Board revision: 1.02

BIOS version: 04.22

With prices ranging up to $250, Asus has set a new cost record for desktop motherboards with the P5WD2 Premium, though the value you get compared to the purchase of individual components is indisputably very good. The first noticeable feature is the second x16 PCI express slot. Until now this only enabled the use of "pseudo-SLI" with adapted drivers; it now permits the use of a second graphics card for four displays.

Besides these chipset functions, there are two Gigabit Ethernet chips (Intel and Marvell), an additional Silicon Image chip with two SATA-II ports (one of them external) and a component from ITE that offers two UltraATA/133 channels. (It seems that even Intel lacks confidence in its "one UltraATA channel should suffice" strategy...)