![p5k e price p5k e price](https://images.hardwarezone.com/upload/files/2010/04/b2e3357862.jpg)
Throughout my testing, I have found it to be more reliable than previous WiFi cards I have used. The included WiFi card is another large bonus, as it works very well. This board doesn’t have that many faults that I can find, so I had to mention something. Other than that fact, the board layout is great, with the exception of that ugly top copper heatsink, which doesn’t match the others on the board. I don’t know a single person that has ever used a PCI-E 1x slot. To prevent this, ASUS could have shifted the useless PCI-E 1x slots in the place of the two PCI slots that you will be wiping out. However, if you are planning to use dual GPU that happen to also have dual slot coolers, then it will deem two of the PCI slots unusable. It’s Crossfire ready and includes a good supply of PCI slots for your audio cards, PhysX or other add-ins. Performance aside, the P5K also has a nice feature-set. It didn’t come too close to the P5N-E’s staggering 495 – 500 FSB, but it’s a healthy serving regardless. In some cases, the XBX2 proved the better board for certain multi-media tests, but the P5K picked up the slack elsewhere.Īs far as overclocking goes, this board hit a comfortable 475 – 480 FSB, just like it’s bigger brother, the P5K3. Even though the DDR3 had more loose timings, the extra frequency is all that mattered.īut, even compared to the XBX2 and eVGA 680i boards, which ran components at the same speeds as the P5K, they seemed to be no competition.
![p5k e price p5k e price](https://www.helpowl.com/manualimages/b/u/asus-p5ke-user-manual-aa0eb27_11_44bc.png)
However, while both boards topped out most of the charts, the P5K3 always inched past the P5K, which I assume to be thanks to the faster memory frequency. Throughout most of the tests, namely gaming, both P35 boards performed exceptionally. After benchmarking with this board, I think it’s safe to say that it was a combination of both. When we had taken a look at the P5K3 board last week, we were not sure whether it was the new Intel P35 chipset that was helping it top out each chart, or if it was the fact that the DDR3 memory was faster.