ASUS PQ5 Deluxe P45 Eaglelake Motherboard

INTRODUCTION

Just when the smoke had cleared and the dust was beginning to settle in the heated discussion over the attributes of the cheaper, yet very solid Intel® P35 based motherboards vs. the more highly feature laden and higher priced X38 based boards - along comes Intel to again stir the water. This time though we'll be substituting players, but we're quite sure the same issues will be raised. The new Intel® X48 based motherboards recently began to surface on the mainstream market; and in just a few weeks, their P45 based boards will also become reality. For argument's sake, the differences between the two are not quite as subtle as was the case with the P35 and X38 based boards.

The Intel® P45 boards will sport a die shrink of the onboard components to 65nm as opposed to the previous 90nm standard. This die shrink would lead us to expect less power consumption as well as improved power efficiency. The P45 also offers official support for PCIe 2.0 with more adaptable lanes to help better support the use of multiple GPUs based on the CrossFire™ architecture. The P45 based boards will feature the new ICH10 series southbridge, which is extremely close in its feature set to its ICH9 brethren, but the primary difference between the two is the ICH10 series has removed LPT and legacy PATA support entirely. While not officially offering support for the new 1600 MHz FSB processors we have it on good authority that most of the P45 boards will support these chips.

Armed with this information and a yearning to be one of the first to review this new and extremely tempting product we prevailed upon our friends at ASUS. They were kind enough to send us one of their P5Q Deluxe editions of this board. The P5Q Deluxe is one of ASUS's top of the line P45 based boards, and like the majority of these boards being released, utilizes DDR2 in lieu of the newer DDR3. We can only surmise this is to spare the consumer the substantial cost of the newer memory while still maintaining above average performance. It is our plan to directly test this board against its X48 counterpart; either fuelling the fires for compelling arguments or helping to extinguish them.

ASUS:  The Company

ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

In 2006, the company shipped 55 million motherboards, which means one in three desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. Our 2006 revenues reached US$16.5 billion, and is expected to garner US$23 billion in 2007.

ASUS products' top quality stems from product development. It's like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the "Chi" and inner strength. Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction. ASUS notebooks are the first TCO'99-certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honor include radiation emission control, energy (battery consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That's why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services.

With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,168 awards in 2006, meaning on average, the company received over 5 awards everyday last year. BusinessWeek ranked ASUS amongst its “InfoTech 100” for the 9th straight year. The readers of Tom's Hardware Guide, the world's largest IT website, selected ASUS as the best maker of motherboards and graphics cards. Furthermore, the company is ranked as No.1 in quality products and services by the Wall Street Journal.