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ASUS P5Q Deluxe Motherboard Review

Posted By: Hardware Tech Review Published in Motherboard

Oct

For years now, we’ve seen two extremes of motherboards out in the market catering to mainstream users and enthusiasts. And it comes to no surprise that the mainstream market seem to be getting most of the success because the enthusiast community is a minority. These days, our mainstream users are growing more in tuned with today’s technologies, and so the demand for better, or more functionality, and performance has increased ever more. Seeing as how the mainstream market is vital, ASUS has provided a suitable board to suit their needs – the P5Q Deluxe.

The P5Q Deluxe is a sort of a cut down version of the P5Q3 Deluxe. You will find that most of the features from the latter have made their way to the P5Q Deluxe. The main differences we see with this board are the use of DDR2 technology instead of DDR3, and the lack of a WiFi-AP Draft N controller, which is a real shame since wireless is pretty much a norm these days. Now we’ve mentioned that the P45 chipset has improved in the area of performance to power ratio, as well as incorporated Gen-2 PCI express technology. What we forgot to mention in our previous articles is the fact that the CrossFire functionality has evolved from the x16/x4 combination to an x8/x8 setup (that’s equivalent to two PCIe gen-1 x16’s bandwidth), which is a more balanced, or efficient if you will, solution.

One of the features of the board’s layout is the somewhat similar copper cooling circuit found on ROG (Republic of Gamers) boards. You need to take consideration of CPU cooler sizes though, as the socket area is a bit cramped. Next thing to note is the odd placement of the DIMM sockets, as they are shifted slightly nearer to the southbridge. Thankfully, ASUS also adjusted the PCIe x16 slot accordingly. However, while two of the SATA ports are facing outwards, there is one lone port behind them. If one were to use a long graphics card like the GTX 280, that SATA port will surely be blocked. It’s a good thing that ASUS has positioned the PCIe x1 and PCI slot before the first PCIe x16, so you get more room in the expansion area. ASUS has also mentioned that the last PCIe x16 slot can only run at x4 at max. And if you were to use that, both the PCIe x1 slots will be rendered unusable. This is because there are not enough lanes to go around.

Enthusiasts will be glad to know that ASUS has given some of the same tweaking options found in the ROG boards to the P5Q Deluxe, and you get the ExpressGate utility too. Performance wise, the P5Q Deluxe delivers. On PCMark Vantage, the board scored 6,149 on its default suite, while it earned 4,657, 5,659, and 4,493 on memory, game and HDD suites respectively.

It’s a great idea that ASUS has brought over some of the enthusiast functionality over to the P5Q Deluxe. This gives people more incentive to buy the board as it really gives value for our money. Top it off with great performance, and you have one of the best deals around town.

ASUS P5Q Deluxe Specifications :

PROCESSOR TYPE: Intel Core 2 Extreme/Quad/Duo/Pentium Extreme/Pentium D/Pentium 4

NORTHBRIDGE: Intel P45

SOUTHBRIDGE: ICH10R

FSB: 1600/1333/1066/800 MHz

DIMM: 4x DDR2-1200/1066/800/667 (16GB max)

SATA: 8x SATA II

RAID: Level 0, 1, 5 and 10

PATA: 1x

FLOPPY: 1x

SOUND: ADI AD2000B

NETWORK: Marvell 88E8056/88E8001