We recently looked at the P5WD2 by ASUS which was based on Intel's 955X chipset board and were very impressed with ASUS?engineering. Today, we take a look at an almost identical board from ASUS- the P5LD2 Deluxe based on Intel's 945P chipset announced at Computex last week. We say almost identical because the layout, features and BIOS of the P5LD2 are almost the same as the P5WD2 and thus a large part of this review will pretty much be a repeat of our P5WD2 review. The difference, if we see any, will be related to the performance and overclocking features of this board.

Before we start the review, some of our readers might be wondering about the differences between the 945 and 955 chipsets. The answer to that is pretty much the same as the differences between the 865 and 875 chipsets as well as the 915 and 925 chipsets- more or less, nothing. Basically, Intel simply hand picks the 945 chipsets that work with tighter timings in the memory controller and re-badges them as 955. This ?feature?of the 955 chipset is called Memory Pipeline Technology and we?ll see how much of a difference this makes in our benchmarks. Besides this, the 945 chipset will be cheaper than the 955 and will be available as a discreet as well as an integrated solution in the forms of 945P and 945G respectively.

Packaging

We recieved some emails regarding the absence of the TV WiFi card in the Premium edition of the P5WDA motherboard. ASUS informed us that the WiFi TV card package was a notch higher than the premium version and specifically mentioned WiFi TV on the box. Thus, if one of the reasons you're planning on buying the P5LD2 is WiFi TV card, make sure you order the WiFi TV Edition. The P5LD2 uses a white box in line with ASUS' ALife series which certainly looks elegant. The front of the box has very little stuff on it which create the minimalist effect successfully. Flip it open and you?ll see all the features supported by the board.

With the amount of cables that ASUS bundles with the P5LD2, you can pretty much open a shop and start selling stuff! Tons of cables are included for SATA/power and IDE along with the drivers and applications CDs. ASUS also bundles their WiFi TV card with its cables but more on that later.

While SLi isn't officially supported on this board, ASUS bundles their SLi connector which is totally flexible and completely awesome allowing you to connect to any SLI setup.

Layout

The P5LD2 features the ?Stack Cool 2?system which basically adds a layer underneath the motherboard that dissipates heat better which in turn, results in reduced temperatures below the CPU area. The CPU socket is well placed and does not feel tight meaning you should be able to install a decent HSF unit if needed. ASUS places the main power connector next to the memory sockets along with the floppy connector while the 12V connector is placed to the left of the CPU right on top of the board- again the right place for it as it keeps the system cable-clutter free.

Above the CPU socket, we see ASUS placing a Serial-ATA connector which is certainly a weird position for this but as you will see that the back plate has an external SATA connector as well and for this reason, ASUS had to place this connector within the region. In our opinion, ASUS should've placed both these SATA connectors on the back plate as you already have four inside.

The board features two PCI-E x16 slots that can be hooked up to video cards, however SLi is not officially supported. Instead, you can connect the two cards to four display units and enjoy quad view. Keep in mind that you can run the secondary video card at either PCI-E x4 speed by disabling the onboard x1 slot or at PCI-E x2 speed. These options are adjustable from the BIOS. The remaining slots are three 32-bit PCI slots as most add-on cards are available in this format. Next to the PCI slots, ASUS places four SATA connectors and one IDE connector powered by ICH7 as well as two IDE connectors powered by the iTE RAID chipset. You can also find the clearing CMOS jumper in this area for easy access as well as all the USB/Firewire headers along the bottom edge of the board.