ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I did a lot of research before choosing a motherboard. I knew I wanted the 680i chipset despite everything I had read about problems with memory compatibility, and data corruption over the last month or so. I figured all of that was blown out of proportion and that bios updates would fix any problems and I was right. This board installed with ease and is runny very stable with the latest beta bios from Asus. I haven't done any overclocking and I am running 3GB of OCZ DDR2-1066 platinum memory and a Intel E6600 processor. I also got the nVidia 8800GTS and my games are screaming fast (200+ FPS Counterstirke Source with all eye candy turned on). I installed both Windows Vista and XP with no issues. Bottom line, all new chipsets have issues at launch and they are almost always resolved through bios updates. Don't be scared of the 680i based on feedback from November and December 2006. This board is stable and screaming fast (owned one week) when paired with quality components.

Cons: The only con so far is that when I do a restart of Windows rather than a shutdown the board will sometimes hang before the posting screen comes up. The monitor just stays black but the hardware and fans are running. If I hit the reset button or power button manually then everything is fine. It was a bit of a pain while updating Windows XP through Windows Update because you have to a lot of reboots in a row. I will report the problem to Asus and hopefully a bios update or some setting I don't know about will fix that issue. It's so simple but can be annoying. I'm not so sure there isn't a setting or something I am missing as I have done very little tweaking in the bios yet to know all of the options. I wouldn't let that influence you buying decision.

Overall Review: Great board so far other than the soft boot problem.

Pros: Everything you could possibly want in a motherboard. WOrking fine atm (knock on wood)

Cons: Again no round cables

Overall Review: This is my second review of this item. Just wanted to state again for those having issues with this board that you should really check the Asus forums and Overclock.net. This board often comes with voltage settings wrong. WHen u POST for the first time make sure you immediately go to BIOS and manually set voltages. Most people who are able to POST and then have board die on them is most often due to a over voltage. Also this board is VERY picky about ram...VERY. Check the above stated forums to check what ram people are using and that work. I personally been using Patriot with no issues.

Pros: Fantastic feature set, high end performance.

Cons: Incredibly finicky board and the non-Beta BIOS updates aren't coming out very fast. Be very very selective about your SDRAM selection and be willing to spend some time in the BIOS settings if you want to get this board stable. Maybe also peek at the ASUS forums for this board to see what others are experiencing.

Overall Review: Research what RAM works and what doesn't! Once it does work though, it is a fantastic board.

Pros: I have seen reviews indicating the Striker Extreme board does not overclock well, but I have had good OC results with the less fancy P5N32-E. Currently running an E6400 at 450Mhz with no stability issues. The board is a bit quirky but based on Asus history will only get better with bios revisions -- same thing happened with the P5B

Cons: The board is supposed to default back to prior bios settings when an overclock fails but that feature never seems to work for me -- I frequently have to go in and reset jumpers.

Overall Review: It will be interesting to see how the DFI 680i board performs but for Core 2 plus SLI this board is doing just fine for me -- with dual 8800GTX GPUs and Nvidia's Linkboost feature enabled in the bios I am over 15,000 in 3DMark06.

Pros: Works great, very stable. Zalman CNPS9700 fits. Supertalent memory runs at advertised 4-4-3-8 timings with low voltages. Should be very upgradeable. Runs XP Pro x64 edition and 64bit Linux great, all drivers are available.

Cons: Heatpipes don't seem to work that well, The chipset is hot, but the copper radiatorors are cool to the touch. ntune seems to be broken at the moment for this board and XP Pro x64.

Overall Review: Cheaper than the striker, but still expensive. Audio is better than most onboard solutions, but still not anything to get excited about.

Pros: None....

Cons: DOA. Returning MOBO for a different one.

Overall Review: Don't get this MOBO. It has a very high DOA rate.

Pros: I did a lot of research before buying this board. On paper, it contained all the features I was looking for at a competitive price.

Cons: Board lasted about 2 weeks before going dead. Up to that point the board would hang on reboot and act "glitchy". Overclocking was poor. BIOS update did not help. ASUS ignored my first e-mail inquiry to RMA so a follow up was necessary. The board was returned to me with the CPU pin cap loose in the box. Upon re-installation of the system the board would not boot with RAM in channel A. Needless to say, I'll be looking for a board from a different manufacturer.

Overall Review: Paired with a Q6600 and qualified Mushkin RAM. This board is a total waste of time.

Pros: Works fine! Users have control to almost anything in the configuration. Keep in mind I've only had this board for the past couple of days.

Cons: I bought the G.Skill 4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DIMMs but by mistake I got the 6-6-6-18 ones (instead of the 5-5-5-15 sets). Everything worked fine but I was getting error here and there for corrupt .CAB files when installing and extracting stuff in windows VISTA. I tried setting manually the timings in the bios to 6-6-6-18 (2T ... left this option on auto eventually) but it still kept on giving me errors. Then I took my roommate's 5-5-5-15 version of the same memory (2x2GB again) and I didn't get any of those errors. In other words, make sure u get at least 5-5-5-15 DIMMs because you may experience some problems otherwise. Not really a con but just FYI.

Overall Review: I'm the average user who buys a motherboard because he needs one to make his computer work. That is, I'm not the overclocking guy trying to squeeze the last drop of performance out of his configuration. Keeping that in mind, I'm very happy with the board as it works and I still haven't had any problems with it. I was quite worried about it as I read so many DOA reports but in my case it all worked great. I didn't have to set anything and it works fine!