The P5LD2 Deluxe from Asus is a full specs motherboard with Wireless LAN, PCI-Express, Gigabit LAN, HD-AUDIO, SATA II /IDE RAID, Dual Channel, N.O.S. WiFi-TV which are only some of the board's long list of features. Once again, the PCB construction is very good and uses the patented Stack Cool 2.

Starting from the BIOS and components, it seems the P5LD2 Deluxe is quite similar to the more expensive P5WD2 Premium. With the main exception being the use of the 945P as opposed to the 955X chipset on the P5WD2, the rest of the components are quite similar. The Winbond chipset is the same for both, as is also the ITE controller responsible for the RAID array and the Silicon image for the SATA. The P5LD2 Deluxe has one LAN connection (two on the P5WD2 Premium) and hence one Marvel chipset missing. The BIOS is also the same.

The P5LD2 Deluxe is a 945P chipset based motherboard. While Asus' flagship m/b is the P5WD2 Premium, the reported performance was quite similar for both motherboards with P5WD2 Premium having slightly better performance in all but a few tests. Overall however, the difference in the benchmarks and games between the two was negligible.

The overclocking capabilities of the P5LD2 Deluxe are also good but on this point, the 955X seems to be slightly better than the 945P. It allowed us to increase the FSB a little more.

The price for the P5LD2 Deluxe at the time of the review was close to US$170 on the e-market, for the retail package without the WiFi-TV set. At the same time, the P5WD2 Premium costs approximately US$50 more. Similar performance, features and package as the flagship motherboard from Asus, the P5LD2 Deluxe is an excellent purchase.

Pros:

• Excellent construction and Stack Cool 2 patent
• Retail Package with plenty of goods
• Many of features
• Monitoring utility from Windows
• Q-Fan and AI NOS features
• Good motherboard overclocking capabilities
• TV Tuner available
• WiFi Lan included

Cons:

• SLI mode is not working

Features
Performance
BIOS/Overclocking
Value for money