By: Jonathan Kwan
June 19, 2007

Nowadays, a release of a new chipset is almost as exciting as a new GPU or CPU. With NVIDIA's flagship 680i and supposedly-midrange 650i launched at the end of 2006, Intel is back again with their long awaited code-named "Bearlake" chipset. Officially carrying a name of Intel P35, it certainly does not take long for major motherboard manufacturers to roll out their latest motherboards. Of such is Asus, and their usual line to accommodate every market -- value, mainstream, mid-high, and, well, prototypes of the flagship Blitz Formula and Blitz Extreme sure looks good -- alas, they're not yet released. Others worth mentioning include workstation class desktop motherboards -- whatever category that goes into (Mid-high, high-end, professional kind of thing)! On the other hand, today we'll take a look at the Asus P35 based motherboard that serves the mid-high end market -- these boards traditionally have been very popular amongst feature oriented consumers and performance enthusiasts at a relatively affordable price. Will the new Asus P5K-Deluxe impress and keep its momentum going? Let's put it through the trials.

Our review unit came in a large box from Asus' headquarters in Taiwan. They were also nice enough to use FedEx International Priority instead of DHL -- with loads of packing peanuts and a rigid box; our review unit came in perfect condition.

With primarily a black color scheme, the Asus P5K-Deluxe comes in pretty fancy packaging. Printed with "AI Lifestyle" logos and caption at various locations of the box, the double-phase package design is something we've seen previously only with high end products from the same company.

The outer surface wrapper opens up with a flap to highlight certain features of the P5K-Deluxe, with pretty photos and icons. Sliding out from the side reveals the actual box; enclosed by a flap insert design. A pass-through cut on the outer surface wrapper permits a plastic carrying handle located physically on the box inside to be used.

Everything inside is packed tightly and safely. It's really some fancy packaging inside and outside!

Before we move on, let's examine the specifications of this motherboard, as obtained from Asus' website:

CPU-Z screenshot of stock CPU settings and motherboard tab. BIOS version 0311 is used in this review; in which is the latest stable release at the time of writing.