The P5K Premium borrows heavily from the P5K Deluxe, to the point that we didn't spot any differences in its circuit board. Yet Asus said it was a far better overclocker than its respected predecessor, and pleaded with us to test its new DDR2-capable product when we had instead requested the Blitz Extreme.
Asus' inclusion of this board was also responsible for broadening this article's content to include both DDR2 and DDR3 supporting products. The original plan was to push for maximum speed in both CPU and memory, but readers will instead get the added treat of seeing DDR2 and DDR3 motherboards side-by-side at the best settings possible for each RAM type.
But Nothing Blew? Swiftech Apogee GTX And 3x 120mm Radiator
Many readers have complained about our previous overclocking assessments using "undersized" CPU coolers, even though we were able to achieve relatively low temperatures using a simple water cooler with single-fan radiator. Rather than disappoint the more enthusiastic among our builders, we went full force with the help of Swiftech.
Thanks to overclocking guru and Swiftech marketing representative Eric Kronies, we received the firm's highest-capacity Apogee GTX LGA775 water block, triple 120 mm fan radiator, MCP-655b water pump, and a bottle of its HydrX coolant additive. The company also included a roll of 7/16" tubing, two rolls of kink-preventing "Smartcoil" tube support coils, an MCRes-Micro reservoir, three 120 mm cooling fans, 3-pin to 4-pin fan power adapters, a funnel for filling the system, and a pack of plastic tube clamps.
For those of you who don't recognize Eric's name, he's better known as OPPainter in a great number of computer-enthusiast communities.
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