ASUS P5E3 Deluxe

The expansion slots on the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe motherboard include three PCI Express x16, two PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots. The first two PCI Express x16 slots run with the full PCI-E x16 bandwidth while the third slot is limited to x4 transfer rates. This motherboard supports ATI's CrossFire as well as PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards. Running along the bottom edge of the motherboard's PCB are one IEEE-1394 Firewire and two USB 2.0 headers.

One of the most visible differences between the Blitz Extreme and P5E3 Deluxe is the integrated cooler. The P5E3 Deluxe continues to use a heatpipe-based copper solution for cooling the northbridge, southbridge, and some of the voltage regulation circuitry, but it's much larger than what we found on the Blitz Extreme. The P5E3 Deluxe starts at the southbridge and ends near the I/O panel where it dissipates the heat. The ASUS AI Lifestyle logo embellishes the southbridge while covering the northbridge heatsink is the ASUS moniker. This cooling solution with its heatpipe surrounds all four sides of the CPU socket area. Hidden underneath the heatpipe is also another new feature, the ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit). The ASUS EPU is designed to reduce power consumption and allow the system to run cooler. However, this ASIC is controlled by ASUS software, which is currently Windows-only.

The ASUS P5E3 Deluxe is compatible with Intel Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, and Pentium processors. This motherboard is also compatible with next-generation 45nm Penryn processors. In the upper left corner of the motherboard is the 8-pin power connector.

At the motherboard's I/O panel is one PS/2 keyboard, one S/PDIF output, two eSATA, one IEEE-1394a Firewire, two Gigabit ethernet, six USB 2.0, two WiFi-AP @n (802.11n Wireless), and 8-channel audio ports.