Verdict: Ludicrously overclockable; need we say more?

The Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP resides at the top end of the three-strong series of Asus P965 motherboards. Below it is the P5B Deluxe, which is identical apart from missing the 802.11g wireless LAN, and the P5B, which is a totally stripped-down model.

Although the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP appears to have two 16x PCI-E slots, only the blue slot has 16 PCI-E lanes, while the black slot has four PCI-E lanes. However, thanks to changes in ATi's drivers, and some tweaks to the board's BIOS, it now supports CrossFire. Also squeezed onto the PCB are three PCI slots and a single 1x PCI-E slot. Asus has also found room to add an 802.11b/g transceiver, which is a great feature that should be standard on all high-end boards.

Also present are two Gigabit Ethernet ports, plus eight USB 2 ports, two FireWire ports and 8-channel Intel HD Audio. The ICH8R Southbridge provides six RAID-capable S-ATA II ports, while a JMicron JMB363 chip provides another RAID-capable S-ATA II port and an EIDE port, plus a RAID-capable eS-ATA II port on the back panel. The Northbridge and VRMs are cooled by a combination of heatsinks and a heatpipe, plus an optional crossflow fan, while the Southbridge is cooled by a small copper heatsink.

Thanks to the modern ICH8R Southbridge, the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP performed better than all the 975X motherboard, bar the pre-overclocked Abit AW9D-MAX. As the most mature P965 motherboard in this test, the BIOS of the P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP has undergone many revisions, and now allows you to increase the vcore to 1.7V, the RAM to 2.45V and the Northbridge to 1.65V. These settings enabled us to overclock the FSB of our test Core 2 Duo CPU from 266MHz to 360MHz, which is an overclock matched by only two other motherboards in this Labs test. The BIOS also allows you to decrease the CPU multiplier, which, when reduced from ten to six, allowed us to raise the FSB to a kryptoturbopolyzoomwell 480MHz.

The P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP is pricey for a P965 board, but this is more than made up for by its excellent features, such as wireless LAN, CrossFire support and amazing overclockability. These features combine to make it the ultimate Core 2 motherboard.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

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