ASUS P5B-VM
Although ASUS P5B-VM based on iG965 chipset is somewhat similar to ASUS P5LD2-VM, it boasts much broader features range and sells at a much higher price. In some stores the price difference between these two mainboards may reach up to $40. This is the price you have to pay for the newer and more advanced integrated Intel GMA X3000 graphics core, as well as for the variety of onboard controllers that ASUS P5B-VM is stuffed with.
This mainboard is designed in MicroATX form-factor that is very popular for integrated solutions. However, besides P5B-VM, ASUS also has another similar product ?P5B-V - with full-size ATX design, which is evidently positioned for advanced user systems. However, the simpler ASUS P5B-VM doesn?t yield to it that much, especially when it comes to supported CPUs. The mainboard is equipped with LGA 775 socket and can work with any contemporary Intel processor (including the quad-core Core 2 Quad), since it supports Quad Pumped Bus 533, 800 and 1067MHz and the processor voltage regulator complies with VRM 11 specification.
As for the memory, there are four DIMM slots with ASUS?typical color coding. I would like to specifically stress that ASUS P5B-VM mainboard can support up to 8GB of memory thanks to iG965 chipset it is based on. Moreover, the mainboard can work with DDR2-533/667/800 SDRAM as well as with faster DDR2-1067 SDRAM, which is an unofficial feature implemented in the BIOS Setup of this particular mainboard (at 266MHz FSB frequency).
ASUS P5B-VM allows using external graphics cards instead of the integrated graphics core. There is a fully-fledged PCI Express x16 slot on the board for that. Besides, the mainboard features two PCI slots and one PCI Express x4 slot.
ASUS P5B-VM uses ICH8 South Bridge with limited RAID functionality. However, this South Bridge provides the board with 10 USB 2.0 slots, four of which are laid out on the read panel and the remaining six exist in the form of onboard pin-connectors. The South Bridge is also responsible for the four Serial ATA-300 ports.
The mainboard is also equipped with an additional JMicron JMB363 controller for hard disk drives. On the one hand, this controller provides a Parallel ATA-133 channel that allows using optical drives with ATAPI interface, and on the other ?adds the fifth Serial ATA-300 and the sixth SATA on-the-Go ports on the mainboard rear panel.
External controllers on ASUS P5B-VM are also used for other additional functions. For example, the Texas Instruments chip provides two IEEE1394a ports, one on the rear panel and another one in the form of a PCB pin-connector. There is a Realtek chip responsible for Gigabit network support. As for the integrated sound solution, ASUS P5B-VM uses an eight-channel ADI AD1988 codec that also supports SPDIF out.
Besides the already mentioned USB 2.0, IEEE1394 and SATA On-the-Go ports, the mainboard rear panel carries a network RJ45 connector with built-in diagnostic LEDs, six audio-jacks, a D-Sub monitor connector, PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse and a Parallel port. Moreover, you can also get an additional serial port if you install a special bracket (it is not supplied with the mainboard).
The mainboard is designed in a pretty typical way for the products of this class, although it is not absolutely flawless. Namely, the installed graphics card will block the DIMM slots clips, and the 12V additional power connector has been moved almost to the very center of the PCB.
The processor voltage regulator is designed as a four-phase circuitry and features no cooling. The chipset North and South Bridges are covered with aluminum heatsinks. The North Bridge heatsink is relatively big, while the ICH8 chip does Ok with a low-profile pin heatsink.
Despite its relatively high price, ASUS P5B-VM cannot boast that many overclocking-friendly features as any other mainboard from the popular P5B series. Although the BIOS Setup offers some options to increase the FSB frequency up to 500MHz, to raise the processor Vcore and to adjust all major memory timings, Vdimm can only be increased to 1.95V, which prevents you from using fast overclocker memory on this platform.
