Asus P5B-E Plus socket 775 Motherboard p965
Close Look - Asus P5B-E Plus Motherboard
Published: 28th December 2006 | Source: | Price: |
Asus has made another board with a black PCB. This is good to see as black PCB's look great in a case with a side window. The colours on the board look good in general and you can clearly differentiate the various ports and parts from one another. We notice that the board doesn't have any heatpipe system like the P5B Deluxe, but it is also fanless which is good to see. Bear in mind though, that you may have to direct a case fan the way of the North Bridge when overclocking.
It's good to see that Asus have chosen to use high-quality conductive polymer capacitors on the board throughout, giving us a hint that overclocking may prove to be pretty nice. The general layout of the board is pretty nice and most niggles seem to be missing. There were a couple of issues that I noticed. One was that the battery is right below the PCI-E slot so if you have a major overclock failure or have to reset CMOS the hard way then it's tough to get to it (though it can be done if you have a small PCI-E graphics card). I did notice something a bit more major in that the CPU area seems a bit high on capacitors. I just managed to squeeze the Scythe Infinity that I have for testing onto the board, but others with more difficult-to-fit coolers may experience problems.
As you see in the first picture, the caps are pretty close in. 8 PIN power for the EATX12v connector is used, although by blocking off one half of it Asus make it clear you can use a 4PIN connector in there too. At this point I'll point out that the board uses 4 phase power, which should keep from too much fluctuation during overclocking.
With this being a single-GPU P965 based board Asus have managed to implement 1 x PCI-e x16 slot 3 x PCI slots, 1 x PCI-e x4 slot and a PCI-e x1 slot. This gives you plenty of IO options, although another normal PCI slot may have been appreciated by those of us who see the utter lack of PCI-e x4 and below cards out there. The extra JMicron SATA port can be seen here and it seems to be in a better place than on most boards towards the top edge of the board.
Another 6 SATA ports gives you a total of 7 to play with: not bad for a board in this price range. The main IDE port is turned on it's side to face out, great for wiring. We also see top-right the closeness of the PCI-e x16 lane and the CMOS battery.
The RAM sits far enough away from the CPU area to be able to have any height module installed in there. Notice the 24PIN power and FDD connector sitting at the edge of the board...more cable routing good news.
Overall I'm pretty happy that the board is well laid out, with just the couple of minor niggles mentioned. Asus have done a nice job with the layout and have avoided a lot of the usual pitfalls that some motherboard makers have suffered from.
Overall I'm pretty happy that the board is well laid out, with just the couple of minor niggles mentioned. Asus have done a nice job with the layout and have avoided a lot of the usual pitfalls that some motherboard makers have suffered from.
Most Recent Comments
I think the page 5 32million Super Pi test graph is wrong? 19 sec 32mil test??
Edit: Looks like a sweet arse board!
Edit: Looks like a sweet arse board!
Bah ye tis in Minutes 
Frag u @ home?
Frag u @ home?
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Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
Bah ye tis in Minutes
Frag u @ home? |
Changed with some faffing
Good board but I'm glad I didn't purchase it. 2.1v vDimm would have made me sell it the minute I booted it up.
Anyway, extremely thorough review Kemp.
Looks great!
Anyway, extremely thorough review Kemp.
Looks great!As usual great review..
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Originally Posted by name='NickS'
Good board but I'm glad I didn't purchase it. 2.1v vDimm would have made me sell it the minute I booted it up.
Anyway, extremely thorough review Kemp. Looks great! |
But ye tis a nice board
Hey Kemp, I just thought I'd let you know about a couple of typos I think I found under the Introduction section on page 1
Am gonna read the whole review tonight looks like a good read btw!
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Originally Posted by name='kemp
Asus has a long and excellent history of making some of the best motherboards that money can buy. In recent years [b]they've[/b'] even managed to step it up a notch and produce some awesome enthusiast boards.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
2.4vDIMM mate
But ye tis a nice board |
Some P5B's (well, some revisions) were known to max out at 2.1v also.
2.4 is still slightly low, but safe for D9. Above 2.4, heck, even 2.4v for D9 will kill it slowly.
Ye it's 2.45v which isn't too bad, though very slightly low I spose.
@ spirtd: Changed the they've, but I think have looks fine to me
@ spirtd: Changed the they've, but I think have looks fine to me
Kempez IS an English major
Hi
Nice review... just wanted to add Matthew, that and the bottom of this page, you have included direct link to www.abit.com.tw :-)
"Thanks To Asus for the Review Sample"
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?type=3&id=142&page=9&desc=asus_p5b-e_plus_socket_775_motherboard_p965
Nice review... just wanted to add Matthew, that and the bottom of this page, you have included direct link to www.abit.com.tw :-)
"Thanks To Asus for the Review Sample"
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?type=3&id=142&page=9&desc=asus_p5b-e_plus_socket_775_motherboard_p965
Oops, dunno what I was doing there
Changed
Changed
Hey Kemp is this the same as the Asus P5B Plus on their website?
Why the P5B E?
Why the P5B E?
That's what the box (and mobo) said mate
An amazing read thanks!
Another Good review, and i gotta say i really like my P5B-E, i bought it to save a bit of money on bits of the P5B-deluxe that i didn't need, liek the Wifi and dual LAN etcand im pleased as it's performed great, overclocks well and only cost £75
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Originally Posted by name='Pingman'
Another Good review, and i gotta say i really like my P5B-E, i bought it to save a bit of money on bits of the P5B-deluxe that i didn't need, liek the Wifi and dual LAN etcand im pleased as it's performed great, overclocks well and only cost £75
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I've just realised, mine is just the P5B-E not the P5B-E PLUS. Is there a difference between the two?
Not much of a muchness I don't think, is yours black?
Yellow
Ye this ones black and has a few more SATA ports I think
Did you read the review and look at the pics? lol
Did you read the review and look at the pics? lol
Yeah i read it lol 
I just assumed because the box and board were different colours that i had a later/earlier revision or you hada 'review' sample, only when i checked my box i saw it ha no PLUS.
I just assumed because the box and board were different colours that i had a later/earlier revision or you hada 'review' sample, only when i checked my box i saw it ha no PLUS.
Does anyone know if this board will support the penryns that are out soon?
I would imagine so with a BIOS update, but don't expect the longevity to cover Nehalem procs (LGA1366). All you need do is head to the manufacturers website to find the answer, which I have already done for you here
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Originally Posted by name='ASUS'
- Support Intel® next generation 45nm Multi-core CPU
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