Product Listing

ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition (Intel P965)

By Zachary Chan - 13 Mar 2007

Conclusion

Conclusion

ASUS has really been putting on their thinking caps, getting out innovative boards such as the P5B Premium Vista Edition. They're looking at current trends and tapping onto different avenues to garner consumer interest and we think it is working - at least the hype is there. Windows Vista is the topic of the month now, and most new users will go gaga over Vista's GUI. However, once the initial euphoria is over, it is but another OS upgrade. The P5B Premium changes this by giving users a reason to try out some of the new additions available to Vista. Best of all, the new features that ASUS put into the board can also be used on Windows XP as well, so the board isn't locked in to benefit Vista users only.

Among all the Vista Edition enhancements to the P5B Premium, the ASAP feature has the most practical usage on a motherboard. USB flash drives and memory cards are a dime a dozen these days, but most people would like to be able to carry around their data, instead of locking up a huge portion for ReadyBoost cache and keeping it as a more or less a permanent fixture on your PC. With the ASAP module, ASUS is basically giving users extra flash storage to use in almost all situations, including ReadyBoost. Its ability to emulate boot up devices like a Floppy makes it an ideal storage for BIOS and OS recovery tools as well.

The ASUS ScreenDUO would have been much more impressive if it had full Vista SideShow compatibility.

The much hyped about ASUS ScreenDUO display however, lost some of its shine after we played around with it for a bit. Its features are nice to have around, and we've actually gotten a little used to having an auxiliary screen just to view media play lists and RSS feeds. It tends to clear up your desktop space, but the limitations imposed on its functionality are too restrictive for our tastes. Also, its incompatibility with SideShow at the moment is a slight downer in terms of seamless integration with the new OS. ASUS will have to fix this issue for the ScreenDUO to last beyond its initial hype. They are also not selling the unit as an independent product as well and you can only get it with purchase of selected Vista Edition motherboards.

As a motherboard, the P5B premium is another example of good engineering. We didn't have problems with the P5B Deluxe and we do not have any problems with the P5B Premium. From its design, layout to installation, compatibility and stability, the P5B Premium gets a clean bill of health. Now that it has a full solid capacitor design, it might even be more enticing to enthusiasts who want a board with greater durability.

Performance-wise, the board pumps out some decent scores, though a few benchmarks show some slightly diminished numbers compared to the P5B Deluxe. It makes up for it however, with its incredible overclockability. 515MHz FSB is the highest overclock we've achieved for any Intel P965 motherboard with stock cooling, matching the performance of the Commando. The only other board to have passed the 500MHz mark with an Intel Core 2 Duo in our lab is the nForce 680i SLI based Striker Extreme - all ASUS motherboards. Without doubt, the P5B Premium Vista Edition is one of the best Intel P965 boards from ASUS.

ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition is still a great enthusiast motherboard, but it will burn a hole in your pocket. If you do not require the additional Vista features, the good old P5B Deluxe will do you by just fine.

Here's the kicker. The ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition retails for around US$270, a pretty hefty price to pay for an Intel P965 board today. The P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP can be found for less than US$200 today and we've even spotted the ASUS P5N32-E SLI, an nForce 680i SLI board for US$20 less. Considering how cheap flash memory is these days - a generic 512MB USB 2.0 flash drive costs about US$10 - you are really paying for the ScreenDUO feature. We would have initially awarded the ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition with a 4.5 Star award, but with ScreenDUO not working as intended and being rather restrictive, we deducted another 0.5 Stars.

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