Introduction

Though they make many other products, when I think of Asus, I think of motherboards. Between their enthusiast boards and OEM boards, Asus has definitely left their mark on the motherboard industry. Their LGA775 boards are preferred by a significant number of enthusiasts, and that number is steadily growing.

Today I will be looking at the Asus P5K Pro, a DDR2 P35 board. Though the X38 boards have been out a while, and the X48 boards are finally hitting the market, the P35 chipset is still very popular, with its maturity and excellent performance. The P5K Pro is an economy-minded board, filling in the fairly sizable gap between the P5K Deluxe and the stripped down P5K SE. How will the P5K Pro size up against its big brother? Read on to see.

Specifications:

CPU:

Intel Socket 775 Core2 Quad/Core2 Extreme/Core2 Duo/Pentium Extreme/Pentium D/Pentium 4 Processors
Compatible with Intel 05B/05A/06 processors
New power design supports next generation Intel Prescott CPU

Chipset:
Intel P35
Intel ICH9R
Intel Fast Memory Access Technology
Front Side Bus
1600/1333/1066/800 MHz

Memory:
4 x DIMM, Max. 8 GB, DDR2 1066*/800/667 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture
* The chipset officially supports the memory frequency up to DDR2 800MHz. Tuned by ASUS Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR2 1066MHz

Features:

Expansion Slots:

2 x PCIe x16 (blue @ x16 mode, black @ x4 or x1 mode) supports
2 x PCIe x1
2 x PCI

Storage:
6 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports
Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10

Marvell 88SE6102 PATA controller:
1 xUltraDMA 133/100/66 for up to 2 PATA devices

LAN:
Marvell88E8056 PCIe Gigabit LAN controller featuring AI NET2

Audio:
Realtek ALC 883, 8 -Channel High-Definition Audio CODEC
Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF out ports at back I/O
Support Enumeration, Multi-streaming

IEEE 1394:
VIA VT6308P controller supports 2 x 1394a ports (one at midboard; one at back panel)

USB:
12 USB 2.0 ports

Overclocking Features:

Intelligent overclocking tools
- ASUS AI Booster Utility
- ASUS AI NOS (Non-delay Overclocking System)
Precision Tweaker 2
- vDIMM: 64 -step DRAM voltage control
- vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.00625V increment
- vChipset (N.B.): 33-step Chipset voltage control
- vFSB Termination: 15-step reference voltage control
- vCPU PLL: 64-step CPU PLL voltage control
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
- FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 800MHz at 1MHz increment
- Memory tuning from 667MHz up to 800MHz
- PCI Express frequency tuning from 100MHz up to 150MHz at 1MHz increment
Overclocking Protection
- ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)

Manageability:
WfM 2.0,DMI 2.0,WOL by PME,WOR by PME, PXE

Form Factor:
ATX Form Factor
12 inch x 8.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm )

Packaging

The graphics on the P5K Pro's box is similar to other P5K enthusiast boards, but it is in a cool metallic blue color. Features are listed on both the front and rear of the box.