Review: ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi Edition - Bearlake with all the trimmings

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This review can be broken down into two parts.

First, you have the P35 chipset itself. On paper, P35 doesn't appear to offer a great deal over its predecessor - or direct competition - and the benchmarks show that performance is for the most part on a par.

DDR3 support has yet to be examined but given the minimal performance gains brought by DDR2-1066 in our benchmark results it's unlikely to be worth the money, initially at least.

The ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi AP Edition appears to be a solid, if slightly pricey, board with a strong feature-set and some bold layout decisions.

It may not be perfect, especially with regards to the problem of access to the SATA headers when using long graphics cards, but with correct component choice there are no major complaints.

But while specs and benchmarks tell you part of the story, as always actually working with the board can tell you so much more.

The P5K Deluxe offered superb stability throughout testing even with its early BIOS revision and offers an incredible degree of overclocking potential.

If you have a Kentsfield-based CPU and want to start pushing it to its limits, then the P35 chipset opens up new levels of possibilities, especially for multiplier-locked chips such as the Xeon X3210, X3220 and Core 2 Quad Q6600. So, much like the P5B Deluxe before it, the P5K Deluxe has proven itself to be near the head of the pack.

Combine this ability with support for future 1333FSB and 45nm CPUs and you have a very attractive product that will doubtlessly, and rightfully, become an enthusiast favourite.

If you really must have SLI support then it won't be for you, but for everyone else this is without doubt one of the best motherboards on the market today.

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ASUS P5K Deluxe and Intel P35

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