Asus P5KC

The Asus P5KC LGA 775 socket motherboard is based on Intel’s P35 northbridge and ICH9 southbridge chipsets.

Graphics

For improved graphics performance, the Asus P5KC offers AMD’s CrossFire dual GPU technology. And with the Catalyst Control Center utility, the user can tweak advanced display settings and check the results in a real-time 3D rendered preview.

Overclocking

The Asus P5KC features the Precision Tweaker overclocking utility, which allows fine-tuning of settings in small increments. Precision tweaker features vDIMM, vCore and SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection). vDimm gives the user 8-step voltage control to the DIMM. With vCore, CPU voltages can be adjusted in 0.0125 volt steps. SFS, meanwhile, allows the adjustment of the front side bus, DDR2 and DDR3 memory and PCI Express frequencies in 1 MHz increments.

In addition, the motherboard also offers the Asus AI NOS (Non-delay Overclocking System) dynamic overclocking technology.

BIOS Management

Complementing the motherboard’s overclocking features are Asus’ O.C. Profile and C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall). With the former, multiple BIOS settings can be stored and used. The latter saves the user from having to open the case to clear CMOS data when overclocking causes the system to hang.

Other convenient features include CrashFree BIOS 3 and EZ-Flash 2. These features allow the user to restore and update the BIOS using a USB flash drive.

Cooling and Energy Efficiency

The P5KC features a fanless heat pipe design which draws the heat to the heatsink near the rear IO ports. This design also supports the installation of a side-flow fan or passive cooler. The motherboard also features the Asus-exclusive Stack Cool 2 fanless and noiseless thermal solution.

Helping the system keep cool and energy efficient are the Q-Fan 2 and AI Gear 2 Asus technologies. Q-Fan 2 will automatically adjusts CPU and chassis fans speeds according to system load. AI Gear 2 offers users real-time profile switching of CPU frequency and vCore voltage.