So which of the P5Q boards to go for?

DublinDude · 17 Sep 2008 at 18:24

Hi all,

I am in need of a new motherboard and I am leaning towards the Asus P5Q series but I am really confused as to which one to go for. There is the P5Q, P5Q-E, P5Q Pro, P5Q Deluxe and the P5Q3. :confused:

Can somebody explain in plain English what the difference is between these or which one to go for or avoid etc.

I am hoping to attempt a bit of overclocking and upgrade my gpu too.

Thanks in advance

IAmATeaf · 18 Sep 2008 at 09:25

The P5Q3 is a DDR3 board, the rest are all DDR2 based and have small incremental diffs, so choose a board with the features you want within your price range. Also I think I'm right in saying that if you go to the Asus site you can compare the boards.

jbloggs · 18 Sep 2008 at 10:07

IAmATeaf said:
...Also I think I'm right in saying that if you go to the Asus site you can compare the boards.

Indeed so, see Here

viennese · 18 Sep 2008 at 10:57

I'm in the same boat. Was leaning towards the P5Q-E but I heard that this board over-volts everything if on auto. Not sure if it's the same for the others in the family. How do you know how much to lower it by?

sutom · 18 Sep 2008 at 11:08

viennese said:
I'm in the same boat. Was leaning towards the P5Q-E but I heard that this board over-volts everything if on auto. Not sure if it's the same for the others in the family. How do you know how much to lower it by?

Any more info on this? Was gonna get a P5Q-E too because of the esata port (I think it has one?) but I know nothing about volts etc so that would be annoying to deal with

pjansell · 18 Sep 2008 at 11:19

Will these boards support nvidia cards in sli 'unofficially'?

Mucky_Pup · 18 Sep 2008 at 11:42

I'm interested in this aswell, still toying with what board to get, would getting a P5Q3 be better in the long run even though I plan on using DDR2 6400 800 ram for a while, then maybe DDR3 in the future, maybe not, or would I be better off just getting a P5Q Deluxe to suit me.

Other likely stuff in the rig will be an E8500 and a GTX280

viennese · 18 Sep 2008 at 11:45

Tom* said:
Any more info on this? Was gonna get a P5Q-E too because of the esata port (I think it has one?) but I know nothing about volts etc so that would be annoying to deal with

Sorry, went back through the pages and threads and it's actually the P5Q Deluxe that overvolts. But not sure if it's the same for the E though. Link here.

IAmATeaf · 18 Sep 2008 at 13:41

viennese said:
Sorry, went back through the pages and threads and it's actually the P5Q Deluxe that overvolts. But not sure if it's the same for the E though. Link here.

I think they all do.

IAmATeaf · 18 Sep 2008 at 13:41

Mucky_Pup said:
I'm interested in this aswell, still toying with what board to get, would getting a P5Q3 be better in the long run even though I plan on using DDR2 6400 800 ram for a while, then maybe DDR3 in the future, maybe not, or would I be better off just getting a P5Q Deluxe to suit me.

Other likely stuff in the rig will be an E8500 and a GTX280

If you went for the P5Q3 then you'd have no choice except to use DDR3.

Cob · 18 Sep 2008 at 13:50

pjansell said:
Will these boards support nvidia cards in sli 'unofficially'?

Nope.

rjk · 18 Sep 2008 at 14:03

the p5qe is fine - best board around for £100 imo

the current bios is a bit kinder to the volt problems - still having trouble clocking my quad but thats due to the ram an not the board

sutom · 18 Sep 2008 at 14:10

viennese said:
Sorry, went back through the pages and threads and it's actually the P5Q Deluxe that overvolts. But not sure if it's the same for the E though. Link here.

No problem, thanks for looking

rjkoneill said:
the p5qe is fine - best board around for £100 imo
the current bios is a bit kinder to the volt problems - still having trouble clocking my quad but thats due to the ram an not the board

Cool, will definitely go for the -E I think.

jennidc · 18 Sep 2008 at 21:03

deluxe

I've been very happy with choosing the deluxe - but each to there own they are all solid boards

Jimmy1983 · 19 Sep 2008 at 23:38

Asus P5Q owners

I have a few questions for you if you would be so kind...

Will I be able to fit a noctua nh-u12f to it?
Can you run a DVD Rom using an IDE connection?
Will my current components in sig all work ok, ram etc?

It would be handy to have a LED on the board to show you that the board has power to it, my gigabye doesnt have one.

I did have a few more, but cant think now! Will it do everything that my current gigabye one does and more?

Pilky01 · 19 Sep 2008 at 23:40

I have owned both a p5q deluxe and a p5q-e and have so far been able not been able to notice any difference.

Jimmy1983 · 19 Sep 2008 at 23:45

Whats the differance between the p5q-e and p5q?

Big.Wayne · 20 Sep 2008 at 00:24

Jimmy1983 · 20 Sep 2008 at 00:28

Cheers Big.Wayne, what does it mean by the storage, power and express gate?

Big.Wayne · 20 Sep 2008 at 01:11

Storage= Hard Drives and how many SATA/IDE ports there are.

Power= How many Phases does the motherboard have, normally more is better but users have yet to show that having 16-phases provided a big difference over 8-phases

Express Gate= a Mini operating system that can boot quickly and allow you to surf the web, chat on MSN etc. On the cheaper motherboards I believe this gets installed on your hard drive but the more expensive mobos have it pre-installed on a mini-flash based memory card soldered to the motherboard.