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Priced at just over $90 USD, ASUS has positioned the P5RD1-V as an entry-level motherboard. The key items to remember about entry-level motherboards are that they usually lack strong overclocking features (if any at all), as well as a reduced amount of features and extras provided in the box.

As it stands, the ASUS P5RD1-V comes with only the bare essentials for a modern motherboard. Along with the de-facto manual and driver CD, the following has been included:

• Rear I/O chassis cover
• Rear I/O bracket with two USB ports and one MIDI/game port
• Rear I/O bracket with one serial port
• Two SATA cables
• One SATA power adapter with two power connectors
• One 80-conductor IDE cable, and one floppy cable

In general, that’s not a very compelling bundle, but then again the P5RD1-V is being oriented as an entry-level motherboard – as I mentioned above. These are the accessories necessary to get a system integrator/home user building a general-purpose machine off his or her butt, and nothing more.

First off, being based on the ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 chipset, the P5RD1-V is of course a PCI-Express motherboard. Along with the three regular PCI slots, you will find an additional three PCIe x1 slots, and one PCIe x16 slot. With the Radeon XPRESS chipset being limited to 22 PCIe lanes, we are limited to only one PCIe x16 slot, unless ASUS had decided to implement PCIe lane re-router circuitry in the style of nForce 4 SLI boards. However, that would drive costs up needlessly, and is definitely not an option for an entry-level board. ATI Crossfire simply is not an option on the P5RD1-V.

As a birthright of being based on the Radeon XPRESS 200 chipset, the P5RD1-V has an integrated RV380 graphics core. The RV380 is the same GPU you will find in ATI’s PCIe-native Radeon X600 and X300 graphics cards. Performance-wise, it is positioned somewhere in between the Radeon 9600 series and Radeon 9800 series. There's a perk to the integrated graphics that is not often found on other solutions: With the purchase of a seperate TV-Out module, you can use the integrated video along with our television set -- the P5RD1-V has pins for both RCA and YPbPr TV outputs. An interesting perk indeed!

Reading the previous page, you would have learned that the ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 chipset is capable of supporting both DDR400 and DDR2-667 memory. In order to reduce both production costs and system part costs, ASUS has opted to go with the dual-channel DDR400 support in the form of four DIMM slots. This move makes sense, as there’s still a bit of a premium on high-capacity DDR2 memory. The sight of an LGA775 motherboard with DDR1 memory slots is a touch bewildering at first sight.

While the board itself is low-cost, ASUS hasn’t necessarily skimped on the integrated audio. Audio is provided through the 8-channel Realtek ALC861 High-Definition audio codec, which also features jack sensing, jack retasking, and S/PDIF out (provided through pin headers on the motherboard). Along with that, the other extra goodies include gigabit Ethernet, eight USB 2.0 ports (though unfortunately no Firewire), the now-standard four SATA ports supporting RAID 0/1/0+1/JBOD, two ATA133 ports, and a completely fanless design of the entire motherboard.

Lastly, the P5RD1-V has surprisingly healthy overclocking abilities considering its value-oriented nature. Said overclocking abilities won’t topple the nForce 4 crown, but credit must be given where credit is due: The FSB is adjustable in 1 MHz increments from 100 MHz up to 400 MHz, Vcore and VDIMM options (though somewhat limited), and the FSB/DDR clock ratio is also adjustable. Also supported are ASUS’ proprietary automatic/intelligent overclocking technologies.

The layout of the P5RD1-V remains close to the classic ATX style. Everything is where you would expect it to be, with the exception of the secondary IDE and floppy connectors, which are mounted on the side of the board and face the right side. Other than that, the P5RD1-V utilizes a tried and true layout. There is plenty of room around three sides of the CPU socket, though there might be problems with oversized heatsinks and the silver ASUS heatsink over the voltage regulators. Overly long PCI-Express graphics cards will not obstruct DIMM removal. SATA ports are located near the CMOS battery in the lower-right-hand corner of the motherboard (sorry, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth left over from the nForce 3 SATA port placements near the CPU socket).

A raw specifications sheet from ASUS’ website will reveal any other outstanding tidbits:

While lacking those especially snazzy features that we're used to seeing on creme-of-the-crop motherboards, the P5RD1-V does manage to pack quite a punch for a mere $92 USD.