ASUS P5K Series Snapshots

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
We have a few pictures of the upcoming P5K series from ASUS that features the P35 Bearlake chipset and support for DDR3. The motherboards pictured below are the P5K3 Deluxe, P5K Deluxe and the P5K.
 
Holy Crap thats nice. I just hope DDR3 is more of an upgrade than DDR 2 was when it first came out.
 
Maybe I've been out of the loop for too long here, but what are the PULL-STRINGS in the first two pics for?
See-&-Say motherboards? :)
 
Damn why can't they replace the pci express 1x slots with some 4x slots?

Would love to have a spare 4x or 2 for things like raid cards.
 
The only thing that scares me is the heat pipes around the CPU socket and having room for certain aftermarket CPU Coolers
 
Only one (purple) PS/2 port! OMG. Where will I plug in my green PS/2 mouse plug in???
 
Its about damn time they started getting rid of legacy crap. It takes up way too much room on the mobo to be worthwhile.
 
Now that is some serious copper on the first board!!

Nice to see legacy ports on the decline now in favour of more USB ports. I know Abit tried to do this 5 or 6 years back with the AT7-MAX series of boards, but they soon reverted back to the dual PS/2 ports. Also nice to see dual eSATA on the backplate, but I would like to see more cases with front mounted eSATA ports along with mid-board mounted eSATA connections rather than having to use a standard SATA port connected to a front mounted eSATA plate.
I can still see a single IDE socket though, which with the incorporation of SATA optical drives now coming on, I find rather strange especially as Intel phased out native chipset support for them in their later chipsets meaning that the board manufacturers have to used third party controller for it (reminds of the old Promise & Highpoint RAID controllers). I would personally rather see IDE removed totally & SATA optical drives become the standard (would mean much nicer cabling jobs and better airflow without risking signal crosstalk with rounded IDE cables).

As usual, Asus have implemented onboard WIFI on these boards, along with digital & optical outputs for the onboard audio. I would prefer to see more IEEE1394 sockets on the backplate and inplementation of FIREWIRE-800 instead of the standard 400 rated sockets. Firewire-800 may already be native to these boards, I don't yet know, so I could be tempted to build a new desktop unit here if they are used & DDR3 isn't silly prices upon launch.

Looks like plenty of fan headers on the first board as well, along with full use of solid capacitors. The only problem I can see with the amount of copper used on the onboard cooling is that it may cause some after market heatsinks to not fit, but obviously until these are in the marketplace, it is going to be guesswork to which ones do & which ones don't.
 
I wish they would come out with an upgrade wifi module to N.
The on board wifi module works great for anyone who has never used one!
 
I'm becoming increasingly concerned regarding the Bearlake chipset. It's not the move to DDR3 and it's lack of availability, and it's not the potential performance for better or for worse. What concerns me is these three photos are in addition to previews of Bearlake motherboards from MSI and Gigabyte I've seen on HardwareZone with incredibly huge and intricate cooling designs that cover not only the chipset but also the MOSFET's. To me this means two things: 1.) This chip and all electrical components directly related to it draw a lot of power, which leads to 2.) Insane amounts of heat.

As for the layout of all three, apparently Asus is of the opinion that more PCI-E add-on cards will be available upon release. I say this only because with two double-slot cooled GPU's installed in each PEG slot, none of the three motherboards provides more than one open PCI slot. However, the two higher-end boards have two PCI-E slots at the very top of the expansion slot area. Interesting, no?
 
what is the difference between the P5K3 Deluxe and the P5K Deluxe, other than the cooling? I looked damn hard and couldn't find the difference, is the P5K3 the one that supports DDR3 or do they all?
 
PC-HAngover said:
Its about damn time they started getting rid of legacy crap. It takes up way too much room on the mobo to be worthwhile.
Click to expand...

Dont you remember when Abit came out with there first MAX series of boards, the first couple had nothing but audio and USB, then they went back and added the PS2 ports because back then there were still alot of Mice/Keyboards that still used PS2 only. the Max series didn't live very long without the legacy ports. buy I gotta agree, you dont see any keyboards/Mice that are PS2 only anymore and who the hell uses seriel or parallel ports.

I sure hope there not going to start this "New Memory" every year crap, that sure could make keeping up with the Jones very expensive. I have yet to get a system that needed DDR2. just have not had the money to get a new MB, CPU and Memory all at the same time, which is what I have to do to upgrade any further.
 
The P5K-Deluxe might be my next motherboard. ;)

I'll bet that second PCIe X16 slot isn't really a full "x16" connection... Maybe someone will release a decent physics card that uses an "x4" connection and plugs into an "x16" slot. Naw! Ok, I'll STFU. :p
 
I'm becoming increasingly concerned regarding the Bearlake chipset. It's not the move to DDR3 and it's lack of availability, and it's not the potential performance for better or for worse. What concerns me is these three photos are in addition to previews of Bearlake motherboards from MSI and Gigabyte I've seen on HardwareZone with incredibly huge and intricate cooling designs that cover not only the chipset but also the MOSFET's. To me this means two things: 1.) This chip and all electrical components directly related to it draw a lot of power, which leads to 2.) Insane amounts of heat.
Click to expand...

I think that the heatpipe cooling is more for marketing to the enthusiast crowd and overclocking than it is necessary. If it was required for the chips, all of them would have them, not just the high-end ones.

In marketing-speech, l337 h337P1P3Z PWNS! All your copper are belong to us!

I may get the mid-range one if it will support my current Pentium D 820 and my future quad-core Penryn. I wonder how long it will take for Eddie, MIPS, or Koolance to make waterblocks for the MOSFETs?
 
Serial is still needed in business and its wonderful for doing all sorts of projects (that I've never done) then again serial to usb isn't hard at all.


I know I haven't seated a new processor especially the ones that have their one covers on the board, I'm not only concerned about clearance issues with the heat pipe in the first board but what about the caps along the left side of the socket? They seem awfully close?
 
I see alot of people that are concerned with heatsink clearance issues bacause of the heatpipe MB Cooling.

personally I dont see it as a HUGE problem, yes it is going to limit what you can and cant use, Surely they made sure that the Retail heatsink will fit, thats not an issue, the issue is aftermarket cooling solutions. But think about it, look at most of the designs that are being released, the bulk of the heatsink is raised above the base, the base is really small, the fins then sit well above it suprted by the heatpipes. I thik alot of these will work fine. But it also means that motherboard and heatsink manufacturers will need to be doing alot fo testing on what fits what, and we just need to be sure to check these chats to make sure everything works together. Face it, heatsinks have not just been growing in the last year, they been slowly getting larger sense before 1990's, back then the CPU didn't even need a heatsink (most 486's) then the pentiums came out, they had these really small passive heatsinks, then after w awhile we started needing 40mm fans on the heatsinks, the came the P3 and Athlon, we went to 50 and 60 mm fans on large aluminum heatsink. then after a while we started useing 80mm Fan on Copper/Aluminum heatsinks with micro fins. now its 120mm Fans on Heatpipe powered monsters. the chipsets now require more cooling than CPUs did just a few years ago, this aint nothing new, its a slow progression in inceared power demands and increased cooling. And I dont see it stopping anytime soon!
 
bigstusexy said:
Serial is still needed in business and its wonderful for doing all sorts of projects (that I've never done) then again serial to usb isn't hard at all.


I know I haven't seated a new processor especially the ones that have their one covers on the board, I'm not only concerned about clearance issues with the heat pipe in the first board but what about the caps along the left side of the socket? They seem awfully close?
Click to expand...

Serial to USB adapters do not work that well with devices that are very dependant on timing. A lot of the serial programmers I use here at work refuse to work with any USB to Serial Adaptors.
 
Man, what I would like to know is who is hired for these motherboard layouts???!
 
Posting with regards to the heatsink clearance issue.

I have an ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard, and it has a very similar copper heatpipe setup around the CPU. Just looking at the board, it looks like they just reused the one from the Striker Extreme on that board. Anyway, assuming it's the same or at least "close enough", I've had both a Zalman 9700 and a Vigor Monsoon II heatsink on said boards without a problem. Mind you, took some time to mount the Vigor Monsoon II, but that's more due to my fat clumsy fingers then anything. ;) Clearance itself wasn't an issue.

Anyway, assuming they used the same or similar heatpipes with regards to space around the CPU and height, I don't see too many issues with clearance, and only what I'd call minor annoyance issues with regards to maybe getting some heatsinks onto the board.
 
Sorry to do two consecutive posts.

Anyway, took a second look at the layout of the boards. On the first two (black PCB's), it's not too bad IMO, although not sure I like the location of the IDE port, I am still using PATA optical drives. But I'm sure I could manage.

Then I took a look at the budget one with the yellowish PCB...UGH. That layout is..erm, unique. PATA port WAY on the bottom, in what might be one of the most obnoxious spots I've seen. Then...internal connector for what I'm assuming a USB case plug next to the floppy port. That...again I'll say is unique.

Anyway, just random comments, killing time until I head back home.
 
headala said:
I may get the mid-range one if it will support my current Pentium D 820 and my future quad-core Penryn. I wonder how long it will take for Eddie, MIPS, or Koolance to make waterblocks for the MOSFETs?
Click to expand...

by the looks of it the existing range of Asus mosfet/NB/SB blocks by EK should fit this board just fine, they sinks look to be exaclty the same in size as previous Asus 775 boards.

i'm hoping so anyway, i have a P5K-DLX coming tomorrow and plan on putting some blocks on mosfet and NB/SB if needed.

first reports are that the chipset runs pretty cool and fast w/out excessive volts so may not need blocks on them anyway, mosfet could be a different story with high clocks and a quad cpu.
 
by the looks of it the existing range of Asus mosfet/NB/SB blocks by EK should fit this board just fine, they sinks look to be exaclty the same in size as previous Asus 775 boards.

i'm hoping so anyway, i have a P5K-DLX coming tomorrow and plan on putting some blocks on mosfet and NB/SB if needed.

first reports are that the chipset runs pretty cool and fast w/out excessive volts so may not need blocks on them anyway, mosfet could be a different story with high clocks and a quad cpu.
Click to expand...

Which blocks to you have? Give us an update when you check the fit; I'm waiting to see what blocks fit what boards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top