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Intel P35 Express Motherboards Round Up

PCI Express x16 socket LGA-775 motherboards
Chipset P35 Express
PCI Express / PCI

The year is coming to a close and the market is gearing up for the holiday push. It will be a very busy fourth quarter for the tech industry, looks like everybody is launching something new this quarter. NVIDIA have already announced the GeForce 8800GT and pretty soon, a revised version of their GeForce 8800GTS will follow. AMD's graphics arm, ATI, will follow suit in several days. Intel have already announced their first 45 nm processor aimed for hardware enthusiast - the QX9650 - not to mention new chipsets, the X38 and its successor, the X48. Still on the processor front, hopefully AMD can make good on their promise to launch their Phenom X4 processors and accoompanying chipsets, the AMD 790 family this month.

All these announcements seems to come in a time where it is most needed. Gamers everywhere around the world are psyched up with the arrival of  new titles like Valve's Orange Box, Crysis, World In Conflict, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Need for Speed: Pro Street and Gears of War. Unreal Tournament for the PC is also slated for fourth quarter release - hopefully Epic can make the deadline without too many bugs. Of all these games, Crysis is perhaps the most awaited of all and judging from many of the performance previewss all around the web, really, REALLY, tax your hardware to the limit. No doubt gamers who want more performance or just plain playable frame rates will scramble for new hardware.

Thanks to advancements in design and fabrication process, the upgrades you're likely get this quarter won't be as expensive as the ones early birds had to make early this year - though they are about the same in performance. For example, the GeForce 8800GT will cost less than the GeForce 8800GTS, offer more features (a universal video decoder much like the ones on NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 series), but offer performance close to or even surpassing the 'old' GeForce 8800GTS. Intel's latest dual core Wolfdale and quad core Yorkfield will offer slightly more performance - rough estimates is about 5 to 10 percent faster - with much better thermal dissipation and performance per watt. It also helps that the quad core Yorkfield will only cost between US$ 250 to 300 -about the same price as the Core 2 Duo was when it was first announced.

So what's the catch? Well, there's always one, isn't? If you want to use Intel's latest and greatest processor, you'll have to shelf out the bucks for a new motherboard which supports these processors - that would be Intel's Generation 3 series of chipsets - the G31/33, P35 and X38 chipsets. Does that mean you need to get DDR3 memory too? Thankfully, no -  you can still use your older DDR2 memory, as long as your memory is the same or faster than the new 1333 MHz FSB. Even if you do need to get new memory modules, DDR2 667 and 800 modules are at an all time low that you likely want to buy new ones  - maybe upgrade to 2 GB or even 4 GB.

Today, we will be looking at seven motherboards based on the P35 chipset. Three of them only suppports DDR3 memory, while the rest still uses DDR2 memory modules. They are the ASUS P5K3 and P5K Deluxe, Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 and P35-DS3P, and MSI P35 Diamond, P35 Platinum and P35 Neo. Let's look at these boards to see what they offer. 

Overview

ASUS P5K3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 96 points



The full specification (taken from ASUS's website)

CPU
LGA775 socket for Intel® Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors
Compatible with Intel® 05B/05A/06 processors
Support Intel® next generation 45nm multi-core CPU
*This motherboard supports FSB 1333/1066/800
** Please update the latest BIOS to support Intel 45nm CPU

Chipset
Intel® P35 / ICH9R with Intel® Fast Memory Access Technology

Front Side Bus
1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz

Memory
4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR3 1333*/1066 / 800 MHz, non-ECC, un-buffered memory
Dual channel memory architecture
*The chipset officially supports the memory frequency up to DDR3 1066MHz. Tuned by ASUS Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR3 1333MHz
Please refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL.

Expansion Slots
Storage
Southbridge
JMicron® JMB363 PATA and SATA controller
LAN
   
Dual Gigabit LAN controllers, featuring AI NET2
Marvell88E8056® PCI-E Gigabit LAN controllers
RealtekRTL8110SC® PCI Gigabit LAN controller

Wireless LAN
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo
54 Mbps IEEE 802.11g and backwards compatible with 11 Mbps IEEE 802.11b
Audio
ADI® AD1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
IEEE 1394
Agere® FW322 1394a controller supports 2 x IEEE 1394a ports (one at midboard; one at back panel)

USB
10 x USB 2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 6ports at back panel)

ASUS AI Lifestyle Features
ASUS Quiet Thermal Solution:
ASUS Crystal Sound:
ASUS EZ DIY:
WiFi@Home:
Other Features
ASUS MyLogo 3
Multi-language BIOS

Overclocking Features
Intelligent overclocking tools:
Precision Tweaker:
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
Overclocking Protection:
Back Panel I/O Ports
Internal I/O Connectors
BIOS
16 Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ACPI 2.0a, Multi-language BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3

Manageability
WfM 2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL by PME, WOR by PME, PXE

Accessories
Support Disc
Form Factor
ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.4cm)

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