ASUS P5E3 PREMIUM/WIFI-AP @n LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Many features for the enthusiast with lots of OC options. Booted up 1st time. Energy saving features. Passive massive heatsink coolers. Currently top of the line chipset (X48). Two SATA controller chips with multiple RAID options. Board is very well laid out,quality metal caps,clean design. Audio sound great from HD onboard solution. Adds to a successful mobo line that's tried and tested (P5E3 family). Stable and easily Oc'd later to 3.2GHz CPU (from 2.66 stock) and 1600 MHz DDR3 speed. May well go higher but not needed at this time. My 9800 GTX works great. If you want to tease more speed and brag,the feature set with this board will do it for you - but be prepared for a trial of whats-up-nows?...

Cons: ASUS is a bit slow to do BIOS updates. Makes SURE your memory and CPU are on the official support list on the ASUS site. Mine work but aren't officially supported. EZ Flash BIOS Utility has caused a lot of headaches. Express Gate feature ditto,often disabled to make sure all else functions. Some 45nm CPUs not yet supported (Q9450,Q9300 not on the list of qualified CPUs ... yet.)Make sure your CPU Cooler will fit onto the board as the copper heatpipes may interfere with bigger aftermarket coolers.I highly recommend the Artic Freezer 7 Pro if your case will fit its height. Pricey mobo and must use expensive DDR3...go elsewhere if you need to save $. Some users are having graphics board hassles as not all seem to work properly with Crossfire or a single NVidia GX2 card -(obviously only ATI boards can use Crossfire ie 2 boards in SLI).I went with a single NVidia eVGA 9800GTX for the benefit of best game support and drivers.

Overall Review: My Build: OS: Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 Mobo: P5E3 Premium/WiFi-AP@n Intel X48(vers. C0 I believe) BIOS: 0151 (did not try to flash as it is working OK so far) CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9450 (boxed; pack date said 4/15/08 on box) Rev./Stepping 17/7/0 (per SiSandraXI) Box Info:S-Spec SLAWR;Version#:E34934-001 1.25V max.PCG-05A Print On CPU: SLAWR MALAY L812A635 2.66GHZ/12M/1333/05A CPU Cooler: Artic Freezer 7 Pro w/4pin 92mm fan (fits great,very quiet,super price w/6yr warranty!)) Memory: OCZ3P16004GK 4gb kit (2x2gb) PC12800 Platinum Edition rated for 1600mhz 7-7-7-24 240pin DDR3 dimm in sockets A2 -B2 (NOT Enhanced Bandwidth Tested "EB" version in part # ) running at 1.9V set manually in the Bios (Guaranteed to 1.95V by OCZ without voiding the lifetime warranty - a great feature) PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad (Crossfire Ed.) Boot HD: WD1500ADFD Raptor 10000RPM 150GB SATA 1.5GB/sec -SATA Port 1 2nd HD:Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/sec (remove t

Pros: An overclocker's dream. The bios has so many options for overclocking your CPU, RAM, northbridge, PCIx, etc. It has been very user friendly when trying to push the limits on this board. This motherboard also comes with a lot of accessories (cables, extra cooling pipe fans). The @n feature is really nice as well, being able to access the internet via the linux bios intro.

Cons: Did not come with mounting screws for the case. I had to use my old ones which worked, but if I wanted to use my old parts for a dinky system, I'd need new screws. The internal USB and firewire connectors can be used for either rear panel (included) or front panel (if your case supports it) only! There doesn't appear to be any sound connectors for the front panel, but I might be blind.

Overall Review: q9450 running 3.41ghz on air (450mhz fsb) with 2gb (soon to be 4) ocz ddr3-1600 oc'ed to 1700 and a bfg 8800gts (g92). Don't be intimidated by DDR3 as the prices have dropped dramatically. And don't be afraid to OC this board. If it doesn't post, shut if off and it will reset itself.

Pros: Man, its back to school with this badboy. The DRAM parameters are exceptional and complex. There are a host of CPU power states I've never seen before. Its fast, stable and very flexible. All said, it will take quite sometime to fully understand this overclocker's dream come true. A (GO) stepped Q6600 running at 3.2G @ 33C was absolutely no sweat, warm to the touch (Zalman 9700LED), 1 hrs after 1st boot, and quite incredible, sweet. I'm glad I waited for this board. The QX9770 comes next. GET FAST RAM, 1600, AT LEAST! If your don't your wasting your time and money on this terrific piece of hardware.

Cons: I wish they went to more detail on each BIOS parameter, at least in the manual.

Overall Review: This is a winner.

Pros: Looks trick, performs even better! Fired up into bios on first try. Has Linux (or something) build into board (named Asus Express Gate) that fired up Firefox, Skype, DVD and CD ability in less than 6 seconds from pressing power button. I dont use them, but Auto settings work great even when OC'ing! CrossFire works 100% no problems on 8.4 catalyst. Board is nice and cool even when pushing it real hard. CPU voltage can go up to 2.1V, cant imagine using that either but how cool is that!

Cons: Pick your CPU Cooler carefully if going the air cooling route. Cube coolers are a NO because of the heatsinks surrounding CPU. Use one styled like the Zalman 9700 or Silent Knight II for clearance. Asus Express Gate doesnt work with WiFi, but I dont use it anyway. Asus AIGear and Wifi applications suck, just install the drivers for Windows and tune it yourself in the BIOS.

Overall Review: Very Stable platform. Havent built an Intel rig since pre-P4 days... This setup spanks my Athlon 6000+ to no end. But I expect nothing less after spending double... New Rig: E8500 Wolfdale 3.16Ghz (currently clocked at 4.1Ghz - 435 x 9.5), 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600, 2x WD Raptors 74's in RAID0, 2x Asus EAH3870TOP in CrossFire, Asus Silent Knight II, Corsair 750w PSU, Antec 900 case

Pros: Crash Free - Very stable board! The best I've owned to date. Installed without a hitch and booted on 1st try. Read other thoughts.

Cons: None!

Overall Review: I am using this P5E3 Premium X48 MB board with a Q6600 and Corsair Series XMS3 - TW3X4G1333C9DHX DDR3 Memory. In order to get the board to see the memory at 1333, I had to contact Corsair and make some manual settings: Go to the "AI Tweaker" Screen AI Overclock Tuner - Manual FSB Frequency Change - 333 DRAM Frequency - 1335 DRAM Command - 2N DRAM Timing Control - Manual CAS# Latency - 7 RAS# to CAS# Delay - 7 RAS# Pre Time - 7 RAS# ACT Time - 24 DRAM Voltage - 1.70 I hope this helps.

Pros: Lots of extras, dual RAID, support for overclocking (which I don't do though) very fast. Support for the fastest memory available, DDR3. Support for crossfire with 2 * PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (which I do use).

Cons: Very bad compatibility with OCZ memory. Tried 2 sets of OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Model OCZ3P13334GK first and had daily, sometimes hourly crashes. Spent 2 weeks trying to troubleshoot with no luck. Finally had to buy 2 sets of Corsair TW3X4G1600C9DHX which work great! ASUS support is the absolute worst I've ever encountered. After posting problems on their Forum I tried their "online support form" which is a JOKE. It won't even let you fill out the form, there are drop down boxes to select your Model/blah blah that DO NOT work.

Overall Review: This will be my last ASUS motherboard. I've been building systems for over 19 years and I would say without a doubt most of the problems I've had has been with ASUS. There are too many other GOOD manufacturers out there to put up with this type of product. Current config: Asus P5E3 Premium, Intel Q9550, 8GB Corsair TW3X4G1600C9DHX, 2 - Diamond HD 4870 512MB in crossfire, Pioneer 20X SATA DVR, 2 - WD Sata II VelociRaptors 150GB in RAID0 (Boot), 2 Sata II 500GB Barracudas in RAID0 (Data), Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 watt PSU, Antec P182 Case, Dell 2407 Flat Panel, Logitech G15 keyboard, Logitech G7 mouse running MS Vista 64bit SP1.

Pros: Nice when it worked

Cons: I took a hudge hit on this board. From the day I built the system I would get random crashes. I could not play a video game or everything would just freeze. So I replaced the two ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready cards thinking it was the video card. Still had the same problems so I bought a new HD and ran XP thinking it was the VISTA because of the identical crashes I was reading online. No luck ther either. After replacing the mouse and keyboad for good measure i finally bought a intel Motherboard and eveything has worked perfect. I sold the two cards for 75 dollars taking a 100 dollar hit on each one. ASUS is only willing to repair the old one so I will endup trying to sell a 369 dollar referbished motherboar be luck to get 50 bucks. Newegg won't give me a refund because it took over 1 month to troubleshoot the proble by 10 days.

Overall Review: The new ssytem Rocks with Nvidia 280 card andIntel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80569Q9450 - Retail (N82E16819115042) 38062816 8/13/2008 Write OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop 24 inch LG monitor

Pros: Got to be one of the best Intel motherboards available. Loaded with features. Granular settings for overclocking. Express Gate allows you to surf the internet or use Skype without booting the OS. Works perferctly with Vista 64-bit.

Cons: Express Gate does not appear to support WiFi networking. When I disabled the onboard ethernet, Express Gate is no longer displayed at power-on. Onboard sound does not support multi-channel output over SPDIF/Optical (analog only).

Overall Review: Q9450 @ 3.2Ghz, 4GB Corsair XMS3, Seagate ES.2 HDD, Plextor EIDE DVD±RW, evga 9800GX2