14 DAY TRIAL // Asus P5K-E is a mainstream motherboard that features all the requirements for an updated desktop PC. Dedicated to the Socket 775 processor line, the motherboard is built around Intel's P35 chipset and respects the same PCB layout as the top mobos in its family (Asus P5K3 Deluxe and Asus P5K-C). The board's main features are given by the P35 chipset, which allows a 1,333 MHz external bus and implements the ICH9 southbridge.
Although the chipset supports the brand-new DDR3 memories, the WiFi-AP model comes with 4 older DDR2 memory slots, that can work either in single-channel or in dual-channel mode. The P35 chipset also allows for different capacity memory cards to work as dual-channel (if correctly seated on the slots) making use of the Fast Memory Access Technology feature.
The motherboard ships with the usual accessories for this kind of hardware. The most important piece is, of course, the motherboard itself, wrapped inside the protective, antistatic bag. Inside the box, you should also find the omnidirectional antenna, an IDE cable, a floppy disk drive cable, two SATA cables and its power connectors, the rear panel I/O shield and the Q-connector for the front panel. Apart from these, there is a User Manual and a 2 CD set with drives and utilities (Norton Internet Security 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2006 for Windows XP, Corel Snapfire 11 SE, a trial version of Intervideo DVD Copy 5, Adobe Reader and DirectX 9.0c).
The expansion cards should be enough for the users the model is addressing to. There are three PCI cards available for other cards the user may have installed on their system. The old AGP slot has been replaced with a PCI-Express x16 one.
Optical media and storage connectivity are done via the IDE controller (kept for backwards compatibility) which connect up to two such devices at the same time. For SATA - capable units, there are six SATA-300 ports present on the motherboard. The board also provides four fan connectors, which should be enough to keep the system cool. The motherboard components have been designed in a manner that would allow a constant airflow to avoid overheating. Moreover, due to the Asus exclusive two-slot thermal design, the gap between the two PCI-Express connectors has been increased. Remarkably, Asus has paid attention to quality in every detail. Although this is unusual for a mainstream motherboard, all the capacitors on this model are solid aluminum, which prevents them from leaking.
The integrated sound card provides a signal-to-noise ratio of over 100 decibels, almost as good as a mid-level sound card. Even though this should be enough for the average user, for analog-to-digital conversions you should install a better add-on card. All in all, the P5K-E/WiFi-AP model proves to be extremely solid and responsive, but it lacks the high-end features such as PCI Express 2.0 and SLI / DDR3 support, which may be a problem once the above-mentioned technologies hit mass-production.
