ASUS P5NT WS is a new retail board which opens up some new possibilities for home office users, or those wanting to build a workstation. The motherboard is based on the NVIDIAC55+MCP55PXE chipset and is thus for Intel’s Dual- and Quad-core processors and the Socket 775 platform. The board looks very similar to just any high-end board from ASUS with SLI support, heatpipe cooling, 8-phase power supply and ASUS special hard/software functions, such as AI Nap and AI Gear. ASUS has also used high-quality aluminum capacitors for optimal stability, a must for a motherboard in a tough environment.
The thing that stands out from the regular retail boards is that ASUS has also granted the board support for the PCI-X interface, a technology which is almost exclusive to workstations and servers. ASUS points out that the board is perfect for the SOHO market, Small Office/Home Office.
“New PCI-X Structure for More Efficiency
The PCI-X Structure of the P5NT WS motherboard is a newer, higher speed version of the conventional PCI standard. It is also fully hardware and software backward compatible to previous generations of PCI. These new standards keep pace with upcoming advances in high-bandwidth business-critical applications such as Fibre Channel, RAID, networking, InfiniBand™ Architecture, SCSI, and iSCSI.”
This has given ASUS P5NT WS some new possibilities and this could be an interesting alternative for those who are looking for a board with PCI-X. The price of the board is €200.
