ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP ATX Intel Motherboard

ASUS is reputated for its high quality products, especially motherboards, and the P5WDH Deluxe is not an exception. The Asus P5WDH Deluxe is based on Intel's 975 chipset, which supports Intel Core 2Extreme, Core 2Duo, Pentium 4EE, Pentium D, Pentium 4, CeleronD processors for Socket LGA775. It features 1066/800/533MHz FSB, dual-channel un-buffered DDR2 667/533/400 x 4DIMMs up to a maximum of 4GB. ASUS P5W DH Deluxe is specially designed for Gamers, Personal Workstation, SoHo, high-end and multi-tasking PC users. The Intel 975X is Intel most high-end desktop chipset designed to support Intel next generation CPU, ATI CrossFire Graphics, maximum 8GB dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533 architecture, 1066/800 FSB (front-side-bus). Easily build an entertainment PC or create a multimedia environment with its exceptionally high bandwidth. Together with the Serial ATA ports enabled through the SATA 3Gb/s RAID controller integrated in the ICH7R Southbridge, the Intel 975X satisfies multi-task processing and data security.

Abit's AB9 Pro and AW9D MAX motherboards

ABIT HAS BEEN ON the comeback trail since its acquisition by USI, and we've been impressed by the company's recent AN8 32X and AT8 32X motherboards for Athlon 64 processors. Intel's Core 2 Duo has become the processor of choice for PC enthusiasts, though, and we've yet to see what a reinvigorated Abit can do with an LGA775 socket.
Interestingly, Abit's most famous boards have been for Intel processors. Classics like the BH6 and BP6 essentially defined the enthusiast-oriented motherboard genre, making us particularly eager to see how Abit can complement the Core 2 Duo.
The most intriguing members of Abit's Core 2-compatible motherboard lineup are the AB9 Pro and AW9D MAX. The former is the most affordable P965 board to feature the ICH8R south bridge, and it comes with all the hardware monitoring, fan speed control, and overclocking options you'd expect from an Abit board. For those looking for a little something extra, the AW9D adds CrossFire support and marks the resurgence of Abit's high-end MAX brand. Read on to see if either of these boards has the potential to become another classic.

Intel DX48BT2 Extreme Series Motherboard

The Intel DX48BT2, formerly codenamed Bone Trail, is targeted at enthusiasts and gamers.
It is the first Intel board to support 1,600MHz frontside bus (FSB) — the interconnect between processor and RAM — for even faster memory access and extra room for overlocking.
The Intel DX48BT2 will support the latest Core 2 Extreme processors, including the new quad and dual-core chips, as it utilises the X48 Express chipset.
Of the four memory sockets, two support up to 4GB memory at a whopping 1,600MHz speed but if all four sockets are used the board will support up to 8GB but at slower speeds of 1,333/1,066/800MHz.
Gamers will have a lot of ports at their disposal as the board has two Firewire ports, 12 USB ports, three PCI-e slots (of which two are full-speed PCI-e 2.0 slots), 2 PCI expansion slots, and six SATA 3.0 Gbps (gigabits per second) ports.
The board also supports Intel Matrix Storage Technology which allows multiple hard disks to be used in a RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) configuration either for faster speed or increased reliability.

Motherboard SW-865G7 with socket 775

Intel?865GV+ICH5 chipsetSupports 800/533MHz FSB Intel Socket 775 Pentium 4 & Celeron D CPU, support Intel latest Prescott CPU;2.Supports Hyper-Threading Technology (Hyper-Threading) technology; automatic identify main CPU (Jumper-free).3. Integrating Intel Extreme Graphics 2 graphic card, 1 AGP 8X graphic card slot.4.2 DDR DIMM slot, support CHANNEL (dual channel) DDR 400 memory, max support 3GB 5.3 PCI slots 6. Integrating sound card Realtek ALC655 6 sound channel7. RTL8100C 10/100Mbps adaptive network card.8. Provide 6 USB 2.0 high speeds transmit connector.9. Three phase source loop10. MATX

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650

To stay at the top of our game we really only had two choices, the QX9650 or QX9770 from Intel. Both of these Core 2 Extreme processors feature the same pair of dual core Penryn dice, providing a total of 12 MB L2 cache. The so called Wolfdale “core” also features a 45nm manufacturing process using intel’s latest “High-K” gate oxide to reduce power consumption and decrease transistor switching time (for higher clock speeds).

Clocked at 3.2 GHz and using a 1600 MHz FSB data rate, the QX9770 would appear to be the clear performance choice over the 3.0 GHz, FSB-1333 QX9650. However, our QX9650 had two advantages over our QX9770: Better overclocking and lower list price.
Though we can’t guarantee anyone else will have the same overclocking experience, the fact that our QX9650 has proven itself capable of overclocking 100-200 MHz farther than our QX9770 indicates that luck-of-the-draw plays at least some part in Intel’s validation process. And yes, we do plan on overclocking. Meanwhile, the QX9650’s lower list price leaves a little extra room in our budget for additional components.

ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition

A few weeks ago, we reviewed the high end board from ASUS, the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe featuring the 975X chipset. Today, we take a look at its little brother the P5B Deluxe based on the 965P chipset. This motherboard supports the most powerful and energy efficient Intel® Core™2 processors. It features the Intel® P965 chipset and supports DDR2 800MHz dual-channel memory architecture. Quiet thermal technologies – 8-Phase Power Design, Stack Cool 2, Heat Pipe Design, Q-Fan 2 and Optional Fan – together provide a comfortable environment for the processor, memory, graphics card and other components to interoperate effectively. With exclusive innovative tools – AI NOS™, AI Gear and AI Nap – users can adjust operation speed according to their specific needs. This motherboard is a cool and stable platform that delivers extreme performance, minimum noise and maximum power saving!

ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

Introduction:We know Asus and Gigabyte being the top notched preferred motherboards for PC enthusiasts. Some of us may be aware of the fact that the manufacturing arms of Asustek cover Asus, Gigabyte and ASRock with different market segments, marketing and channel of distributions allowing Asustek to capture better than 50% of the global market.It was about a year ago when Intel introduced Core 2 Duo. PC enthusiasts were overjoyed with the new King in CPU performance over AMD A64 X2 series processors. At the same time, ASRock came out with 775Dual-VSTA mainboard to greet PC enthusiasts who wanted to keep using their DDR1 and AGP graphic card and to taste the Core 2 Duo performance at the same time. The low cost ASRock 775Dual-VSTA was more than welcome when it could also run at 300 FSB to give that extra kick.ASRock continues this successful recipe in the continual use of the Intel 945P chipset allowing the use of DDR2 and PCIe into 2007. A year later, we are looking at the latest from ASRock, ConRoe 1333-DVI/H, supporting 1333FSB to meet the latest Intel processor released last month (July).