ASUS P5E3 Premium X48 Motherboard Review

Heat & Acoustical Testing

This is the second motherboard in a row that has made a liar out of the title of this section. There of course will be temperature testing of the motherboards standard cooling, but like the ASUS Rampage Formula, it is impossible to test the acoustics of something that doesn't make any noise. Obviously the chipset cooling that comes mounted on this motherboard is passive and therefore silent. So in a sense, I guess our acoustical testing could involve confirming there are no hidden fans that are making any noise when in operation...consider the acoustical testing complete with an A+ then.

Moving on to temperature testing, again, our beef with the lack of any temperature sensors on this board comes up. It is impossible to accurately measure the chipset when ASUS has denied us access to the reading. As it has been mentioned numerous times, this lack of voltage and temperature readings on a motherboard of this caliber and price is completely un-acceptable. This is especially true when the voltage options available to us for key components are so high. ASUS needs to seriously re-consider this aspect of future versions of high-end motherboards.

So in the end, there is no actual testing in this section but we can say that the chipset cooling seems to perform quite well on the P5E3-Premium, and it should, there is enough of it. Personally, the heatpipe roller coaster theme park is not something I appreciate on a motherboard but it is how things are now so it has to be accepted. This particular setup seems strong though because we had no problem running stable with north bridge voltages set in excess of 1.75v, which is very high and a testament to the cooling being more than adequate for extreme overclocking with a bit of help from a fan.