ASUS P5E3 Deluxe

Conclusion:

The ASUS P5E3 Deluxe is certainly a Linux-friendly motherboard, but it's not the perfect solution. ASUS does deserve massive props for being Linux friendly not only with this motherboard but on their other products as well. However, the WiFi-AP @n (AzureWave 802.11n Wireless) hadn't worked out of the box on Ubuntu 7.10. The P5E3 Deluxe hadn't beat the Blitz Extreme in all of the benchmarks, but of course this is a brand new chipset and we'll likely see some optimizations in the kernel and drivers down the roads. There is an option in the BIOS, but the ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit) really becomes an advantage when it is controlled using the ASUS AI Gear software, which isn't presently available for Linux.

One of the most interesting features on this motherboard is definitely the Express Gate (powered by SplashTop). We see this feature as being especially handy and even a lifesaver in some instances for recovery purposes or quickly diagnosing hardware problems. DeviceVM seems to have great plans for SplashTop and hopefully ASUS will continue collaborating with them and offering their "Express Gate" incarnation on more of their products. Once BIOS flashing and system monitoring become available through Express Gate, we hope ASUS will offer the programs or source-code directly to Linux users, since Express Gate is Linux-based we could finally have some nice motherboard utilities.

With the P5E3 Deluxe using the X38 Chipset, this motherboard supports CrossFire as well as PCI Express 2.0 with full bandwidth and a horde of other features. Though this chipset along with all of the other ASUS extras does place this motherboard at a premium. The ASUS P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP edition is currently selling for about $350 USD, and with the current prices of DDR3 memory, going this route will be quite an expensive system. If the price doesn't deter you, the P5E3 Deluxe is definitely a motherboard worth checking out.