ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I just got this board today and set it up, and everything was smooth as butter... I'm typing this review from the computer using this board. It's got all the features of the P5N-E SLi, with a few extra features, including the 750i chipset, support for 45nm dual and quads (quads aren't currently supported, will be in a BIOS update soon - probably before Intel's mainstream 45nm quad line comes out)... In addition, the chipset heatsink is larger and all copper, and it has an additional fan to attach to keep it cool (which is surprisingly silent)... Good for those with custom fans/passive/water cooling, whose northbridges would usually fry. Furthermore, it's actually got a heatsink on the southbridge (Yay). It's got an Energy Processing Unit which changes the CPU multiplier when it's not active and instantly sets it back up when it's working. Also, it has dual x16 PCI-E for SLi. The website claims it's hardware ready for it, and will likely be fully supported in a future BIOS update.

Cons: CONTINUING WITH EXPLANATION OF PROS: Anyway, until the update for the BIOS comes out, it's x8,x8 SLi, which has no impact on performance for any card out right now - Not even the 8800Ultra. The update to support this will almost certainly be out way before the need for x16,x16 is actually necessary. Also, it has support for 7.1 audio with optical output onboard, and overall it's a huge upgrade over the P5N-E SLi (which I upgraded from actually). THE ONLY CON with this board so far is that the P5N-E SLi (650i) had 2 IDE slots, and this updated board with the 750i only has one. Beware if you have an IDE hard drive and IDE disc drive... Luckily for me, mine are both SATA.

Overall Review: Seems great so far, would recommend to people who can't afford the 780i... It's basically a matured version of the 650i without any noticeable bugs for me so far. It seems to have addressed every little nitpick I had about my old P5N-E Sli after 6 months of ownership. However, for most people with a P5N-E SLi, this isn't worth the upgrade unless you plan to get a 45nm quad core - the P5N-E SLi, as well as any other 650i or 680i board will still support the 45nm dual cores with a BIOS update.

Pros: Price to spec ratio is really what is important here. You're getting a decent board with two of the current PCIe 2.0 slots. A very thorough layout. Hard drive connects right beside the drives where they should be. Processor has space for a decently large heatsink. 24-pin connector close to the power supply so it doesn't cut over your RAM. Only issue is fitting those gigantic new graphics cards (see below). And it all comes with a gorgeous blue box and a little case sticker. Those aren't very important but props to Asus for them anyway.

Cons: It will be very difficult if not impossible to SLI any two of the new nVidia cards such as the 9800GTX without blocking a PCI slot. Keep that in mind. Also, make sure to note the board's max memory bandwidth. PC2-6400 at 800MHz is as far as it goes before being overclocked. Personally, if you wanted more bandwidth than that I'd suggest looking into DDR3...

Overall Review: You can build a high end system around this board if you choose. I maxed the board out with an nVidia 280GTX, Intel Quad-Core Q9550, 8GB of RAM PC2-6400, and so forth. Although a bit off topic, if you're building from scratch be sure to keep a power supply in mind. The new nVidia graphics cards require 2x6-pin connectors so you'll need a power supply that has 4x6-pin in order to SLI. Also be thinking about a case large enough to fit all this. If it must be a mid tower I'd suggest the Antec 900.

Pros: Nice board with PCI-E 16x 2.0 SLI. BIOS was easy to use and to overclock the board. (Got a q6600 running at 3.0 ghz on here... I have no real intentions of going further unless I need it). SLI works perfectly. Not really used the energy efficiency programs of this board, but I hear they really don't do much. POSTed on first try.

Cons: What you've been hearing is right; those two PCI-E 16x 2.0 buses are REALLY close together. However contrary to popular belief, I was able to fit both the AKIMBO cooling version of the 8800GT (EVGA) and the glaciator heatsink version of the 8800GT (Asus) in and though it's a REALLY tight fit, it works. However the AKIMBO card had something like a heatsink (not sure if it was) and had to remove that so I could use the PCI-E x1 slot BEHIND the card (as in, it was blocking not only 2, but 3 PCI buses) at the expense of the warranty. Also the SATA buses are directly underneath your video cards, and with the larger, later versions of nVidia's cards, you may want to hook up your SATA devices first.

Overall Review: I found it discouraging that someone blamed the board for not being able to do 64 bit Vista and have 8 gigs of RAM, and then claim to have a 'high understanding of the motherboard'. Let me quickly break this down. Before SP1 of Vista, the OS wouldn't load for the first time if you had more than 3 gigs of RAM. However after the first configuration and bootup of 64-bit Vista (I had to put in only 2 gigs of RAM), you can slap your RAM right back in. I had such trouble figuring this out that I partitioned my HDD four times, trying to figure out how to dual boot. Only found out how this worked after searching on Google. Not being able to boot Vista for the first time with 8 gigs is hardly the board's fault.

Pros: Very nice motherboard overall. Not too much to mention here: good BIOS layout/options, good clean power, connectors on the mobo were all in good spots (although the SATA ones could have been moved a bit, see below). Whoever thought up the Q-Connectors should win the Nobel prize.

Cons: If you plan on SLI-ing, you need to find at least one single-slot card, or one with a double slot cooler that isn't very tall at all. With only one slot between your cards many double-slot coolers would be touching your other card or at least have a lot of blocked airflow. Also depending on the size of your card it may block some of your SATA connectors.

Overall Review: I put in a 45nm E8500 Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz and it didn't detect my clock multiplier properly out of the box, but at least it booted unlike a lot of other boards when you put in one of these new processors. It was very simple in the BIOS to manually set my muliplier to 9.5 where it belongs, but it's just something to look for when you put one of these together.

Pros: This is a very solid motherboard for the price. Detected the CPU (45nm Q9300) and RAM (2x2GB DDR2-800) exactly as they're supposed to be clocked & timed. Has all of the features you'd expect from a mid-range board, with a couple nice extras. Absolutely no problems with POSTing, hardware recognition, etc. Everything on the board is very well laid out, except for one thing - see Cons.

Cons: The BIOS is the scaled-down Award BIOS, similar to the one seen on most name-brand manufacturers' systems. It has a few extra options for overclocking, etc. but is still rather limited compared to the high-end enthusiast boards. This is to be expected though, since this is purpose-built to be a mid-range board. The large copper heatsink for the Northbridge is a nice touch and does indeed come with it's own detachable fan, but it gets rather hot even with the fan attached. It really needs a heatpipe assembly to connect the CPU power regulators as well. My biggest gripe is that, as stated in the Pros, the layout of the board is great except that the PCI-e slots are a bit too close to each other; if you use dual video cards with 2-slot coolers, they will only be about 2mm apart (literally), which will restrict airflow to the top card. They should have moved 1 more PCI or PCI-e X1 slot between the two X16 slots, since there's more than enough slack in SLI and Crossfire connectors to do so.

Overall Review: For those of you who bought this board as an enthusiast-type board and were subsequently disappointed, you have nobody to blame but yourselves. This is a mid-range board in every way; you should not give it a bad rating and/or review simply because you expected it to be on-par with the $300+ enthusiast boards. Don't buy a Cadillac and expect it to perform as well as a Ferrari. Of all the motherboards I've used in this range, this ASUS is the best.

Pros: Stable, easy to set-up. Has PCIe 2.0 and for cheap, too! Paid $149.99. The pins for your HDD light and power/reset switches were ingenious: it's a standard row of pins, but there's also a detachable "extension" row of pins comes with the case, you plug your case's plugs into the detachable part, then plug that whole thing into the motherboard all at once. It's really quite easy and convenient.

Cons: Can't use any PCIe 1x ports if you're doing SLI since those graphics cards will block the 1x ports, but you get one useable regular PCI slot out of it, two if you don't mind getting seriously close to one of the graphics cards. Would have been nicer if the IDE connector was facing up rather than at a 90 degree angle, but once it's installed I don't really care about it any more.

Overall Review: A note for those who may not know: this motherboard is capable of up to 8GB of RAM. The 32-bit versions of XP and Vista can only use up to 4GB (technically 3 1/2 or so). Upgrading to the 64-bit version of XP or Vista will allow you to utilize all 4GB of that RAM, but there still are almost no programs that even utilize that much RAM or more. So why bother getting a 4GB package if you're using a 32-bit OS? Because even though you won't get the full 4GB, you'll be getting dual channel support out of it, which is something you won't get if you don't buy a packaged set of RAM sticks. For those who do run on a 64-bit OS, even though few programs take advantage of all 4GB of RAM (or more), running multiple programs at once is much faster so multitasking is great, especially if you've got a dual or quad core CPU!

Pros: If you are going to run Sli then this board is a must. I have two 8800gs 512mb G92 versions on this board and they fly. I can get an average of 20-30fps in crysis at 1680x1050 4xaa and very high settings. This board has amazingly fast bios check speed too. When you turn the system on it flys through the bios check and you are loading windows in a blink of an eye.

Cons: The SATA ports are poorly placed and can really get in the way of two huge graphics cards. Also, there seems to be a problem when I have more then 2 hard drives hooked up. It becomes confused about the boot order and you have to manualy tell it which hard drive has the os on it. Just a small hassel.

Overall Review: Great board I would definetly buy again. Cheaper then a 780i or 790 and still as fast.

Pros: Easy layout. Fits my EVGA 8800GT just fine with plenty of room to spare on both sides. I put this into a NZXT Alpha box and it slid right in perfectely. Instructions are straight forward. Someone earlier said this is not for your "beginner" builder. This is my second build and compared to the MSI board I worked with before...this was easy! I plan on doing a lot of gaming and video processing on this board. All the cabling I needed was right there with the board.

Cons: When running the AC883 in AC97 (default is HD) there is background buzzing. Most of this went away when I disabled the BELL in the sound setup in windows. But there is still some there. I have not verified that this is present in the backpanel or under HD Audio.

Overall Review: If you are a new builder...I strongly recommend this board. Everyting fits nicely and is easy to get too!