Motherboard Installation
In this section we take the Asus P5B Deluxe and install it in a standard, very popular ATX case in order to see if any of the design decisions made by the Asus engineers will affect the installation process or accessory usage. This section was started with my Asus A8R32-MVP motherboard review and received a lot of positive feedback.
Initial installation of the motherboard, with processor heatsink and memory already in place, looks just fine with no issues popping up.
This case, like most modern cases today, comes with front USB and FireWire headers, as well as a front panel sound connection. Here you can see that all of these connections are installed; only the red FireWire connection presents an issue due to its sitting above the bottom legacy PCI slot.
As I have mentioned in pretty much all the recent Asus motherboard reivews, I love these Q-connector deals. Basically, you can attach the case swtich and LED cables to this white plastic unit with pin headres on it. Then, this connector plugs into the motherboard easily and in a single piece, making the installation process a breeze.
After installing the first video card, here an ATI X1900 XT CrossFire Edition, you can see that you still have a lot of room inside the case. We have blocked one of the top PCI slots, but the other is open for anything else you might want to install.
Here is the motherboard fully loaded; dual CrossFire GPUs, sound card (on the bottom PCI slot) and the two USB/FireWire headers in the extra back panels as well.
Here is the same setup with the all the power connections and data cables in place.
In this image, you can see that the SATA connections are free from interference and can be accessed (though in a tight spot), as can the IDE connection.
The rear of the system looks pretty busy with all these accessories. You can see the wireless antennae and microphone plugged into the board.
