Introduction

Looking for a cheaper board that doesn't burn a big hole in your pocket ? The ASUS P5Q-E based on the Intel P45 chipset might just be the board to consider.

This board is based on Intel P45+ICH10R and it supports the Core 2 Extreme to Core 2 duo, Pentium extreme, Pentium D, Pentium 4 processors running on 1600/1333/1066/800MHz FSB. The board uses a fan less design with heat pipe and Stack Cool2.
 

It has 4 DIMM supporting a max of 16GB of DDR2-1200/1066/800/667 non ECC unbuffered memory on dual channel architecture. The board also has 2 PCie x16 slots support CrossFire in dual PCIe x8. Another third slot operates a PCIe x4. There are a max of 12 USB ports that can be supported on this board. 6 at mid board and 6 via back panel.

The board has 6 SATAA II ports that can be configured as RAID 0,1,5,10 via ICH10R. 1 IDE+2 eSATA is controlled by an onboard marvell 88SE6121 controller. A third controler the Silicon image SIL5723 (drive expert technology) controls 2 other SATA II ports, supporting EZ backup and Super Speed (basically raid 0 and raid 1).

There are Dual GbE controllers using Marvell chipsets. Audio is supported by ADI AD2000B HDA. 1394 is by LSI L-FW3227 supporting 2 1394a ports.

This board has some ASUS unique features like the EPU six engine and 8 phase power design. There is also Express Gate and AI direct Link.

The package is rather simple with SATA cable, IDE cable, power converter cable, DVD ROM and P5Q-E Manual

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