P5GD2 Premium specs.
ASUS P5GD2 i915P Socket-T | |
CPU Support | All LGA775 processors |
Northbridge | Intel i915P 'Grantsdale' |
Memory Support | 4 slots, DDR-II only. 400MHz, 533MHz, and 600MHz support at 200MHz FSB. 4GB max, dual-channel |
AGP | None |
PEG16X | One slot |
Southbridge | Intel ICH6/R |
Audio | CMI 9880 from ICH6/R - High-definition audio |
Audio Connectivity | 6 port backplane speaker, Optical and coaxial S/PDIF output |
PCI | 2 x 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.1 slots |
PCI Express | 3 x X1 slots |
IDE | 1 ATA133 compliant port from ICH6/R |
IDE RAID | ITE 8212F. 2 ATA133 ports. Capable of RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1 and JBOD modes |
SATA | 4 ports from ICH6/R and a further 4 ports from Silicon Image 3114R controller |
SATA RAID | RAID0 and RAID1 from Intel Matrix Storage and RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, RAID5 (via software patch) and JBOD from Sil3114 |
Networking | Dual Gigabit Ethernet Controllers. Marvell 88E8001-LKJ PCI-based controller and 88E8053 PCI Express-based controller |
Networking Wireless | Marvell 88W8310 two-chip 802.11g Wireless controller with on-board antenna port |
USB | ICH6/R, 4 x backplane USB2.0, 4 x I/O USB2.0 |
FireWire | 2x FireWire800(1394b) and 1x FireWire400 (1394a) from Ti TSB81BA3 OCHI controller |
Other I/O | PS/2, Parallel |
ASUS is of the school of thought that premium is another word fot proverbial kitchen sink. Where the P5GD2 Grantsdale particularly stands out is in the use of triple RAID, that is, from the ICH6/R (4-port RAIDable SATA), Silicon Image's PCI-ridin' 3114R controller (4-port RAIDable SATA), and ITE's 2-port ATA133-compliant PATA controller. Given the recent introduction of Hitachi's goliath 400GB drives, there's a very scary amount of potential, both in size and configurability.
Audio will undoubtedly be good, Intel's new south bridges have taken care of that. ASUS has also pushed the FireWire boat out. A couple of 1394b FireWire800 ports are run off Texas Instruments' new TSB81BA3 and TSB82AA2 chips. It's a shame, though, that they run of the older PCI bus. Networking is highly impressive. ASUS implements a regular Marvell PCI-based Gigabit Ethernet controller but then adds a second PCI Express-based chip. You can already see how and why PCI-E can be a potential benefit. 500MB/s for a X1 lane is plenty fast enough. Not only that, Marvell strikes again with a board-mounted 802.11g Wireless ASIC, and ASUS obliges by adding in its compliant antenna.
Two words characterise ASUS' P5GD2; storage and networking.