Given the P5K3 Premium is the most high-end motherboard ASUS currently has on offer, we did expect to find a lot in the way of features. The list of integrated peripherals includes Firewire, dual Gigabit LAN, wireless LAN access-point, 8-Channel Audio, eSATA and CrossFire support. Of course there is also a great deal more packed into this board and we will cover all these features shortly. The board not only sports the new P35 chipset, but it also comes with the ICH9R Southbridge. First let’s look at the chipset features…
In order to support the latest DDR2 memory types, the Memory Controller Hub (MCH) features wider buses that support Dual-Channel DDR2 at 533/677/800MHz, for up to 8.5 GB/s of peak memory bandwidth. However, keep in mind the Intel P35 chipset also supports DDR3 memory, which is exclusively supported by the ASUS P5K3 Premium in a very special way! Rather than use memory modules, the P5K3 Premium features 2GB of DDR3-1333 memory built onto the motherboard.
The onboard DDR3 (Qimonda IDSH51-03A1F1C-13G) memory chips are guaranteed by ASUS to reach 1500MHz when overclocked, though they are designed to work at 1333MHz using CAS8-8-8 timings. The disadvantage to buying a motherboard with onboard memory is that the capacity cannot be upgraded, which is a little concerning as we have found Windows Vista to already enjoy up to 4GB of memory in today’s games.
Another chipset feature is the Intel High Definition Audio (Intel HD Audio). This technology features eight independent DMA audio engines that support multiple audio streams with audio codecs. This integrated audio solution should rival the performance of high-end sound cards. The onboard 8-channel HD audio (High Definition Audio, previously codenamed Azalia) codec enables high-quality 192KHz/24-bit audio output.
Other audio features include jack-sensing, re-tasking functions and multi-streaming technology that simultaneously sends different audio streams to different destinations. The Dolby Digital Live technology from Dolby Lab encodes the multi-channel audio source into AC-3 bit-stream and outputs it to S/PDIF port in real time. The ADI AD1988B audio controller is a nice addition to the P5K3 Premium and should work very well.
In an effort to remove the conventional IDE ATA standard, the P35 chipset removes IDE support all together. The ICH9R Southbridge offers up to six Serial II ATA ports, boasting data transfer rates up to 300MB/s. Intel also offers RAID functions for these four SATA ports, supporting RAID 0 for performance and RAID 1 for protection, along with RAID 5 and RAID10. Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) further boosts performance with Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and provides native hot plug for drive swaps.
The P5K3 Premium supports IEEE1394a (FireWire 400) using an Agere FW322 controller, offering bandwidth up to 400 Mbps. This technology supports longer distances and is a much higher-powered bus, making it more suitable for bandwidth-intensive applications like digital video (DV), professional audio, and hard drives, which often consume hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of data per file. The board provides 2 x 1394a ports. Of course the P35 chipset also supports USB 2.0 and therefore the P5K3 Premium does support a total of ten ports.
The dual Gigabit LAN design allows a PC to serve as a network gateway for managing traffic between two separate networks. This capability ensures rapid transfer of data from WAN to LAN without any added arbitration or latency. No more bottleneck to handle large amounts of data such as video, audio, and voice. The P5K3 Premium boasts a single Marvell PCIe 88E8056 Gigabit LAN controller and one PCI-based Realtek RTL8110SC controller.
Whilst on the topic of networking, ASUS has created a series of features called AI Proactive and one of these features is a wireless network function. The P5K3 Premium comes with a built-in WiFi-g controller. Building a home WLAN used to be a hassle with confusing acronyms and cryptic menus. With WiFi-g and its one-touch setup wizard, high-speed wireless network is just a few clicks away.
WiFi-g serves as the access point of your network or if you already have an access point, it is also a wireless adapter for PCs to access existing WLAN. Extending the ASUS networking support is AI Net2, a diagnostic LAN tester. Network problems are often caused by bad cable connection. AI Net2 remotely detects cable connection the second you turn on the system, and any faulty connections are reported back up to 100 meters at 1 meter accuracy.