ASUS P5PE-VM - motherboard - micro ATX - i865G

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Average
Ease of Installation	Good - quick to install
Stability	Very stable
Value For Money	Good

Advantages:	Flexible
Disadvantages:	-

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Being a personal computer (PC) supplier, I try to find a 'better' product with better price for my consumers. As a fact, consumers would have a good product with reasonable price.

ASUS is a well known manufacturer for mainboards. It always gets awards from several PC magazines and institutions. This image gives Asus a high goodwill? This is not my personal opinion, but it comes from my consumers.

Awards? Some new PC consumers do not realize that awards are given to CERTAIN PRODUCTS of a manufacturer. As Asus products always gets awards, it does not mean all Asus products are the best.

Seeing the fanatic consumers of Asus, and standing at the supplier side, I try to offer my consumers ASUS P5PE-VM mainboard as it offers the most competitive price and it comes with some nice features.

SPECIFICATIONS

Intel 865G chipset
Leveraging the Intel 865G chipset to support 3.8GHZ+ P4 CPUs on 800MHz FSB, dual-channel DDR 400 memory, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, Intel Extreme Graphics 2, and a full-range of advanced features, the P5PE-VM delivers a full-value solution for today's most demanding tasks.

Intel® Extreme Graphics 2
The P5PE-VM, with integrated Intel Extreme Grpahics 2, delivers powerful integrated 2D and 3D graphics performance for functionality and value. It supports DVI-ADD card which is an AGP Digital Display card designed to make the system capable of driving a variety of DVO devices (e.g., TMDS, LVDS and TV-Out.).

Dual Channel DDR400
Dual channel DDR technology doubles the bandwidth of your system memory and hence boost the system performance to out perform any memory existing solutions in the market. System bottlenecks are eliminated with balanced architecture and peak bandwidths up to 6.4GB/s.

AGP8X
AGP8X (AGP 3.0) enables enhanced graphics performance with high bandwidth up to 2.12GB/s.

ASUS CPU Lock Free
The P5PE-VM offers the CPU Lock Free feature, which allows you to adjust CPU multiplier to 14x. The reduction of multiplier value provides more flexibility for increasing external FSB frequency to raise memory bus bandwidth. CPU Lock Free boosts overall system performance by making synchronous modification possible. Enjoy better performance at the same CPU operation speed and improve your system without pushing the CPU to the limit.

Serial ATA technology
Serial ATA provides scalable performance. With up to 150MB/s data transfer rate, Serial ATA is faster than current Parallel ATA.

CrashFree BIOS2
The CrashFree BIOS 2 feature now includes the BIOS auto-recovery function in a support CD. Users can reboot their system through the support CD when a bootable disk is not available, and go through the simple BIOS auto-recovery process.
ASUS motherboards now enable users to enjoy this protection feature without the need to pay for an optional ROM.

Max. 8 USB 2.0 ports supports
USB 2.0 is the latest connectivity standard for next generation components and peripherals.
Backwards compatible with current USB 1.1 peripherals, USB 2.0 delivers transfer speeds up to 40 times faster at 480Mb/s, for easy connectivity and ultra-fast data transfers.

C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)
When the system hangs due to overclocking failure, there is no need to open the case to clear CMOS data. Just simply restart the system, the BIOS would show the previous setting and then users can amend the CPU setting again.

Green ASUS
The motherboard and its packaging comply with the European Union's Restriction on the use of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). This is in line with the ASUS vision of creating environment-friendly and recyclable products and packaging to safeguard consumers' health while minimizing the impact on the environment.

EZ Flash
With EZ Flash, you can update BIOS before entering operating system. No more DOS-based flash utility and bootable disks are required.

CONCLUSION

P5PE-VM is a nice mainboard to build up a personal computer, especially for someone who has got limited budget. Nowadays - it costs about USD56 - USD59 (in my country - Indonesia). Instead of its competitive price, it comes with integrated Intel Extreme Grpahics 2 - and it means consumers can save some money for a graphic card.

CrashFree BIOS2 and CPU Parameter Recall systems are nice features, too. It means that the mainboard is a geniuous one! It stops working if there's something wrong with the mainboard. It is a good safety system!

Some other features are also considerable, such as supporting some low-end to high-end Intel processors. Hence - consumers could adjust their purchasing powers with their needs. It is really a flexible one.

The layout of this mainboard is simple. It comes with a very helpful manual. By referring to its manual - I think its easy to assembly a personal computer. (LOL)

Overall, I would recommend P5PE-VM for everyone who is looking for a new mainboard.