We’ve gotten a hold of some information about the upcoming P5Q series from ASUS. The boards are based on the Intel P45 chipset and right now we know of two boards of the series; ASUS P5Q-E and P5Q Pro. Both boards use the older DDR2 memory standard, and supports up to 1200MHz memory frequency. They bring support for the latest Intel processors, with 1600MHz FSB, and they also have the new EPU. EPU is a built-in chip that will save power by adjusting voltages on the fly during idle situations.
ASUS P5Q-E is the higher-end of the two. It sports a more advanced cooling with a larger heatsink on top of the northbridge and additional cooling for the voltage regulators on the top of the boards (right side in the pictures below). It also has a third PCIe x16 slot, which you can use to run three ATI Radeon cards in CrossFireX with 8x physical bandwidth on two slots, and 4x on the third one. When running two cards in CrossFire you get 8x bandwidth with each slot.
Both cards use the new ICH10R southbridge, where the PATA support has finally been removed, but those of you who are still using the fossilized format can relax. ASUS has added an external controller. There are eight SATA ports all in all, six from the southbridge and two from an external controller.
Two Firewire ports, support for up to 12 USB ports, 8 channel HD audio, 2 PCI ports, and 2 PCIe x1 ports (3 with P5Q Pro) and dual Gb Ethernet (single with P5Q Pro), are just some of the features you will find with both boards.
ASUS P5Q-E
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ASUS P5Q Pro
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Keep your eyes open, because we have more information coming up.
