Thoughts, Awards and HEXUS.right2reply
At a likely price of over £200 when it shows up in the U.K., the P5W64 WS Pro -- a product of a different design team at ASUS from those that have created prior P5W-series boards, so we hear -- is one serious piece of mainboard kit. We fed you the intro we did to make you think about a brilliant Core 2 Duo mainboard, and we think the P5W64 WS Pro is it. Crammed with features, the four PEG16X slots being the big highlight, and with overclocking performance the best we've yet seen, it's hard to pick faults other than a high price.ASUS premium mainboard products have always been expensive, with the P5W64 WS Pro no expection. But you get a heck of a lot for your money, should you be seriously serious about your desktop/workstation computing. Yours truly has recently purchased his first CPU in some 2 years, such are reviewer's perks at HEXUS. An Intel Core 2 Duo X6800, paid for with my own cash, I want it to have the best home possible inside my workstation PC. Currently snug in an Intel D975XBX Bad Axe, that mainboard's position as keeper and host for my new processor baby is seriously under threat.
Looking forward to Kentsfield and quad cores in one LGA775 package, while my rev 304 Bad Axe will take one, I'm looking at the P5W64 WS Pro for when I make that switch in early 2007, timetables all going well. And it's from that perspective, as a high-end Core 2 Duo consumer, that I suspect many of you in the same position will look upon the ASUS P5W64 WS Pro in much the same light. An expensive board, sure, but one with definite appeal.
As HEXUS we have to push aside personal considerations though, so we hesitate in going too over-the-top, especially outside of a true mega high-end roundup of boards that'll do Kentsfield without issue. In isolation however, we think the appeal of the reviewed mainboard is apparent.
We'll throw the P5W64 WS Pro into any such roundup here at HEXUS in due course, should a gathering of other like-minded mainboard present itself. Maybe another round of overclocking testing might happen as well, perhaps with Corsair's brand new and faintly hilarious 1111MHz DHX Dominator-series memory in the WS Pro's slots. We'll see at any rate.
Until then, we heartily recommend the P5W64 WS Pro when it finally shows up world-wide. At the time of writing we can think of no finer LGA775 mainboard. It goes well, it's rock solid, it supports Crossfire dual graphics and future quad-core CPUs, and it has all the features you could realistically want, with space to add what it might be missing. Brill.
HEXUS Awards
We award it our Executive Recommended award for obvious reasons, and also our Extreme Speed award for its prodigious overclocking results.
ASUS P5W64 WS Professional Mainboard
