ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Supports the Intel Core 2 Duo. Has lots of ports integrated into the motherboard, and the legacy serial port can be disabled in the BIOS. Comes with external WiFi antenna plus the bottom of the antenna is magnetic, so it easily snaps to your computer case. Comes with a 2xUSB 2.0 dongle and a FireWire dongle. Also comes with everything you need to set up a SATA RAID (except the hard disks), Q-connectors for easier installation, and a good microphone. I didn't need the 2 extra mounts that were provided. The heat pipe is a nice feature for cooling.

Cons: Picky about the RAM. It would be wise to look up the compatible RAM types before buying RAM for this motherboard. The motherboard manual, which contains the compatible RAM list, is available from the ASUS web site. You may need to find a low-end but compatible stick of RAM to use to update the BIOS to support high-end RAM. Without updating, you may not even get to the POST. Note: another reviewer (MaK) said that ASUS will send you a free updated BIOS chip if you call ASUS. So, if you can't get to the POST and don't have a compatible spare DDR2 stick, try calling ASUS. Anyway, I received an error during POST and had to flash the BIOS in order to support the Core 2 Duo E6300. In any case, updating the BIOS is the first thing you should do after installation - updating the BIOS from a USB pen drive is quick and easy, instructions are in the motherboard manual.

Overall Review: If you have AC'97 front panel audio, you must go into the BIOS setup and explain that you are using AC'97 and not HD for your front panel audio. Do not connect the fan that snaps onto the end of the heat pipe unless you are setting up a passive-cooler or water-cooler cooling system - it will interfere with an ordinary cooling system. The PATA connector is turned on its side, making connection of a PATA device like a DVD drive a little more interesting. All in all, this is an excellent motherboard.

Pros: Came right up no issues at the start...

Cons: Few hours later after using it, I smell the proverbial stench of cooked silicon. I wouldn't of noticed anything was wrong if it weren't for the smell, it was performing fine. Yank the powercable, take a look - nothing obvious. Put power cable back in, won't turn on. After removing everything, swapping powersupplies, etc - one of the components by the finned heatsink near cpu shows obvious signs of being burned

Overall Review: Everything was stock, nothing alterd. Apparently there are QC issues with this board. I've found stories in forums of fan ports have no power, LAN port issues, and one case similar to mine (same style part, different location). Neat board, but be prepaired to RMA.