Asus P5KPL

The P5KPL motherboard from Asus comes in a Micro ATX form factor and measures 12 x 7.6 inches. The board is based on Intel’s G31 (northbridge) and ICH7 (southbridge) chipsets. It has an LGA 775 socket compatible with Intel’s Core 2 Extreme/Duo/Quad processors and also supports Intel’s new 45 nm CPUs. It supports front side bus speeds of 1333/1066/800 MHz. The P5KPL also features support for Intel’s Hyper-Threading and Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technologies.

Northbridge

Based on the Intel G31 chipset, the P5KPL offers 4 slots for 240-pin DIMMs for a maximum of 4 gigabytes of DDR2 800/667 non-ECC, un-buffered RAM. The motherboard also supports dual channel memory. The northbridge also offers an x16 PCI Express slot for bandwidth-hungry expansion cards such as a graphics processing unit (GPU).

Southbridge

The Asus P5KPL’s southbridge offers a single x1 PCI Express slot, 3 PCI slots and support for up to 8 USB ports. For connecting storage devices, the motherboard offers 4 3 Gb/s SATA connectors and 1 UltraDMA 100/66 connector. Rear panel ports include PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse, 4 USB 2.0, 1 parallel, 1 gigabit LAN (RJ45), 1 COM, 1 SPDIF out and a 6 channel audio I/O.

The P5KPL also features a Realtek ALC662 audio chipset for 5.1 channel High Definition audio.

Bundled Accessories

Included in the box are 2 SATA cables (plus 2 power cables), UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable, floppy drive cable, USB cable, I/O back plate, user manual and a driver CD. Also included are Asus’ PC Probe II and LiveUpdate utility software.