ASUS P5E3 Premium (Intel X48)
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Date: 02.06.2008 |
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ASUS P5E3 Premium - Layout and Features
The PCB design offers the following traits: three PCI Express x16 slots, a Wi-Fi, and an Express Gate module. We also note the massive cooling system which includes radiators on the chipset and the power supply module, as well as heat pipes with which these radiators are interlinked.
Besides the blocking of latches of the DIMM slots by a PCI Express video card, the assembly operator will not come across any other issues. The power connectors are positioned in a very convenient way: 24-pin - on the bottom edge, with a 8-pin on the right-hand. Note that the board has retained a backward compatibility to the "old" PSUs and allows using them with 20+4 cables. At the same time, the unused pins of the additional connector are closed with a plastic lid:
Near the CPU socket, there is a 4-pin CPU_FAN connector for a matching cooler.
Besides it, there are five more 3-pin connectors: PWR_FAN and CHA_FAN2 - near the DIMM slots, CHA_FAN1 - near the rear panel, CHA_FAN3 and CHA_FAN4 - near the south bridge.
Despite the greater heat emission of the north bridge in X48, it uses a moderate enough radiator (according to ASUS's standards).
Under the north bridge, there are four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR3 memory modules. They are partitioned into two groups, each having two slots. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.
The board supports DDR2-1066/1333/1600 memory, and the maximum memory capacity makes 8 GB. Once voltage is applied to the board, the green LED in the bottom-left corner lights up.
There are three PCI Express x16 slots onboard (all with latches) which are meant for video cards.
Due to the capabilities of the X48 chipset, 16 PCI Express v2.0 bus lanes are allocated to the first two (blue) slots. Therefore, in using two AMD/ATI video cards they run in the most powerful Crossfire mode. Either four or one PCI Express v1.0 bus lanes are allocated to the third (black) slot.
Besides the above listed slots, ASUS P5E3 Premium uses two more standard PCI slots as well as two PCI Express x1 slots.
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