Asus P5K3 Premium motherboard is a gimmicky upgrade to the P5K3 Deluxe. However, unlike other similarly gimmicky enthusiast motherboard products, Asus has really done themselves proud with the motherboard. The quality of the build and components used to make the P5K3 Premium Black Pearl Edition are some of the best to ever make way into a motherboard. The DDR3 memory integration is extremely well done and its performance is superb. Unfortunately, you will not be able to upgrade your onboard memory and that is something that cannot be helped, but 2GB can last most people till the next motherboard upgrade comes along. What can be helped though is the available bandwidth of the onboard memory? Depending on the CPU you use, the memory can scale from DDR3-1066 to beyond DDR3-1600, while maintaining pretty tight timings. Asus made sure though that the memory chosen for the P5K3 Premium motherboard will outlast and outperform the competition for a long time coming.There is no doubt, the Asus P5K3 Premium Black Pearl Edition motherboard is one of the best DDR3 motherboards you can get today. Of course, you can be expected to shell out major dough for it and that goes without question. Some unconfirmed sources have listed this Intel motherboard initial pricing to be US$1299! Sound ludicrous, but then again that is to be expected from a one-of-a-kind motherboard - just as with real rare black pearls.
Asus P5K3 Premium Black Pearl Edition motherboard specification :
- Processor : Intel LGA775 processors (45nm ready -- Wolfdale and Yorkfield)
- Chipset : Intel P35 / ICH9R
- FSB : 533/800/1066/1333 MHz
- Memory : onboard 2 x 1 GB DDR3 (1333 MHz)
- Audio : Intel High Definition Audio (Azalia) -- ADI AD1988B HD Audio CODEC
- LAN : Realtek RTL8110S PCI Gigabit Ethernet; Marvell 88E8056 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet; Asus WiFi-AP Solo 802.11g Wireless LAN (Realtek RTL8187L)
- Form Factor : ATX (30.5cm x 24.4cm)
- AGP/PCI/PCIe x16/PCIe x4/PCIe x1 : 0/3/2/0/2
- USB/FireWire/Serial/Paralel : 6(6)/1(1)/0/0
- PATA/SATA/eSATA : 1/6/2
- Accessories : SATA cable, SATA power converter cable, 80-conductor Ultra ATA cable, FDD cable, HSF, USB 2.0 (2 ports) and IEEE 1394a (1 port) bracket, Asus Q-Connector set, Asus WiFi-AP Solo Antenna, I/O shield, Driver CDs and User manual
