Compared to the normal P5K, the ‘R’ version has a much better RAID capability. While the normal P5K will support RAID 0 and 1 on the IDE port and the SATA ports which aren’t controlled by the Southbridge (IDE and 2 x SATA ports are controlled by a separate controller), the R version has support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 for the 4 SATA ports connected to the RAID capable ICH9R Southbridge chip. This is the only difference between the two boards and as such you pay a $20 premium for the R version, so you’d want to make use of the RAID capability if you chose the P5KR over the normal P5K.
As you can see from the specs that have been listed, the P5KR isn’t short on connectivity, there’s heaps of USB ports, Firewire, Gigabit LAN and even an eSATA connector built into the rear I/O panel. There is no PS/2 mouse port on the P5K range, and seeing as no-one has made PS/2 mice for years it’s about time, there is however still a PS/2 keyboard port and I still prefer a PS/2 keyboard over a USB one with our current range of operating systems, they just work better, so this is fine by me. Underneath the keyboard port and in place of the PS/2 mouse port there are 2 USB ports, giving a total of 6 USB ports on the rear I/O panel. 6 more USB ports are provided via headers on the motherboard that you can either send to the front or back of your case, so it’s unlikely you’ll run out of ports with this board, though if they wanted to get with the times a bit more they could include a Firewire800 port alongside the aging Firewire400 port, perhaps I’m just being narky though.
There’s reasonable support on the board for some older connectivity types, for instance a floppy controller is still included, as well as a header for a 9-Pin serial port, but thankfully they haven’t wasted time with a parallel port, have the draw the line somewhere I guess.
As is becoming standard with many motherboards, particularly from ASUS, there is no Northbridge cooling fan (one less thing to go wrong) instead there is a heatpipe running between the Northbridge and power regulators next to CPU, each with their own heatsink, and they rely on the air from the CPU fan to keep them cool. This really is an excellent solution for standard systems, but for the modder’s and tweaker’s out there, you’d have to change this if you went to water cooling for the CPU, or if you use a CPU heatsink/fan that doesn’t direct air over these areas.
The P5KR has 2 x PCI-Express x16 slots for video cards and is compatible with ATI’s crossfire system, however the second slot can only be used in x4 or x1 mode, only the top slot can be used in full x16 mode. There is also only one PCI-Express x1 slot for add-on cards (though an un-used x16 slot will work as well), and 3 old style PCI slots. This should be enough slots for most people, as just about everything you need is already built in to board, even the built in soundcard is quite decent. It may be ‘only’ a Realtek chipset, but it gives 8-Channel sound with High Definition audio and even a digital output (S/PDIF) as standard, not too shabby, and if you want better it can always be disabled when you put another soundcard in.
CPU and memory support with the P5KR is as good as you can get, as you’d expect when using the latest Intel Chipset, so support for all the current Intel LGA775 CPUs is there, including support for the new 1333Mhz FSB models, and even supports the new 45nm Intel CPUs (with a BIOS update).
The P35 is made to support new DDR3 memory, however the PK5R still uses the older DDR2 RAM, so it’s great for people wanting to upgrade and use their old bits. Officially the P35 only supports DDR2 up to 800MHz, however ASUS say this board has native support for 1066Mhz (PC2-8500) DDR2 RAM with up to 2GB of RAM per slot and a max total of 8GB – providing you have an operating system to support it.
Another feature of high-end motherboards that has found its way into the mainstream market is that the capacitors are now becoming all solid type, instead of the older Electrolytic type that had a habit of bulging or exploding, rendering the motherboard useless. The solid type, as is found on the P5K range are far more reliable, with a lifespan up to 6 times longer than Electrolytic capacitors. All the capacitors on the P5KR are solid Capacitors, meaning better reliability.
So we’ve spoken a bit about what features the P5KR has, but now it’s time to see how it performs.
For our performance tests, we’re going to be comparing it to OzHardware’s test bench motherboard, the ASUS P5N32-E SLI, which runs nVidia’s 680i chipset, still one of the most popular on the market and one that supposedly still gives the best performance. We see how it goes against the new Intel P35 based P5KR in a range of different tests.
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|81.84.144.xxx |2008-05-28 11:11:38 David - xfx geforce 8800gts 320mbHey, i have a p5kr and a xfx 8800gts 320mb and he only can read the 2d standard and 3d performance he cant read the 3d low power, btw i have the latest drivers, can someone help me plz ? thx :)
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|79.141.23.xxx |2009-12-01 18:53:52 alrawan - please helpPlease help. Put the type of processor Core 2 Quad 2.8 -12 MB cache to feel Broken full power as well as in some cases, the computer stops working. Note was examined for the processor on the motherboard again was effective. I'm a fan of products Azzouz So Aahb change the motherboard. Note that the type of motherboard he has is a kind Azzouz Khak please set the imbalance and assistance with appreciation
