ecktt
06-16-2007, 12:39 PM
ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi Review
This mother board is based on Intel brand spanking new mainstream chipset, the P35, with a passive heat pipe cooling solution.
http://usa.asus.com/999%5Cimages%5Cproducts%5C1646%5C1646_m.jpg
It sports 10 USB connectors - 8 back (2 with a supplied via a USB/firewire plate) and 2 extra on board for use with most modern cases, Realtek Wifi adapter, 2 10/100/100 Ethernet ports (Realtek and Marvell), 3 PCI, 2 PCI-E 16 (1 16 lane and 1 4 lane) with AMD/ATi crossfire capability, 2 PCI-E 1 slots, 6 SATA ports, 2 e-SATA ports, 1 floppy , 1 IDE and 5 onboard 3/4 fan connectors.
This mother board was tested with the following components:
- PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750
- Intel Core 2 Duo 4300 w Thermalright Ultra120 eXtreme and Panaflow 120mm (114 cmf)
- 8GB PC6400 Patriot RAM
- Creative XFi Gamer
- Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600
- Liteon 20 DVDRW
The Good
The board looks good. In fact, it looks sexy. This board could bring sexy back to a PC. The BIOS is well laid out with plenty of options.
If I had to be picky, I would say the over clocking options could have been more granular but if you are an over-clocking kind of guy, this would pose no problem and might even mode the BIOS to suite. Speaking of over-clocking, this board can hit some extreme FSBs. A little tinkering got me up playing Quake 4 @ 547 FSB. Now that’s impressive! I am currently running @ 3.6GHz with a 400FBS on an Intel E4300 rated for 1.8GHZ (the ghetto mans' processor). That’s a doubling of speed. Because of the 3 discrete LAN interfaces, this board could be the hub for a home server.
Just for kicks I got rid of my wireless router and replaced is functionality with this board. The board is roomy as in noting is cramped up and the memory can be changed with out removing the Video card. It’s a standard ATX board so it should have no problems fitting in most cases. My small Antec Super LAN boy had no issue housing it.
The Bad
This board is Not Stable. I don’t care what other review site say. This board does not cut the mustard. Negating the PSU which was factor pre-tested @ an extra cost to me and the RAM was tested for several days with memtest86 before even entering this system), this board is plagued with spontaneous reboots, over heating and RAID issues at stock speeds.
Over-clocking neither helps or hurts the situation. A little googling would reveal that many other users are having these problems. Its timing for a reboot = me in a DOTA game (no folks for the past week I did not pull the plug, it was the mother board). The chipset temperature runs @ 49C even when idle which sets of the ASUS probe alarm, and that’s with me adding a pair of 40mm 5 cfm fans to cool it down.
The RAID 5 array failed no less that 6 time since I have had this board (2 weeks). The hard disks are Maxtor MAXLine Pro 500GB which are certified for 24/7 operation in RAID. Needless to say, the computer is practically unusable while the array is being rebuilt and can only be done by the OS, so it would be advised that you don’t put your system partition and any arrays.
The RAID issues seem to stem from extreme sensitivity to SATA cables. The stock cables that came with the motherboard would periodical drop anything connected to SATA port 2. Replacing the Cables with heavier gauge SATA cables seem to have solved the problem (you would think that the cables that came with the mother board would be sufficient) and even so I had to go through 6 SATA cables before I found 4 that would work properly (I’m luck I bought extra cables). The array still throws hiccups and I have to “verify and repair” the array every other day.
The Ugly!
This board layout was designed by a moron! Why? Out of the 3 PCI slots 2 are unusable because of the position relative to the PCI-16 slotsic populated by a Videocard. The chipset supports 12USB slots but the board only sports 10. The IDE is located at the bottom of the board making wiring a problem for me. The top most mofet heat sink is very loosely coupled and so I doubt its make proper contact. If I had to clear the CMOS, I would have to remove my video card. How retarded is that for a board aimed @ the over clocking crowd?
Asus tech support is horrid. If you life depended on it, make funeral arrangements. The crowning ugly - the user manual. For a mother board that retails for around 240 usd, one would thing it would have a proper manual. One would be wrong. Instead, ASUS has seen it fit to do a sloppy edit of the P5B Deluxe manual. How sloppy?
Well one of the main selling points for me was the RAID 5 on this mother board, which the manual initial list as a feature. Under the RAID setup section it makes no mention of RAID 5 but only of the more common RAID 0, 1 and 10. The pictures used in the manual are often of the P5B and even refers to an option Chipset cooler that was designed for P5B. I bought this chipset cooler only to find out that I have to mod it to fit the P5K properly.
Conclusion
If you’re a little thick headed, I hate this board. While it looks to be a winner on paper, it does not deliver in the real world. As a comparison, I am working with a DFI P965-S. Minus the second Ethernet port and Wifi, it’s an easy replacement for the ASUS P5K Deluxe board. With the SAME equipment, in the SAME configuration, the DFI did a 552 FSB, never had a chipset heating problem, RAID 5 worked, has a much better slot lay out and is ROCK SOLID STABLE. All of this and it does it with an older chipset that the P35 was supposed to replace.
In a Previous post HERE, I asked the question:
Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)?
Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot?
If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion?
Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be?
How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots?
Can their products handle above average temperatures?
Is you mother bard LAN Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)?Well my answers are:
No, not even 2 days.
No
No
No. If it’s not stable for long periods of time can a OC really be called successfully?
Yes. Had to swap my SB XFi and Hauppauge HVR 1600 around to get them working correctly.
Not, sure. If forced, I would have to say no. All my problems might have been temperature related.
Not sure. I’m afraid to move it for fear it would explode and take the huge chuck of change I paid for it.
This mother board is based on Intel brand spanking new mainstream chipset, the P35, with a passive heat pipe cooling solution.
http://usa.asus.com/999%5Cimages%5Cproducts%5C1646%5C1646_m.jpg
It sports 10 USB connectors - 8 back (2 with a supplied via a USB/firewire plate) and 2 extra on board for use with most modern cases, Realtek Wifi adapter, 2 10/100/100 Ethernet ports (Realtek and Marvell), 3 PCI, 2 PCI-E 16 (1 16 lane and 1 4 lane) with AMD/ATi crossfire capability, 2 PCI-E 1 slots, 6 SATA ports, 2 e-SATA ports, 1 floppy , 1 IDE and 5 onboard 3/4 fan connectors.
This mother board was tested with the following components:
- PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750
- Intel Core 2 Duo 4300 w Thermalright Ultra120 eXtreme and Panaflow 120mm (114 cmf)
- 8GB PC6400 Patriot RAM
- Creative XFi Gamer
- Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600
- Liteon 20 DVDRW
The Good
The board looks good. In fact, it looks sexy. This board could bring sexy back to a PC. The BIOS is well laid out with plenty of options.
If I had to be picky, I would say the over clocking options could have been more granular but if you are an over-clocking kind of guy, this would pose no problem and might even mode the BIOS to suite. Speaking of over-clocking, this board can hit some extreme FSBs. A little tinkering got me up playing Quake 4 @ 547 FSB. Now that’s impressive! I am currently running @ 3.6GHz with a 400FBS on an Intel E4300 rated for 1.8GHZ (the ghetto mans' processor). That’s a doubling of speed. Because of the 3 discrete LAN interfaces, this board could be the hub for a home server.
Just for kicks I got rid of my wireless router and replaced is functionality with this board. The board is roomy as in noting is cramped up and the memory can be changed with out removing the Video card. It’s a standard ATX board so it should have no problems fitting in most cases. My small Antec Super LAN boy had no issue housing it.
The Bad
This board is Not Stable. I don’t care what other review site say. This board does not cut the mustard. Negating the PSU which was factor pre-tested @ an extra cost to me and the RAM was tested for several days with memtest86 before even entering this system), this board is plagued with spontaneous reboots, over heating and RAID issues at stock speeds.
Over-clocking neither helps or hurts the situation. A little googling would reveal that many other users are having these problems. Its timing for a reboot = me in a DOTA game (no folks for the past week I did not pull the plug, it was the mother board). The chipset temperature runs @ 49C even when idle which sets of the ASUS probe alarm, and that’s with me adding a pair of 40mm 5 cfm fans to cool it down.
The RAID 5 array failed no less that 6 time since I have had this board (2 weeks). The hard disks are Maxtor MAXLine Pro 500GB which are certified for 24/7 operation in RAID. Needless to say, the computer is practically unusable while the array is being rebuilt and can only be done by the OS, so it would be advised that you don’t put your system partition and any arrays.
The RAID issues seem to stem from extreme sensitivity to SATA cables. The stock cables that came with the motherboard would periodical drop anything connected to SATA port 2. Replacing the Cables with heavier gauge SATA cables seem to have solved the problem (you would think that the cables that came with the mother board would be sufficient) and even so I had to go through 6 SATA cables before I found 4 that would work properly (I’m luck I bought extra cables). The array still throws hiccups and I have to “verify and repair” the array every other day.
The Ugly!
This board layout was designed by a moron! Why? Out of the 3 PCI slots 2 are unusable because of the position relative to the PCI-16 slotsic populated by a Videocard. The chipset supports 12USB slots but the board only sports 10. The IDE is located at the bottom of the board making wiring a problem for me. The top most mofet heat sink is very loosely coupled and so I doubt its make proper contact. If I had to clear the CMOS, I would have to remove my video card. How retarded is that for a board aimed @ the over clocking crowd?
Asus tech support is horrid. If you life depended on it, make funeral arrangements. The crowning ugly - the user manual. For a mother board that retails for around 240 usd, one would thing it would have a proper manual. One would be wrong. Instead, ASUS has seen it fit to do a sloppy edit of the P5B Deluxe manual. How sloppy?
Well one of the main selling points for me was the RAID 5 on this mother board, which the manual initial list as a feature. Under the RAID setup section it makes no mention of RAID 5 but only of the more common RAID 0, 1 and 10. The pictures used in the manual are often of the P5B and even refers to an option Chipset cooler that was designed for P5B. I bought this chipset cooler only to find out that I have to mod it to fit the P5K properly.
Conclusion
If you’re a little thick headed, I hate this board. While it looks to be a winner on paper, it does not deliver in the real world. As a comparison, I am working with a DFI P965-S. Minus the second Ethernet port and Wifi, it’s an easy replacement for the ASUS P5K Deluxe board. With the SAME equipment, in the SAME configuration, the DFI did a 552 FSB, never had a chipset heating problem, RAID 5 worked, has a much better slot lay out and is ROCK SOLID STABLE. All of this and it does it with an older chipset that the P35 was supposed to replace.
In a Previous post HERE, I asked the question:
Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)?
Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot?
If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion?
Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be?
How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots?
Can their products handle above average temperatures?
Is you mother bard LAN Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)?Well my answers are:
No, not even 2 days.
No
No
No. If it’s not stable for long periods of time can a OC really be called successfully?
Yes. Had to swap my SB XFi and Hauppauge HVR 1600 around to get them working correctly.
Not, sure. If forced, I would have to say no. All my problems might have been temperature related.
Not sure. I’m afraid to move it for fear it would explode and take the huge chuck of change I paid for it.