Introduction

It's not something that we in the enthusiast world really think about, but there is a market out there for high-end computers that will probably never do any gaming, be overclocked, water cooled, or any other of the cool stuff that geeks do with their rigs. For example, a design engineer might desire a CAD workstation using multiple large screens...as many as six or eight...at high resolution. Anyone designing animation would like such a rig.

The dual-processor Mac Pro has cornered the market for graphics workstations from the beginning, and since they've gone the Intel route, you can even get one with dual quad Xeons. But we're talking six-seven grand or more to get decent multiple graphics cards, plenty of hard drive space, and eight gigs of DDR2 ram. Sure, a Hollywood animation studio or corporation like General Dynamics wouldn't bat an eye at paying that kind of cash, but I'm talking someone that has a budget of half that or less. And besides...it is a Mac.

So, what does someone desiring to build a modern upper-end graphics workstation do? Asus has an answer with the P5K64 WS, a workstation motherboard based on the very successful Intel P35 chipset. Today we will be looking at the P5K64 WS, to see if it has anything that would hold the interest of the enthusiast. Can it satisfy the geek? Read ahead to see.

The packaging of the P5K64WS is a little more tame than that of Asus' enthusiast/gaming boards. A look at the graphics let us know what this board is intended to be used for, the back of the box shows us a photo of the board itself, and gives the specs. Open the box, and we see that it is quite full of stuff.

Specifications:

CPU:
Socket 775 for Intel Core2 processors / Pentium D / Pentium 4 / Celeron CPU
Support Intel 65nm, Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo
Support Intel next gerneration Multi-core CPU
Intel EM64T / EIST / Hyper-Threading Technology
Support Intelr next generation 45nm Multi-core CPU
* Please update the latest BIOS to support Intel 45nm CPU

Chipset:
North Bridge: Intel MCH P35
South Bridge: Intel ICH9R
Front Side Bus: 1333/1066/800 MHz

Memory:
4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR3 1333/1066/800, non-ECC un-buffered memory
Dual channel architecture

Expansion Slots:
4 x PCI-E x 16 slots
2 x PCI 2.2

Storage:
Intel ICH9R controller: 6 x SATA 150/300 (RAID 0,1,10,5)
Ext SATA controller:
2 x eSATA 150/300
1 x ATA

Audio:
RealTek ALC888, 8 channels Azalia Audio codecs
Multi-Streaming
Jack Sensing and Enumeration
Jack Retasking
S/PDIF Out interface

LAN: Marvell 88E8052/88E8001 Dual Gb LAN
USB 2.0: 12 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

BIOS:
16Mb flash ROM, AMI BIOS, Green, PnP, DMI v2.0, Wfm2.0, ACPI v2.0a, SMBIOS v 2.3, EZ flash2, CrashFree BIOS3

Manageability:
WOL by PME, WOR by PME, PXE, AI NET, Chassis Intrusion
BIOS flash utility under DOS
Support Disc:
AI Booster
ASUS PC Probe II
Symantec NIS 2006
Adobe Acrobat Reader ver 7.0
Microsoft Direct X ver 9.0C

Form Factor: ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x 24.5cm)
O/S Compatibility: Windows Vista/XP