Final Thoughts
The ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP Edition is an impressive motherboard that excels in all areas. Although a little pricey at ~$230, the P5K Deluxe offers an amazing array of features, rock solid performance, stability, and a great board design and layout.
The overclocking abilities of the ASUS P5K Deluxe are second to none as this motherboard has achieved our greatest Core 2 Duo E6700 overclock yet. This motherboard was able to push the E6700 from its default 2.66GHz clock frequency all the way up to an insane 3.90GHz with the assistance of a water-cooling system. Overclocking with the ASUS P5K Deluxe has not only been very successful but also a great deal of fun. The standard performance of the P5K Deluxe was very good, matching the nForce 680i SLI LT and Intel P35 competition.
However, another very impressive trait of the P5K Deluxe is its feature set, which just seems to go on and on. The dual eSATA ports are a nice touch, as is the Firewire support, dual Gigabit LAN, 6-Channel audio, wireless access point and all the other features that can be found lurking on this motherboard.
For this reason we feel the $230 price tag can be justified, particularly for those seeking a high-end LGA775 motherboard with support for future Intel processors. The Intel P35 Express chipset is designed to support upcoming 45nm "Penryn" processors as well as DDR3 technology. Although the P5K Deluxe is limited to DDR2 memory support, which is more suitable at this point in time, there is also a version of this board supporting just DDR3 memory, known as the P5K3 Deluxe.
Recently I have played around with a few new motherboards based on the P35 chipset, which retail for around $100 less than the P5K Deluxe. However, none have been half as good, offering a limited amount of features in comparison, poor board designs (limited cooling) and below average overclocking. Those serious about their computer and what goes in it should have no problem justifying the price premium attached to the ASUS P5K Deluxe, as you really do get what you pay for with this one.
ASUS has created an impressive motherboard and we have struggled to find much wrong with the P5K Deluxe. Although the board is priced quite aggressively, at around $230, for sometime this has been a given for high-end motherboards. The ASUS P5K Deluxe will be a hot motherboard for anyone hunting down the very best of the best, when it comes to overclocking, stability and general performance, this one has you well covered.