclocking occurs. This button is located in the proprietary utility, which can be found on the disk in the kit.
This software offers the user three profiles for overclocking. It is difficult to distinguish them from each other, so it is better to just try each of them to see all their functions.
The manufacturer claims that this program will easily increase productivity by 8%. Just click on the button and see how the frequency of the system bus rises from 266 to 279 MHz.
However, experienced overclockers will not even look towards this program. It is more a marketing move to attract customers. It does not give significant indicators, although it is ideal for inexperienced users.
If you use manual overclocking, the result will be much better. But far from everyone is able to deal with all the parameters that are in the BIOS.
Testing
All tests that passed both boards showed a good result. At that time, these motherboards did not have such a huge number of competitors, so it was compared with a model from the manufacturers Asus P5E3, MSI P45D3, Gigabyte EP45T-UD3R.
This is not to say that the test results of all models were very different. All tests of the board passed on an equal footing, since technically they were practically no different and were built on an identical chip.
As a result, competitors turned out to be more colleagues in the workshop and could lure customers to their side only with their appearance or trust in the brand.
Reviews
Both boards have collected good user reviews. Pleased many with Asus P5P43TD random access memory type DDR3. At that moment, it was a new solution that markedly increased performance.
For many, the price seemed moderate, although not everyone was satisfied with the cost of the Pro version, believing that the price tag was too high.
Noted by users and a clear setting in the BIOS, as well as the possibility of manual overclocking. Many respond positively to the company's proprietary developments, among which were useful technologies, for example, an integrated operating system.
Now it’s hard to find the owners of both platforms, since the boards released in 2009 are already outdated.
Defects still managed to be found. Not everyone was satisfied with the connector for the cooler and the number of connectors for fans. Some slots were too far away, for example, SATA, which overlapped when installing a “long” video card.
Noticed the owners and memory problems. At the same time, it is now impossible to say whether these were isolated cases, or still the manufacturer decided to outwit the buyer. One way or another, when connecting two modules with a frequency of 1600, an error was detected.
findings
Asus P5P43TD and Asus P5P43TD Pro seemed like cool boards in 2009. They gained their fame thanks to the promoted brand, and this cannot be denied. But this did not make anyone worse. The company continues to this day to present to the audience high-quality products, albeit sometimes at inflated prices.
The pro version turned out to be a little more popular, as it received many additional options and technologies. Her younger version was less in demand.
Both were noted for the best value for money, support for DDR3 memory, a 12-phase memory stabilizer, a good cooling system and the presence of a sufficient number of ports.
Of course, the model was not without its drawbacks. For example, when installing a video card, SATA ports were blocked. The platform mount was not reliable and could lead to trouble: breakdowns, damage, deformation. It also turned out that the lack of an FDD drive and the presence of a single PS / 2 port could negatively affect sales.