Review: ASUS COMMANDO TAKES ON ALL-COMERS

Thoughts, HEXUS.awards, HEXUS.where2buy, HEXUS.right2reply

The COMMANDO motherboard is the newest recruit (Ed. stop with the military references!) to the ASUS Republic Of Gamers line-up and it's a welcome addition to the squad. The layout is excellent and the BIOS - from tweaking to overall range of options - is definitely the best we've seen from an ASUS motherboard thus far.

In fact, there's little we can criticise with ASUS' execution of a high-end Intel P965 motherboard. Being picky, the chipset doesn't support EPP memory and ASUS hasn't made the best use of the JMicron hybrid controller, leaving out additional SATA2 support. Looking towards the future, a potential stumbling block may be the limited bandwidth offered by the second mechanical x16 PCIe slot, which operates, electrically, at x4. The chipset currently supports ATI's CrossFire so no SLI'd GeForce 8800 GTXs, for now.

The main question that must be answered, we feel, is whether the £140 outlay for the board is worth it. As noted in the review, a number of Intel i975X chipsets - many of which support Core 2 Duo/Quad CPUs - are priced at or even below this mark. abit's AW9D-MAX WiFi being a prime example of how to do i975X well and yet be on the right side of £150. The competition is further bolstered by ASUS's very own P5N32-E SLI PLUS; a feature-rich NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI motherboard that's strong in every department and, crucially, is priced at the COMMANDO's level. Foxconn is weighing in with its own nForce 680i SLI, tentatively priced at £129. The competition's tough, real tough.

Overall, then, the ASUS COMMANDO can be recommended to the enthusiast who wants to push their components to the very limit, but the competition is so fierce that we cannot give it an outright recommendation to buy: there are simply too many decent LGA775-based motherboards currently available for <£150 for the COMMANDO to stand out.

HEXUS Awards

The ASUS COMMANDO is awarded the HEXUS Extreme Speed gong for offering an excellent layout, BIOS and overclocking potential

ASUS COMMANDO

HEXUS Where2Buy

The ASUS COMMANDO is currently available to buy for around £140. You can also buy it here, too.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS.net, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any of ASUS's representatives choose to do so, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

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No overclocking results?

FSB of 390 on one CPU and 490 on another… and this was a pre-production board it seems..

With a few BIOS upgrades this looks to be a really good board. No real faults, and it looks good, performs well, and is a quality build.

I RMA'ed my first commando, but I am getting another one.:)
It comes in a nice package, you will be impressed.:)

Did you use the extra cooler in testing? Is it worth it? Is it noisy? My own northbridge is pretty toasty without it (never installed it), as my cooler (Scythe Infinity) doesn't push air down around the socket, just straight towards the back of the case.

EtheAv8r
FSB of 390 on one CPU and 490 on another… and this was a pre-production board it seems..

Ah yes, but is it ASUS sending out hand-picked goods to be reviewed? It's normally the case of most manufacturers - best have a look at real-world OC results if you're considering taking the plunge. :)

I was tempted to get this and selling my P5B Deluxe, but it wouldn't make an awful lot of sense to be honest - it's not staggeringly better.

I have had one of these Boards for almost a month now and all i can say is i'm amazed and its one of those boards which just keeps amazing you.

I am not a clocker so i cant comment ont he clocking side of it but at stock in games and doing day to day stuff this board rocks.

A must for any gamer cant recommend it enough.