Subsystem and Software

Asus include a variety of programs that make up their suite of tools to help you do everything from overclock to putting your PC to sleep. The AI Suite is more of a front end for other utilities which you then choose to run as needed.

The top option starts the AI Nap utility which, as it's name suggests, puts your PC to sleep. One annoying feature here is that you're asked both when you click to sleep and when you come out of sleep if that's what you really want to do; just the once going to sleep is enough in my opinion.

The mid-left option is AI Gear, which lets you select performance options for your system. AI NOS is the Asus automatic overclocking which adjusts your CPU speed according to system load. For non-overclockers this is a nice feature, but as you can imagine it will be rather conservative with its clocking.

AI Booster is used for manual overclocking from the comfort of Windows. Tabs within the application let you set and save various features of the system from voltages, to FSB frequency and even save profiles. One strange issue with this was that every time I set a new FSB and opted to apply the new setting, I was told the system needed to be restarted to complete the change. I can do that myself through the BIOS.

The last item is Asus Q-Fan which lets you control fan speeds according to presets.

That covers the AI Suite, but that isn't the end of the included software. Asus PC Probe II lets you monitor and display your temperatures, fan speeds and voltages on your desktop as well as exploring DMI/WMI information about your system.

Asus Update gives you a few different ways to update your BIOS from within Windows. You can flash direct from a file, or the software can go looking on the net for a new BIOS file for your motherboard. We could only ever get the software to update from a file as any connection made to 3 different Asus servers resulted in the software never finding a new BIOS file despite our first BIOS being very out of date, or the servers in question were simply too busy all the time. Just for reference, we flashed from within Vista without issue.

Audio

The Asus P5K Deluxe sports an ADI® AD1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC controlled by the above software; The SoundMAX Blackwing. From a subjective listening point, things sound good although the mid range seems to be a little more predominate than most, though only just. No big deal really as if it isn't to your liking, it can easily be adjusted with the software.

Overclocking

There is no doubt that Overclocking has become easier regardless of the board; manufacturers are catering to enthusiasts more than ever. Asus include their own AI suite for use in both manual and automatic overclocking.

Manual overclocking with this board is so simple, there is barely any effort involved. For the most part, you can leave everything on automatic and still score an overclock to be proud of. That's not to say there are no options for overclocking; far from it. The BIOS as we saw earlier is stocked full of options for overclocking and to get the most out of the board you will want delve in to all of the settings. A little time taken with each of the settings and the Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP will reward you with a stable and high overclock. But the results from leaving things automatic and manually setting options are very close indeed, making this a great board for new overclockers.

So how did we fare? With most settings on Automatic and the CPU ratio dropped to 6 from it's default 8, we easily got to 470MHz. Using this as a base to tweak from, we then began to raise voltages, adjust various other options such as Transaction Booster and Static Memory functions, and generally play with all the settings we had previously left at automatic. I have to admit that I was hoping for higher; not that our overclock wasn't impressive, but I really wanted to hit a stable 500MHz. Unfortunately, 478MHz was the highest stable. We could post at 482MHz, but after that we had random lock-ups after a few hours. Just to note here, the heat pipe array was actively cooled with a fan, but temperatures (according to Everest) never went over 55C under load, which is quite high but appears perfectly stable.

Also of note is that the Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP also allowed our E6420 to get it's highest overclock yet. Ratio of 8, FSB of 410MHz for a 3280MHz CPU speed. Our previous closest was 3200MHz, so while not a huge difference, it is a difference none the less, and the only thing different in components is the motherboard.

Final Words

Let's start with the basics. The packaging is great; carry handle, lots and lots of pertinent information, plenty of extras including a wireless antennae for use with inbuilt Wi-Fi Access Point, side mounting SATA cables. Fair enough, the extras could be more, but there is more than enough included considering the market.

The board layout is overall exceptional but does have some very minor issues - the SATA headers are not exactly in the greatest place if you have a large graphics card, but hopefully with the included side plugging SATA cables you can get around that. One thing that always bugs me is having pin headers at the lowest edge of a board as in my Antec P160 case, it means I usually have to fiddle around with very little room to get front audio and HDD LED's etc. installed, but the set pretty much negates this problem.

Speaking of SATA, 6 internal, 2 external gives you plenty of options for adding storage. The JMicron controller (or it's drivers) I have to say isn't the great. From reading around the net it seems that more than a few folks have had issues with optical drives and burning disks, and that's if they can get their drives recognized in the first place. I tried 6 different drives in addition to my usual 2 and had issues with all of them. In the end, setting the JMicron controller to AHCI mode cured my recognition problems for 4 of the drives and burning issues on the 2 burners. But it seems to be hit and miss more than most controllers we've dealt with before. For me, the problem manifested itself the most in Vista; I went through 7 DVD's trying to solve what I thought was a software error before I thought of changing to AHCI mode.

There are plenty of options in the BIOS for overclocking, and the BIOS itself is one of the easiest we have used. It's also without a doubt the easiest overclocking board we've used. Even the most inexperienced overclocker should be able to leave pretty much everything on automatic and start dialling up the FSB and achieve a very high overclock. Those who know what they are doing will have plenty to play with.

I mentioned in the review that the CMOS clear jumper could be in a bad place as certain graphics cards will no doubt cover most of that area. I reset the CMOS once; out of habit before I installed the board for the first time. After that, the board would reset itself if any of my overclocking attempts failed. There was simply no need to dive in to the case and fiddle with jumpers. And I can save various overclock settings to a USB thumb drive, although I do think that the overclocking profiles software used in Windows (Vista) should be able to adjust the system to a preset overclock without the need for a reboot; it negates the need for the software all together.

The software included comes on a DVD, with drivers for both XP and Vista. The software is a bit of a mix in that some of it is good, some of it not so good, but none of it is essential in any case.

The only true negative is the aforementioned JMicron controller and that isn't something that will effect everyone. The can be had for at time of writing, so while not the cheapest, its price is certainly tempered by what you get. Perhaps even enough that you could add a SATA optical drive if you are as unlucky with the JMicron controller as I was, which would pretty much make the all positive.

Overall I'm very happy and impressed with the motherboard. There is no question that this is the board I'll be using for sometime to benchmark with as well as use for my own personal use. Despite a couple of minor issues, the good far outweighs the bad with this product and I would happily lay down my hard earned for it. Take note of the couple of negatives and go buy one for yourself, I doubt you'll be sorry. If you're new to overclocking and fancy having a play like the big boys, then this board will make your efforts as painless as possible.