Enter the Asus P5E3 Deluxe  Wifi-AP@n, comes fully equipped with a now-defacto standard of features that Asus has made nearly uniform for its premium boards - and more!

One of the first boards from Asus with an Intel X38 chipset, the P5E3 series is set to dominate performance market segments. Offering support for native DDR3 - up to 1800 mhz when overclocked - is a huge boon to overclockers and potential upgraders!

One of the key points of the X38 board is the allocation of not one, but two PCIE 2.0 slots for graphic cards ! With both slots at X16 speeds, Crossfire dual card setups can now experience the full bandwidth provided!

The P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP@n we received comes with wireless 802.11N capabilities. A boost for wireless users , no need to purchase an additional wireless N adapter to take advantage of your wireless home's capabilities - especially if you have a wireless 'N' router at home!

Let's take a look at the specifications:

The Asus P5E3 Comes with a remote controller to help savvy users to maintain absolute control of their PCs - even from a distance! With it, users can set power up their PC, their wireless LAN adapters, switch wireless connection type, play and pause different sorts of media, and even set the computer to run in an "ultra-quiet low power mode" , that leaves programs like Instant Messasging and downloads still running whilst the computer quietens down and draws less power. Really handy when you are about to retire to bed and won't want a loud and menacing "Vacuum" in your room !

Because of the embedded Energy Processing Unit - an independent chip located onboard the motherboard itself, wholly designed by ASUS - users are able to activate the EPU via the remote provided - not to mention activating the DUAL Wireless LAN antennae that are provided too !

The ASUS EPU utilizes innovative technology to digitally monitor and tune the CPU power supply with improved VR responses in heavy or light loadings. It automatically provides power for higher performance or improve efficiency by 7% when the PC is running low intensity applications. Working together with AI Gear 3, this can help you attain the best possible power efficiency and energy savings up to 58.6% to help save the environment.

The Asus P5E3 Deluxe Wifi-AP@n comes with a host of features to help you - the power user of today & tomorrow - enhance your digital life!

• Support for the latest 45nm Multi Core CPUs - including upcoming processors right up to the Intel Quad Core Extreme 9xxx series!
•  Intel X38 chipset - native support for Intel Fast Memory Access technology and X.M.P, DDR3-1333mhz and above - guaranteed to soak users in blazing fast memory performance!
•  Dual PCIE 2.0 x16 slots, 1 x8 slot. - Full advantages of dual x16 slots will be usable!
•  Crossfire technology - Users can take advantage of ATi GPUs in dual or even triple crossfire mode.
•  Asus Express Gate : It so happens that the board is embedded with a Linux OS ! From bootup, users are offered the option of entering a Linux environment where striped down versions of Mozilla Firefox and Skype are available for use!
•  Asus WiFi-AP @n - dual wireless LAN antennae offer enhanced signal strength and the function to act in AP or Client mode.
•  Asus EPU - onboard dedicated Processing Unit enables improved VR responses in multiple load situations, and automatically adjusts power usage. Saves you power, and helps save the environment too! Clean and Green buffs will love the board!
•  3rd Generation 8 Phase Power Design - higher efficiency and quality components ensure stable operating temperatures and longer component life!
•  Five 3-pin fan controllers - 4 of them controllable via BIOS through "Q Fan" function

The Asus P5E3 Deluxe Wifi-AP@n in its glory.

Expressgate embedded Linux OS for instant surfing! More about this functionality later in the review.

We have a view of the socket area, excellent clearance space , large 3rd party cooling solutions should encounter no resistance here!  From this picture we can also see the 8 phase power design of the board. Very impressive lineup of solid capacitors too !

The underside of the board, large Asus Stack Cool 2 logo there, together with an enhanced backplate for the chipset for added strength during vertical mounting of the board!

A generous array of I/O ports, including 6 USB, 2 gigabit, SPDIF and 7.1 Audio ports ! Note the droppage of the P/s2 Mouse port - seems times are a' catching up on the venerable P/s2 port ! With the introduction of more and more keyboards and mice with native USB connections, it really hard to justify the need for a P/S2 port for mice!

The chipset is cooled by a large and extensive copper-piped heatsink - with the option of having supplied optional fans mounted at distinct intervals of the chipset to enhance cooling.

Neatly stacked SATA ports , with support for 2 IDE devices provided by a single ATA port powered by an external Jmicron controller.

The main attraction folks - the Dual PCIE 2.0 x16 slots in navy blue !

A winbond W836270HG chip controls the onboard temperature sensor probes and fan speed detectors.

A Marvell Yukon chip controls one of the two onboard Gigabit LAN connections.

Two SATA ports and the single PATA port are controled by this Jmicron JMB363 chip.The JMB363 supports both AHCI and Legacy IDE controller to increase system feasibility, including Native Command Queuing (NCQ), Hot Plugging, ATAPI Device Supporting, Port Multiplier with Command-based Switching Supporting, Programmable Output Swing Control to fit SATA II Gen1m and Gen2m (External SATA Connection, eSATA).

The other onboard Gigabit LAN connection is controlled by this RTL8110SC chip. The Realtek RTL8110SC LOM Gigabit Ethernet controllers (RTL8110SC (128 QFP) & RTL8110SCL (128 LQFP)) combine a triple-speed IEEE 802.3 compliant Media Access Controller (MAC) with a triple-speed Ethernet transceiver, 32-bit PCI bus controller, and embedded memory.

Onboard firewire controleld by this Agere chip. We are unsure of the specifications because of the recent LSI-Agere merger.

Onboard audio is provided by the ADI1988B Codec from Soundmax, featuring superior audio sound quality from Sonic Focus' audio enhancement technologies, and improved VOIP and speech recognition.

The ICS 9LPRS918HKL clock control chipset is used on the board.

Yes that's right gents, your eyes are not deceiving you! Fresh in is the QX9650 in our testing lab! And we can only say - it's a monster! From the 3Ghz default clock speeds we've managed to clock it right up to a decent 4.42Ghz on air cooling via a Scythe Andy !

Voltage options available in BIOS

Test Bed :

• CPU : Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 (Default @ 3Ghz)
• Board : Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFI-AP@n
• Ram : 2 x 1GB DDR3 1333mhz Kingston HyperX @ 7-7-7-20 2T
• HDD : Seagate 80GB 7200.7 SATA
• Graphics : Asus HD 2900XT 512mb GDDR3
• PSI : Enermax  Galaxy1000W
• Display : Dell 3007 WFP 30" LCD @ 2560x1600 Native Resolution

And here are the results!

3D Mark 06 @ 1280 x 1024  CPU score, the CPU really shined when it came to overclocking! the board was able to push past the 7K CPU mark !

3D Mark 03's difference was much more substantial , with the 4.42Ghz QX9650 leading the score by amost 2000 points based on CPU frequency increments alone.

Super Pi showed the tremendous increase in CPU processing power. At 4.42ghz, the 8mb calculations finished almost 50 seconds faster!

COHOF yielded mediocre results. Average of 3 FPS performance increase.

World in Conflict saw not much increase in FPS, we suspect it could be more GPU intensive instead of focusing on CPU operations.

Call of Juarez yielded more noticeable results! But again we can see the limitation of the GPUs at higher resolutions!

We have 3 boards in the arena - The P5E3 Deluxe , the P5K3 Deluxe and the Asus Blitz !

Will the P5E3 Deluxe be able to hold its ground against the onslaught of its two 'older' siblings ?

Let's find out now!

Test Bed  :

• CPU : Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX6850 @ 3ghz
• Ram : 2 x 1GB DDR3 1333mhz Kingston HyperX @ 7-7-7-20 2T
• HDD : Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 80GB
• Graphics : ATi Radeon HD 2900XT 512mb GDDR3
• Powersupply : Enermax Galaxy 1000W
• Display : Dell 3007 WFP 30" LCD @ 2560x1600 Native Resolution

The P5K3 had a lead in 3d Mark 06, surprisingly the P5E3 was last in the pack!

3D Mark 03 followed suit, this time with the Asus Blitz leading the pack! The P5E3 maintained middle ground, with the P5K3 slipping down to 3rd.

World in Conflict represents one of the more intensive games out there on the market, and we ran it in full DirectX 10 glory in Windows Vista , just to experience the visual eye candy ! Average FPS had the P5E3 in the lead, way ahead of the P5K3 And Blitz!

Quake 4 had the tables turned in favour of the P5K3 once again. We are suspecting the good memory performance of the P5K3 to be the culprit in attaining such good scores !

Call of Juarez is the killer! With DirectX 10 effects in windows Vista, we had the Blitz and P5K3 trying to keep up with the P5E3 which had a frame more in Average FPS.

The decisive factor - we take our time, and slot in another Ati Radeon HD 2900XT card.

We carefully mount the two flexible CrossFire connectors on the bridges of both cards.

We boot the system up and wait in anticipation.

The Dell 3007WFP in our lab lights up in a flurry, quickly entering Windows Vista.

We enable CrossFire.

Our odyssey begins !

Test Bed  :

• CPU : Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX6850 @ 3ghz
• Ram : 2 x 1GB DDR3 1333mhz Kingston HyperX @ 7-7-7-20 2T
• HDD : Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 80GB
• Graphics : ATi Radeon HD 2900XT 512mb GDDR3 x 2 in CrossFire mode
• Powersupply : Enermax Galaxy 1000W
• Display : Dell 3007 WFP 30" LCD @ 2560x1600 Native Resolution

The Blitz had a slight edge over the P5E3 in 3d Mark 06. Pretty decent scores from the P5E3.

3d Mark 03 had the P5E3 blazing forward ahead of the other two boards, at 62399 points! It even left the Blitz in the dust !

World in conflict had neglible differences of 1-2 fps between the boards. Again we state, it's highly probably that the GPUs are the limitation at this resolution !

Company of Heroes in DX10 proved to be difficult even for the CrossFired 2900XT duo ! All 3 boards had neglible differences between them.

Bioshock was disappointingly limited, we suspect it could be due to a FPS refreshlock that the game has built in.

Call of Juarez once again favours the design of the P5E3 , and it leads the pack!

The P5E3 takes the lead!! Unreal Tournament 3, with its Unreal 3.0 Engine and supreme HDR lighting effects and physics is designated to be THE next definitive first person shooter this year! the P5E3 edged out both boards to attain 57 Average FPS  @ 2560x1600, definitely very playable!

With the ExpressGate function, you, our lovely readers, can expect to start surfing webpages and communicate via the ever-popular Skype !

Striped down versions of both Mozilla Firefox and Skype are included in an embedded Linux that appears right when u press the "Power On" button of your computer! You can choose to boot into windows , enter the Linux OS or enter the BIOS, and everything is almost instant! Kudos to Asus for making such nifty and handy features, as some of us are simply too lazy to wait for the computer to start up sometimes, just to check some of our favourite websites (hey, remember to check VR-Zone too!) and Email, and sometimes even communicate with friends, family or colleages. The ExpressGate function grants you that ability to keep in touch - minus the hassle!

Upon boot up, you have an option to log straight into the Expressgate function, either Web or Skype.

The Splashtop Linux OS

You can watch Crunchyroll and youtube too!

You can choose which connection to use

You can configure your own network settings too.

With this coming of the X38 chipset, it's safe to say energy efficiency is on everyone's mind right now. Major brands are beginning the shift towards power efficient designs and products, with Power efficient processors, to power supplies, to hard disks, and right now - motherboards.

Asus has a real gem in this P5E3 Deluxe. It's a strong and study board that can easily withstand the perils of time , and yet provide enough juice for the constantly-changing digital lifestyle of today's demanding users. Built with power efficiency and a user's lifestyle in mind, the P5E3 Deluxe has carved a niche out in our hearts here at VR-Zone. We certainly had a good time exploring its features and parting with it left pleasant memories.

Crossfire performance was meagre on all boards, but do note that we tested on a 30 inch monitor @ 2560x1600 resolution. We wanted to see HD gaming in  its full glory ! Playable performance for single player games, but do not expect fluid movements or lag-free multiplayer fights. The majority of users out there using 1920x1200 resolutioned monitors and below should have no performance issues with CrossFire setups. The P5E3 does have it's merits when coming to CrossFire performance; much of it has to do with the dual x16 PCIE 2.0 slots.

The X38 chipset still has a long way to go in terms of maturity, but with this much features on the P5E3 Deluxe, an embedded Linux OS, Wireless N Connectivity, Dual e-SATA out and onboard EPU with sleep functions - who can complain ? Kudos to Asus for producing such a fine, feature laden board thats sure to impress the guys and girls of our growing digital generation!

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