ASUS Asus P5N-E SLI

Reviewed by: dp4900

Duration of ownership: 3 Months

Strengths: Not sure

Weaknesses: Does not allow overclocking, frequent freezing and restarts for no obvious reasons. SLI .... and so what???

Overall: I got this motherboard for the reason of having 2 IDE's. But unfortunately it is very poor. I thought my problems were from some other components and for 3 months, I have been doing nothing but changing swapping etc... I took the PC back to the vendor and he discovered the freezing is coming from the MB after he put his own HW. He replaced it and I still see the freezing happening from time to time and now that I saw many other forums it sounds like a "feature" in this motherboard. HAve to live with it. 2 IDE's is a big disaster. I tried few weeks setting 2 HDD on the primary IDE finally gave up. Very disappointed with it my old ASrock was even better. I thought behind the name Asus was something reliable and quality but I fully disagree do not buy this board.

Reviewed by: allenp

Strengths: No install problems.

Weaknesses: Support. Unexplained e-sata problems

Overall: Have problems attaching e-sata drive. Hangs system. Must reboot with drive attached. Also get garbled desktop when backing up to e-sata drive. Could be Vista problems.Their website seems to be running on a Commodore 64 and manned by 1 person. Good luck downloading drivers!

Reviewed by: nik_yodo

Strengths: Easy to setup. Easy to change from single to dual graphic cards. Helpful small components.

Weaknesses: At first, it made lots of noise but slowly disappear, which is not bad at all.

Overall: It is very very easy to setup everything. They small connectors to help you plug the cables in hard-to-reach area.And it is so easy to change from single graphic card to SLI mode. It works!!!

Reviewed by: Tophan47

Strengths: Easy OverclockNice layoutRoomy...nothing seems to be in the way even with a Zalman 9700 and a 8800 gts card in the way

Weaknesses: Runs a bit hotIssues with one memory slot (tried two boards...same issue) with crucial ballistix 800no hs on sb...had to add one to lower temps

Overall: Besides it running slightly on the hotter side (~50ish°C) and not including a hs on the sb...this board is awesome...i have had no major issues that could not be solved...however i noticed on two of these boards that i bought that i was unable to run crucial ballistix 800 on slots 1 (the yellow ones) but works fine on slots 2...asus was unable to help me on it but i figured i wont be adding more memory anytime soon so i should be okay...i would defn recommend this board!

Reviewed by: tabriswoo

Strengths: Budget Gaming system, good price, Very easy to overclock

Weaknesses: Gigabit does not really work in Vista

Overall: Update your BIOS if you are experiencing any memory timing issue (to 0602). I am using Cosair XMS DDR800, which works great with the board (after BIOS update). I am able to overclock to 3.1 without any major heat problem. This is a good board for people who wants nice features from the board, but not for those hardcore gamers. If you have gigabits network and vista, here is another thing for you, gigabit driver for nvidia chipsets still didn't work. That means even you are detected at gigabit speed, you are going megabits. You can google this problem pretty easily. But other than this, this board is a great board.

Reviewed by: gilkm88

Strengths: Simple installation, position of the IDE connectors (major plus for my BTX style case). Great price for all of the features. Quick connect dongle for case hookup.

Weaknesses: No active cooling on NB. Large NB heatsink can make installing a large CPU heatsink difficult. No cooling on south bridge. Only 2 PCI slots.

Overall: I installed this MB and then did a clean install of XP Pro, installed a few drivers and it was off to the races. I was definitely going to overclock, so I got an Arctic Cool Freezer 7 Pro. I did have to bend the lowest fin on the cooler in order to get past the NB heatsink. I then went into the Bios and pumped up the FSB to run my e6400 at 3 gig. Works with no problems, no heat or voltage issues. I can't wait to push it further. Good Stuff.