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The BIOS

When you turn on the Asus P5E3 Premium, you are presented with the Splashtop desktop. In our review of the X38 based predecessor of the P5E3 Premium, the P5E3 Deluxe Wifi, we presented some information about Splashtop - so visit that review if you want some more details on Splashtop; for now, suffice it to say that it is a tiny Linux based desktop that integrates web browsing and Skype into the motherboard, so you don't even have to boot another OS such as Windows for basic web surfing or making Skype calls. Frankly, I really like the feature, and I hope that over time it is expanded to some other applications - perhaps even OpenOffice - along with a small user area to save files.

If you don't do anything for five seconds, the boot process will continue, and you will see the "Ai Lifestyle" splash screen. This screen gives you an opportunity to enter into the Asus P5E3 Premium's BIOS - where you can tweak it to your heart's content.

The "Main" menu, and its three sub-menu's, are quite standard, no real need for us to talk about them.

Ahh.. the "Ai Tweaker" menu. This is "THE" place to be if you are an enthusiast and want to tweak the best performance out of your system. If, like me, you turn off all the "auto" overclocking aids, the options available for tweaking fill three screen fulls!

The selection of Vcore voltages is fine grained, and the GTL Voltage references are also settable, along with CPU PLL voltage, DRAM voltage, Nortbridge voltage and reference, Southbridge voltage and clock overcharging voltage.

The processor base clock rate can be set by simply typing in what MegaHertz you want for it; and of course the multiplier ratio can be varied (up to the maximum allowed by whichever processor you are using).

PCIe and DDR3 frequencies, and FSB strap, as well as DDR timings are also quite tweakable.

There are a LOT of memory timing parameters to play with :-)

The "Advanced" menu and its sub-screens are not that exciting.