ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus LGA 775 C55+MCP55P; a.k.a. nForce 650i SLI & nForce 570 SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: This board eliminates numerous stability issues present in almost every 680i board I've seen. How did Asus do this? Because they did something that most other manufacturers didn't do. They used the far more mature southbridge from the AMD 590 series, and combined it with the far lower heat, less problematic 650i. End result? You get a board that actually works right under Vista without disabling or tricking around in BIOS. You get full 2*16 SLI support. And, if you're using RAID you get far better disc scores.

Cons: A lot of people will see this and think it's 680i. It was even listed here as 680i for a while, most places are. Asus is offering this as an alternative to 680i's North/SB combo.

Overall Review: There are going to be a lot of people raise heckles because this isn't 680i. They are missing out. The solid capacitors and the performance make this what people really should want. This is a far more mature, far more stable platform. Out of 22 builds using the 680i & Vista 64, none of them are as solid, stable and well performing as those built on this board.

Pros: - It worked as advertised, and did exactly what it was supposed to do the first time. - Supports an internal RAID 5 array simply ONCE YOU HAVE DOWNLOADED THE LATES BIOS (0602). I also considered the 680i board, but chose this one instead because: 1) The reviewers on the 680i encountered a number of problems. I am a newbie, I needed something proven and reliable. 2) According to the research I did, the only things lost by using the 650i instead of the 680i were a linked dual-gigabit LAN capability, which seems applicable to LAN gamers and is someting I don't need, and 2) a capability to automatically overclock NVIDIA GPU cards. However, that can be done manually through the ASUS bios anyway.

Cons: SATA connections are poorly placed. There is not enough room for the SATA cables between the motherboard and the hard drives, one risks damaging the connections by having to bend the cables.

Overall Review: DOWNLOAD THE LATEST BIOS TO A USB MEMORY STICK, AND REFLASH IT THE FIRST TIME YOU POWER UP! Do not pass go, do not do anything else until you have done this. It's easy, and you will encounter no end of gremlins and ghosts until you have done it. You will do it eventually anyway; save yourself the headache, download the BIOS from the ASUS website to a USB stick and have it ready while you are waiting for your parts to arrive. This is my first build; I was extremely worried that if everything did not work as advertised, I would have neither the tools nor know-how to diagnose problems. I chose this board in part because the reviewers consistently said it was solid, stable and reliable. Advanced, but not on the bleeding edge. It all plugged together like tinker-toys and came right up as advertised. I had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to route the SATA cables without stressing the motherboard; ASUS could have done better there.

Pros: Started up on first try. Easy bios menu to navigate. I think it will overclock really well.

Cons: Had issues when i bought 2 more sticks of GSkill ram. 2 gig worked great. 4 gigs was a problem, very unstable, memtest failed. Upped the north bridge voltage to 1.55v, lowered the ram from 800 to 700, set times to 4-4-4-12 and it has been running great ever sense.

Overall Review: Thank goodness for google in helping me find a solution to this problem. with 4 sticks at stock speeds it wouldn't even turn on.

Pros: Easy installation (for a motherboard) and starts up right off.

Cons: First one was DOA, NEWEGG replaced it quickly - second one works fine. I'd like more expansion slots (they fill up fast). DON'T PUT MORE THAN 2GB OF MEMORY ON THIS UNTIL AFTER THE INITIAL CONFIGURATION!!!! It just won't work.

Overall Review: Nice motherboard. As mentioned, the first one was DOA, but the second one has been flawless. I have 4gB memory on it and had a system crash (software, not hardware) and it took almost a week to get it up and running again - mainly because I forgot to take out the extra 2gB of memory and my raid controller. When initially starting your system, do it bare-bones, then shut down and add your fancy hardware.

Pros: Performance, value, overclocking capabilities, features.

Cons: Default voltage configuration not right for most use, Sound system requires patch from Microsoft for Win XP, BIOS update Risky, Only one PATA/IDE port.

Overall Review: It took me a week to get this running no thanks to FEDEX who mis-delivered my overnighted replacement BIOS (v0501) to replace the one (v0302) I was upgrading thru the onboard BIOS Flash utility which failed. ASUS tech reported 1 out of 10 BIOS upgrade attempts fail. Performance was mediocre until I followed instructions provided on many other sites regarding disabling all the automatic voltage settings - whatever they are, they were wrong and manually setting them clears that up. It sings now, or at least it started to once I downloaded a 64MB patch file that required special dispensation from Microsoft in order to upgrade my WinXP Pro to accept the 8 channel High Definition Audio. The disk from ASUS refused to install the patch, although it's on the supplied disk, claiming I didn't have the right OS version. But now the board is humming right along. I'm running a Core2 Duo E6600 with 2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 and it fairly screams! Not overclocked yet - not sure needed!

Pros: - Very stable once you figure out the voltages - Excellent o/c range. Takes patience but can easily reach 3.6 GHz on an e6600. I haven't pushed for higher but I'm positive it's capable of it. - Does everything the full 680i board does but at a much cheaper price. - Getting very high benchmarks with this board, dead even with an evga 680i. - I'd take this board over the buggy evga 680i anyday

Cons: - If you run SLI the cmos jumper is below the 2nd card so you have to pull the card out to reset - Voltages are very picky. You have to be patient with this board if you o/c it - NB gets pretty hot with o/c but the heat-pipe seems to be able to handle it. I put a 92mm fan directly above the NB

Overall Review: Some advice to save you some frustrations: - Like all 600 series boards, DO NOT PUT 2 sticks of high-volt ram in this board and expect it to boot for the first time. Start with just 1 stick of ram and go into the bios and set the proper volts and timings. Then power off and put the 2nd stick of ram in. Failure to do this will cause you headaches. - If you intend to o/c go read the official nvidia 680i o/c guide. Everything in that guide applies to this board even though its a hybrid - USE 680i Forceware, NOT 650i. - FLASH the bios before you do anything else - My specs: this board, e6600, 2 GB Patiot Extreme LLK PC6400, 2 X 8800 GTS 640 in SLI, Corsair 520HX, Zalman 9500

Pros: I will start out saying that I'm *not* an over-clocker. I bought this board to build a new system on. I *almost* bought a Gigabyte board instead of this, but the 650i chip made me think twice. This is a really good, solid board for any system. There are a *ton* of options to play with. Lots of great features. Runs cool and smooth. Great board to base a system on. Lots of support for future upgrades, shouldn't have to buy a board for a while.

Cons: It's really wide, so make sure your case is long enough for it. I stuck it in a Cooler-Master Centurion 532, and it fit well, but there wasn't a lot of "wiggle room". The SATA connectors are facing the side. In my case I have to pull out the Hard Disk Cage in order to plug in the SATA Cable. It did, however, come with 90 degree connection SATA cables, which makes thing a lot easier.

Overall Review: I bought this board with a 2 GB set of Patriot extreme DDR2 800. I couldn't get Windows to install with it - I kept getting copy errors. I had to set the overclock controls to manual in BIOS, and then clock down the RAM to 667. After that, it was rock solid. I was just about ready to buy different memory so that I could have 800 stable, but then I figured out that this board defaults the voltage to 1.8. So I went back in and changed the voltage from "auto" to 2.2 and clocked up the RAM back to 800. After that, it worked great! This is a good board, from what I've read, the 680i has some problems, and this is a great alternative. You will have a rock solid system with this board.

Pros: This is a great motherboard, one of the few with two true x16 lane PCIe slots and one PCIe x8. The fact that it uses the 650i northbridge instead of 680i doesn't hurt it in any way. I'm using it with two HD's set up using RAID 0 and the disk speed is very nice. I literally did months of research before buying my motherboard, and this is the one I chose. The number of overclocking knobs in the BIOS is also very nice. It also supports 800MHz DDR2 today, with the option to use 1333MHz FSB for a quad core upgrade later.

Cons: The matching of the 650i northbridge with the nForce south bridge is a bit strange from a driver point of view, so you have to be careful which ones you get. If you d/l them from the ASUS site for this board you'll be just fine.

Overall Review: I made the RAID 0 drives the boot "drive" for WinXP, to make this work you need to get the driver package from the ASUS site, pull the SATA RAID driver directory out of the zip and put it on a floppy. Hit F6 when prompted during the beginning stages of window's installation to put in the floppy and load the two RAID drivers. This is standard for booting from a RAID volume, works well from that point on.