Asus Offers What May Be the Perfect Motherboard for the Intel Crowd - P5Q Features
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The P5Q is based upon the Intel P45 chip set, features the ICH10 southbridge and supports DDR2 (double data rate 2) RAM at
speeds up to 1200MHz. The Green moniker on the board is backed up by ROHS (Restriction
of Hazardous Substances) compliance and technologies that reduce power
consumption.
Compete specs are as follows:
- Support for 65-nanometer and 45-nm Intel socket LGA775 05B, 05A and
06 processors from families including Core 2 Extreme, Quad, Duo, Pentium
Extreme, 4 and D
- Asus EPU 6-Engine and 16-phase CPU power design
- Intel P45 northbridge
- Intel ICH10R southbridge
- Four DDR2 DIMMs (dual in-line memory
modules) supporting 667/800/1,066 and 1,200MHz memory up to 16GB in dual
channel
- Two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (in either x16/x1 or x8/x8 arrangements)
- One PCI-Express x16 slot (at x4 bandwidth)
- Two PCI-Express x1 slots
- Two PCI slots
- Six red ICH10R SATA 3G bps ports supporting
RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5
- Two orange Silicon Image Sil5723 SATA (Serial ATA) ports supporting
"Super Speed" or "EZ Backup" with DriveXpert
- One Marvell 88SE6121 controller supporting one IDE
channel and one eSATA 3G bps port
- One Marvell 88E8056 PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet
- One Marvell 88E8011 PCI Gigabit Ethernet
- ADI AD2000B 7.1 channel
High-Definition audio codec
- LSI L-FW3227 PCI IEEE1394a FireWire controller
supporting two ports
- 10 USB 2.0 ports (four through
pin-outs, six on the rear I/O)
- Asus ExpressGate SSD
- Asus DieHard BIOS, Q-Shield, Q-Connector, AI Booster with Precision Tweaker
BIOS function and AI Suite
Integrators will also find that the P5Q comes with a nice thick manual and multiple high-quality cables (SATA, IDE, USB,
power adapters and others), along with a driver CD and backplane plate. Simply
put, the board comes with everything a system builder would need.
Even so, it is the little touches that add the most value. For example, Asus includes something called a Q-Connector, which functions as an adapter between the
case's various cables (power, reset, LEDs) and the motherboard. The Q-Connector
simplifies a task that was somewhat tedious and will help to put a smile on
many an assembler's face. By plugging the case cables into the Q-Connector,
assemblers can avoid the task of plugging each cable individually into the
motherboard, in an area that is usually cramped and not well lit.
Asus further eases things for system builders by incorporating alternate
reset and power buttons directly into the motherboard. Those LED-lit buttons
make troubleshooting and testing much easier when the board is on the bench for
evaluation. Asus helps to further simplify maintenance by allowing the BIOS
to be flashed directly from a USB key drive.
All one has to do is copy the BIOS file to a key drive, insert the key drive
into an available USB port and boot into the
BIOS settings to run a self-contained BIOS update utility. That eliminates the
need to create boot disks and run operating system-based BIOS flash utilities
to just update the BIOS.
