Software (continued):
The other piece of software worth checking out is AI Suite. This is something like a Windows portal to many settings typically accessible only in the BIOS. You can overclock, adjust voltages and fan speeds, and it is where you access the EPU controls. The image below shows the main page of the program, where controls on the left are complimented by a digital dashboard of sorts, which provides real time info regarding the CPU, fan speeds, and a few voltages.
AI Booster is shown below, and this portion of the AI Suite is for overclocking. If you are making minor changes, the system will activate them immediately, and you can see the changes echoed in the dashboard or any other system diagnostic software. For example, I overclocked the frontside bus from 405MHz to 410MHz, and the changes were made instantly. That said, most changes seem to need a reboot in order to be applied, and just like BIOS based overclocking, if you get too crazy it isn't going to work. While many may prefer to overclock in the BIOS, if you have some profiles you get working, you can switch on the fly in Windows without a reboot. The software isn't perfect, but it works better now than I have seen it in the past, and does offer a convenient way to do some minor overclocking and optimizing.
Next up is the Q-Fan portion of AI Suite. We covered Q-Fan when reviewing the BIOS, and what we have here is the same thing in Windows. Not having to reboot to change fan speed profiles is nice, especially if you want to go from something like a low noise, low speed HTPC environment to a full power gaming setup as soon as possible.
Perhaps the most interesting section is shown below. AI Gear is the utility that allows for the control of EPU... power profile adjustment. I first checked out EPU on the ASUS P5K PRO P35 motherboard, and while it proved to be interesting, it suffered from a few problems. The most critical problems being that I could not enter the highest or lowest settings without the system getting a blue screen, rebooting, and returning to Windows in the previously selected profile.
AI Gear has the same interface on the P5E64 WS Evolution, but now it works! Completely. I was able to "shift gears" with ease and never once encountered an issue. A small icon in the taskbar would acknowledge changes by popping up a bubble with the new CPU power data, while the main screen of AI Suite would echo any changes to speeds and voltages. The only significant issue I encountered was already discussed earlier in the review, which is that EPU only works when the system is running 100% in auto mode. Not only was it difficult to get the system to run in auto mode if memory with an XMP profile was installed, but you may also lose a good deal of system performance potential in order to achieve any power savings.
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