Asus P6T Deluxe V2

After purchasing the Thermaltake Element S Case, the next decision(s) I had to make was in regards to the Motherboard, Processor and Memory to use.  Initially, I chose to use an Asus P6T (standard) but had some issues and discovered it wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I then upgraded to the Asus P6T Deluxe V2.  (Here is another review)

Back to the Deluxe V2 (I transferred the original Board to another machine after initial testing and purchased the V2). The V2 is a ripper!  I've had it about 6 months now and so far it has behaved very well.  There are (apparently) some tools on the included disk but seeing as I run Linux Mint and not Windooze, I never even bothered checking what was on the CD.

Over clocking is easy with the V2 (not that you really need to for most purposes) but I'm more interested in a rock solid, stable system so I just tweaked it a bit.  The i7 920 CPU (2.66Ghz) is currently running at 3GHz and the 12GB of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM is just casually cycling @ 1501Mhz.  Interestingly, with the default bios settings, the board sees my RAM (6x2GB 1333MHz DDR3) as 12 GB's of 1066MHz memory.  I believe this has something to do with the Intel Specifications.... not 100% sure on that (I read it somewhere).  Boosting the speed a bit is easy (as mentioned above) so it isn't an issue.  So far, the V2 hasn't missed a beat and takes everying in it's stride with ease.

Personally, I'm not sure I see the point of the included "Express Gate" software.  This software provides quick access to some basic applications (Internet, e-mail, skype, etc) but I've never used it.  The system only takes about 30seconds to boot into Linux anyway, so I don't think there is much benefit?  On an older, slower computer perhaps?   I suppose if I was running Vista and didn't feel like going for a coffee while my PC booted up???  Linux works very well on this board and I had no issues with drivers or whatever. Installing and running Linux Mint 7 was a piece if cake!

Read more about how this motherboad integrates into the rest of my system and about general system performance in upcoming post(s) here.

In short, its a rock solid board with every fearture I want or need.  I thought about upgrading it again recently (to one of the 'extreme' boards that Asus make), but after some research it made more sense to stick with this one.  Overall, I couldn't be happier with the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 (unless someone gave one for free!). 

(Side note:  As mentioned above, I had some issues with the Asus P6T and memory configuration. I had installed 8 GB of RAM but no matter how I fiddled with the settings, I couldn't get it to 'see' more than 4 Gig. The computer worked ok but just refused to see all of the available RAM.  Hours of playing around and googling for ideas didn't help...  I found a number of references to memory issues with the P6T (bit of a worry) but couldn't find a solution to my specific problem until I read somewhere that issues with the CPU not sitting right could cause the M/B not to read the Memory correctly... ?  I'd never seen or heard of this before but it was worth checking.

So, as a last resort, I removed the Intel I7 processor, had close look at the LGA1366 Socket and to my surprise found one slightly bent pin (I was very careful when placing the CPU in the socket...?).  I managed to straighten the pin with a very small screwdriver. I then re-installed the Processor & heatsink, fired up the beast and bingo!  8GB of humming RAM.  Problem solved!)