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. Continue reading →