Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi Review - PAGE 1

Today we take a look at the Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi, this is Asus' new P35 based version of the venerable P5B series of motherboards.

I always look forward to benchmarking Asus boards as their higher end boards are known to be good overclockers - and they seem to get even better each and every year.  Given that the P965 based P5B family of boards from Asus is one of the best boards for enthusiasts, this new P5K is a very exciting product indeed.  Just looking at the packaging of the board it is easy to see that pretty much every useful feature is provided - up to and including integrated WiFi networking, a nice feature that will be appreciated by those who need it.

The first P35 based board we recently reviewed, the Gigabyte P35-DS3R was an excellent performer and a great overclocker. It will be interesting to see how the P5K Deluxe WiFi compares.

The P5K Deluxe WiFi AP Edition is certainly not short of features:

• 800/1066/1333MHz FSB
• 4 DDR2 dimm sockets - official support for 667MHz and 800MHz, 1066MHz and higher may be possible
  
• Improved Stack Cool 2 heat pipe design - up to 20'C cooler, pure copper
• One PCIe 16x slot for a GPU
• One PCIe 16x form factor, PCIe 4x or 1x signaling slot for peripheral or second GPU
• Two PCIe 1x slots
• Two PCI slots
• Six SATA2 connectors with RAID support
• Two "SATA on the Go" connectors from JMicron PATA/SATA2 controller
  
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet controllers
• Asus WiFi-AP Solor IEEE 802.11b/g controller and external antenna
• Eight channel AD1988B High Definition audio controller
  
• Coax and optical S/PDIF outputs
• Next generation eight phase power design
• Six USB 2.0 jacks on the back
• Two external SATA2 connectors
• PS/2 keyboard jack
• Firewire connector on the back
  
• Six audio connectors
• Six additional USB 2.0 headers
• Additional FireWire header

Here are the specifications straight from Asus' site:

CPU LGA775 socket for Intel®  Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / *Pentium® 4 Processors Compatible with Intel® 05B/05A/06 processors Support Intel® next generation 45nm multi-core CPU *This motherboard supports FSB 1333/1066/800 Chipset Intel® P35 / ICH9R with Intel® Fast Memory Access Technology Front Side Bus 1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz Memory 4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR2 1066*/800 / 667 MHz, non-ECC, un-buffered memory Dual channel memory architecture * The chipset officially supports the memory frequency up to DDR2 800MHz. Tuned by ASUS Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR2 1066MHz Please refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL. Expansion Slots 2 x PCI-E x16 (blue @ x16 mode, black @ x4 or x1 mode) supports CrossFire Technology 2 x PCI-E x1 3 x PCI Storage Southbridge  - 6 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports  - Supports RAID 0 and 1 JMicron® JMB363 PATA and SATA controller  - 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 for up to 2 PATA devices  - 2 x External SATA 3.0 Gb/s port (SATA On-the-Go) - Supports SATA RAID 0,1 and JBOD LAN Dual Gigabit LAN controllers, featuring AI NET2 Marvell88E8056® PCI-E Gigabit LAN controllers RealtekRTL8110SC® PCI Gigabit LAN controller Wireless LAN ASUS WiFi-AP Solo 54 Mbps IEEE 802.11g and backwards compatible with 11 Mbps IEEE 802.11b  - Software Access Point mode  - Station mode : Infrastruceure mode and Ad-Hoc mode Audio ADI® AD1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC  - Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF out ports at back I/O  - ASUS Noise Filter IEEE 1394 Agere® FW322 1394a controller supports 2 x IEEE 1394a ports (one at midboard; one at back panel) USB 10 x USB 2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 6ports at back panel) ASUS AI Lifestyle Features ASUS Quiet Thermal Solution:  - ASUS AI Gear2  - ASUS AI Nap  - ASUS 8-Phase Power Design  - ASUS Fanless Design: Heat-pipe solution  - ASUS Fanless Design: Stack Cool 2  - ASUS Q-Fan 2 ASUS Crystal Sound:  - ASUS Noise Filter ASUS EZ DIY:  - ASUS Q-Connector  - ASUS O.C. Profile  - ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3  - ASUS EZ Flash 2  - ASUS AI Slot Detector ASUS WiFi@Home:  - ASUS WiFi-AP Solo Other Features ASUS MyLogo 3 Multi-language BIOS Overclocking Features Intelligent overclocking tools:  - AI NOS™ (Non-delay Overclocking System)  - ASUS AI Booster utility Precision Tweaker:  - vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.0125V increment  - vDIMM: 16-step DRAM voltage control  - vChipset: 4-step Chipset voltage control SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)  - FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 800MHz at 1MHz increment - Memory tuning from 667MHz up to 1333MHz for DDR2  - PCI Express frequency tuning from 100MHz up to150MHz at 1MHz increment Overclocking Protection:  - ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall) Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x S/PDIF Out (Coaxial + Optical) 2 x External SATA 1 x IEEE1394a 2 x RJ45 port 6 x USB 2.0/1.1 1 x WiFi-AP Solo antenna jack 8-channel Audio I/O Internal I/O Connectors 2 x USB connectors support additional 4 USB ports 1 x Floppy disk drive connector 1 x IDE connector 1 x COM connector 6 x SATA connectors 1 x CPU Fan connector 4 x Chassis Fan connector 1 x Power Fan connector 1 x IEEE1394a connector Front panel audio connector 1 x S/PDIF Out Header Chassis Intrusion connector CD audio in 24-pin ATX Power connector 2 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector System Panel(Q-Connector) BIOS 16 Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ACPI 2.0a, Multi-language BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash 2,  ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 Manageability WfM 2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL by PME, WOR by PME, PXE Accessories UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable FDD cable 4 x Serial ATA cables 1 x 2-port Serial ATA power cable I/O Shield User's manual ASUS WiFi-AP Solo manual 3 in 1 Q-connector 1 x 2-port USB2.0 / 1-port IEEE1394 module ASUS WiFi-AP Solo omni-directional antenna Support CD Drivers ASUS PC Probe II ASUS Update ASUS AI Suite ASUS WiFi-AP Solo Wizard Anti-virus software (OEM version) Image-Editing Suite Form Factor ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.4cm) O/S Compatibility