Introduction

ASUS is one of the leading motherboard manufacturers today, famous for their reliable, feature-packed motherboards with impressive bundles and performance. The previous top-of-the-line ASUS motherboard for the Pentium 4 platform - the Intel i875-based ASUS P4C800 was extremely popular amongst hardware enthusiasts.

Now, they are back with motherboards based on the recently launched Intel i915/925 chipsets! Will these new ASUS motherboards do as well as their P4C800 motherboard?

Today, we will be taking a look at ASUS' top enthusiast-grade motherboard - the ASUS P5AD2 Premium!

Based on the Intel i925X chipset, this motherboard is so feature-packed that ASUS is actually marketing it as a motherboard suitable for entry-level servers and workstations!

But will this bold stab at both the workstation/server market as well as the hardware enthusiast work? Let's find out.

The New ASUS P5AD2 Motherboard

There are two versions of new P5AD2 motherboard - the Premium edition and Deluxe edition.

Both editions boast almost the same feature set. The only differences between the Premium edition and the Deluxe edition are the Premium model's support for Firewire (IEEE 1394b), an extra GigaLAN port and the external SATA module. Otherwise, both motherboards are virtually identical!

So, what makes the ASUS P5AD2 Premium a badass motherboard? Well, you wouldn't believe the bundle and features that comes with this motherboard! It's pretty obvious that ASUS has been working really hard to make this the most complete i925X motherboard ever!

Thanks to the new Intel i925X Express chipset, this motherboard will be at the forefront of a completely new platform which most users will not be familiar with. So, why don't we take a look at what exactly does the new Intel i925X Express chipset offer over the previous generation of motherboard chipsets.