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ASUS P5Q Pro or P5Q-E

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tommy1104

New Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2009
Hi all!

I´m going to upgrade my actual rig. I can´t decide between these two mobos:
ASUS P5Q Pro
&
ASUS P5Q-E

There are about 15$ difference between these two.

It will go with Core 2 Quad Q9400, DDR2 2x1GB PC5300 Kingston (from older rig, I don´t wanna buy new now, and I´m going on 32-bit XP Professional), MSI 9600GT, Enermax MOD82+ 525W, CPU cooler Noctua NH-U12P and 3 3-pin fans in case.

So, please, which one is better for me? I´m not big overclocker, I never have done it (I´m able to do it, maybe in future I´ll try it). Primarily I requires and excepts quality, stability and practical layout.

I still use two PS/2 connectors and I use internal PCI wifi card with 8dB antenna. There will be AC Accelero S1 rev. 2+regular 120mm fan on graphics card.

Are there good and good shielded(suppresed) integrated audio chips on ASUS mainboards? Please, have you ever seen any test of onboard audio chips of these mobos? Post it please, if yea.
 
I've built pc's with both these boards, I run the p5q-e.

The main differences for me are the eSATA, extra network port, a few bios settings, and the heatsinks on the board.

None of these things are necessary, and the pro will get you good clocks. The p5q-e has a slightly more robust BIOS which makes things more covenient, like automatically doing the multipliers and ratios for you. It also has a few more settings.

The eSATA and extra network port I have rarely ever used, but I have used them and it's nice to have.

The onboard audio is good, I use it with no complaints spare the software which occasionally takes a little extra fiddling around. Very passable audio though, sound is good.

I did run the deluxe for a while, it looks very similar to the p5q-e but I think it has a different power system. I could run the same clocks on the deluxe and it seemed just as if not more stable going higher.

If you're strapped for cash get the Pro, you pay a little for a few extra things that aren't totally necessary. Although the p5q-e does have the appearance of higher quality, I have had to RMA two p5q-e's, one wasn't the mobo's fault really, it was shorted out by outside means.
 
I'll most likely be getting the P5Q-E once I get my $150 payment for my E6700. I haven't decided on 8 or 16 phase power, P5Q-E has 8 and the Deluxe has 16. So, 16 phase power and a pipe between NB and SB on the Deluxe are the only things the P5Q-E is missing.

Anyway...

First thing you should notice is that the P5Q-E doesn't have 2 PS/2 connectors. So, that might answer your question right there.

Other than that, I like the better and more abundant heatsinks plus the CMOS reset button on the P5Q-E. The CMOS reset button itself is worth $15 to me, I hate changing the jumpers on my P5N-E.
 
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I can solve PS2 connectors discount by PS2-USB reduction (on mouse), but discount of PCI slots I can´t solve, I think. So, this is one plus for Pro.

But more 3-pin fan connectors is plus for E.

How good can these mobos regulate fans? For example, on which rpm can I regulate fan like Noctua NF-P12-1300, or fan like Noctua NF-S12-1200 by speedfan and by Qfan profiles? I guess the lowest rpm, which I can reach.
 
I've had a bit of trouble controlling fans, the asus fan xpert software doesn't display properly in vista, so I can't access all the controls.

I tried using speedfan, which works to a point but ends up being a bit buggy on me for some reason. It does work tho, just not always. For some reason it works automatically, and sometimes I gotta mess with it before it does. Maybe I'm just not good at using the software. In the end, I gave up on fan control because my fans are quiet enough running full tilt for me to sleep next to the computer, but then maybe that's not your case.
 
One other comment that I will add is: if you plan on using 2 pci-e video cards, the second card may block some of the SATA ports on the P5Q Pro mobo. Plus, it can be a long stretch from the SATA ports on the P5Q Pro mobo to the top of your case. I definitely like the location of the SATA ports better on the P5Q-E mobo.
 
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