ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition (i965P) Review Intro 1/5
Bluetooth 27 Sep 2006

ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition

A few weeks ago, we reviewed the high end board from ASUS, the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe featuring the 975X chipset. Today, we take a look at its little brother the P5B Deluxe based on the 965P chipset.

This motherboard supports the most powerful and energy efficient Intel® Core™2 processors. It features the Intel® P965 chipset and supports DDR2 800MHz dual-channel memory architecture. Quiet thermal technologies – 8-Phase Power Design, Stack Cool 2, Heat Pipe Design, Q-Fan 2 and Optional Fan – together provide a comfortable environment for the processor, memory, graphics card and other components to interoperate effectively. With exclusive innovative tools – AI NOS™, AI Gear and AI Nap – users can adjust operation speed according to their specific needs. This motherboard is a cool and stable platform that delivers extreme performance, minimum noise and maximum power saving!


 

CPU, Chipset and Graphics features

LGA775 Intel® Core™2 Processor Ready
This motherboard supports the latest Intel® Core™2 processors in LGA775 package. With new Intel® Core™ microarchitecture technology and 1066 / 800 MHz FSB, Intel® Core™2 processor is one of the most powerful and energy efficient CPU in the world.

As we all know, 965P, the newest chipset from the Intel series only supports a 4x+16x configuration for its PCIe slots. At the time of test, it coincided with a new Catalyst 6.9 and CrossFire is now possible on this board at Dual 4x (as the other 16x is stepped down to 4x). The 975X variant P5W DH Deluxe runs CrossFire at Dual 8x. That is one fo the major difference between the two boards. For overclockers, you would be delighted that the FSB range is now selectable up to 650MHz.

The board also comes with ASUS WiFi-AP Solo™ enabling it to create a complete wireless home network in either AP or wireless client mode. Users will be able to play LAN games, connect to the Internet, access and share printers, and use Skype from anywhere within range. WiFi-AP Solo™ can provide these functions even when the PC is in sleep mode, so users can use Skype as a true replacement for tradition long distance telephone service. WiFi-AP Solo™ is an on-board feature, which means that user will save the extra WiFi AP cost.

The board also supports SATA RAID. The Intel P965 chipsets incorporate six Serial ATA connectors with high performance RAID functions in RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. The JMicron controller provides another two Serial ATA connectors for RAID 0, 1, and JBOD functions.

The board also supports 2 GbE controllers to work as a network gateway. There is also integrated support of 1394a for connecvity to DVRs and portable devices using the 1394 interface.

For Audio, the board cmoes with onboard 8-channel HD audio (High Definition Audio, previously codenamed Azalia) CODEC enables high-quality 192KHz/24-bit audio output, jack-sensing feature, retasking functions and multi-streaming technology that simultaneously sends different audio streams to different destinations. It also supports a S/PDIF-out on Back I/O Port provides convenient connectivity to external home theater audio systems via an coaxial S/PDIF-out (SONY-PHILIPS Digital Interface) jack. It allows to transfer digital audio without converting to analog format and keeps the best signal quality.

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