ASUS P5B Deluxe Wifi-AP Intel P965 Motherboard

Introduction:

   If you know anything about computer hardware, you know ASUS is as top-tier of a manufacturer as it gets. They've built a name with excellent quality, superb product selections, and maybe most importantly; consistency. ASUS is usually first to market with the latest and greatest hardware and people anxiously await, and buy, their latest releases. They have built a trustable name that buyers can be rest assured they're getting the very best products that money can buy. Take for example my previous ASUS motherboard review on the M2N32-SLI Deluxe. That motherboard took the AMD AM2 buyers by storm and remains to be one of the best enthusiasts motherboards currently on the market.

   Today I have for you one such "latest and greatest" product from ASUS. It's the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP motherboard. It's one of ASUS` new socket 775 motherboards built on the spanking new Intel P965 chipset specifically designed for use with the (also spanking new) Intel Core 2 Duo processors. At a selling price of about $249, this is not your average motherboard. The ASUS P5B Deluxe is what I would call "high-end mainstream". I say that because it's not dual x16 SLI or dual x16 Crossfire ready. However for the rest of the high end buyers out there that do not run dual graphics cards, this could be a winner. Let's take a look.

Quick Look:

Retail Box Front	Retail Box Back	Inside the Lid	Under the Lid
Box Label	Box Sleeve Gone	Handle	Opening the Box

   As you can see, the ASUS P5B Deluxe comes with sleeve-over-box design which allows ASUS to put an absolute ton of information around the outsides of the packaging and inside too. The outside is a sleeve packaging that also has a flip open lid and inside shows a ton of information on your new motherboard. Sliding the sleeve off to one side reveals the actual motherboard box.

   Opening that box will first reveal the included accessories from ASUS and underneath all that stuff is the ASUS P5B Deluxe itself. I'll get more into detail on the motherboard in the following pages, but for now, here's a quick glance for you.

What's Included

Stack Cool 2

P5B Deluxe

P5B Deluxe

   The ASUS P5B Deluxe comes with the usual fare of unique accessories including a custom fan designed for mounting on the passive heatsink on the motherboard. Also included is a circular antenna for the built-in WiFi-AP solo and an ASUS array mic for the built-in audio.

ASUS Q-Connector

Passive Cooling Fan

   Another noteworthy inclusion is the ASUS Q-Connector which allows you to easily connect the chassis wires like power, reset, etc onto a small connector and then attach that as one piece to the motherboard. No more flashlight and needle nose pliers inside the case trying to install them one by one onto the motherboard! Hurray!

  The layout of the P5B Deluxe is very well done and reminds me a bit of the M2N32-SLI I reviewed previously. The heatpipe seems like a short version to me since I'm used to the triple setup like the M2N32-SLI. I'm guessing the Intel ICH8 southbridge isn't quite as hot as the NVIDIA one, so the added expense of heatpiping both chipsets was unnecessary. The Intel ICH8 southbridge does employ a 100% copper finned heatsink though.

   You'll notice there is dual PCI express slots, however don't get your hardcore gaming hopes up. This motherboard does not officially support NVIDIA SLI or Crossfire, not that you'd want to use it on this board anyway since only one pci-e slot is 16x and the other one is 4x. However SLI is still an enthusiast choice and the P5B Deluxe is more of a mainstream high performance board, not a gaming platform.

   Moving on, there is lots of room around the socket 775 for aftermarket coolers. And speaking of socket 775, I've always liked the secure installation of the CPU in this socket. I don't know about you, but I've pulled the heatsink off an AMD and ripped the CPU right out of the socket 939. Talk about a heart attack! There is no way in hell you're ripping an Intel socket 775 CPU out with the heatsink since it's double latched in there.

Features:

- Intel LGA775 Platform
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo Ready
- Intel® Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D Ready
- Dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533
- AI NOS™ / AI Gear / AI Nap
- 8 Phase Power Design
- Fanless Design - Heat Pipe & Stack Cool 2
- Array Mic / Noise Filter 
- WiFi-AP Solo