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FINAL THOUGHTS
We found G35 chipset Asus P5E-VM HDMI to be an excellent motherboard
with a quality, feature rich design. The P5Q-EM is essentially the same board, advanced one chipset generation.
The two boards come with similar feature sets
and even the layout is nearly identical. The chipset, heatsinks, and the inclusion
of an eSATA adapter bracket are essentially the only changes from the P5E-VM to the P5Q-EM.
The X4500 IGP handles video playback with ease and efficiency. Even with a
Core 2 Duo underclocked to only 1.2Ghz, it manages to get through our video test
suite gracefully. Its 3D performance, like previous Intel incarnations,
is severely lacking. It's not much of an improvement over X3500.
However, given that the pricing of the P5Q-EM and P5E-VM are similar, there
is no reason not to go with the newer model.
The Asus Fan Xpert utility deserves praise. It's one of the best fan control systems we've seen on any motherboard. It works precisely as intended, which makes it exceptional. With PWM fans becoming commonplace, a utility like Fan Xpert makes the task of fine-tuning for the best balance of quiet and cooling a breeze.
The power consumption of the board is substantially higher than the Intel mini-ITX G45 board, the DG45FC.
That little G45 board reached record low idle power for an Intel board in our lab — a full 10W less than
the G35 motherboards we tested. In contrast, the P5Q-EM delivers almost no improvement over the P5E-VM HDMI,
so it's obvious that the G45 chipset wasn't the reason for the mITX DG45FC's power draw, but rather, the absence of other devices that draw power on bigger boards.
Still, we have a step improvement in performance without paying for it with greater power consumption. The Asus P5Q-EM is a fine socket 775 mATX board suitable for just about any role short of extreme multi-videocard gaming.
PROS
* Efficient video playback
* Undervolts well
* Feature-set, connectivity
* Chipsets/VRMs runs cool |
CONS
* Price
* Limited 3D performance |
Our thanks to ASUSTeK
for the Asus P5Q-EM sample.
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Articles of Related Interest
Asus M3A78-T: AMD's IGP Gets Another Boost
Intel
DG45FC: Loaded LGA775 Mini-ITX Board
Intel
DG35EC: G35 mainstream mATX board
Intel
D945GCLF m-ITX: Atom For The Desktop
Zotac
NF610i-ITX: A Compact Core 2 Solution
Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2: AMD 690G, Take 2
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