Asus Shows Off Insane P965-based Motherboard

Asustek Computer is known for its solid motherboards that not only offer a competitive solution when you need a motherboard, but they are also among the best overclockers on any given category. Whether you're talking about INTEL or AMD CPUs, Asus has an overclocking friendly board for every budget. And the motherboard line keeps on getting bigger.


Asus has announced its new "Commando" motherboard that allows (in theory) for a 100% FSB overclock, being the first motherboard ever to claim such a high performance. The Asustek Commando mainboard is powered by Intel P965 chipset with ICH8R I/O controller. The board supports up to 8GB of dual-channel DDR2-800, a rated FSB of 1066MHz and features two PCI Express x16 slots (electrical 16x with physical bandwidth of an 8x connector), six Serial ATA-II ports with RAID capabilities, 8-channel ADI 1988b audio codec.

The motherboard is fueled by an 8-phase microprocessor power supply circuitry that keeps the motherboard "sane" even when using insane voltages applied to the Dram and CPU. Regarding the overclocking potential of the "Commando" board, Asus claims:

"The Commando provides extreme overclock ability for enhanced performance, and unique features to jazz up the gaming features and simplify the DIY process. […] With superior engineering, the Commando provides unmatched overclockability, taking PSB and memory up to 2280MHz and 1300MHz, respectively."

We don't know how expensive it will be but rumors suggest it will be quite affordable. In any case, if you have a good CPU, you'll simply love what this board can do to it. Several voices throughout the web have said that the motherboard can work stable at speeds exceeding 533 FSB without any Vmods. The board is expected to be mass released as soon as possible.