ASUS Commando Review

Name: ASUS Commando Review
Item: ASUS Commando Review
Rating: 70
Author: Team Digit

By Team Digit | Updated Apr 01 2007

DIGIT RATING

70 _/100

design
80
performance
80
value for money
60
features
80

Verdict

Priced at Rs 17,500 the Commando is a bit overpriced. After all, aside from the bling factor, and the solid capacitors, it is costlier than the P5B-Deluxe, which adds Wi-Fi and E-SATA as connectivity options. Gamers will also note the full version of GRAW that's been bundled "free" with the board.

ASUS Commando detailed review

The Commando is a P965-based board that joins the "Republic of Gamers" league, consisting of the Striker (nForce 680i based), and the Crosshair (nForce 590SLI based) motherboards.

The first evident difference between the Commando and the P5B-Deluxe is the fancy heatpipe solution. Secondly, the newcomer features an all-solid state capacitor design, improving the board's life. The all-practical E-SATA back port gets dumped for the LCD diagnostic poster.

Overall a very well-laid-out board with all the SATA connectors facing outwards (opposed to upwards); ditto the solitary IDE port. There's space aplenty between the CPU heatsink and memory modules. However, the heatpipe solution will make installation of larger heatsinks a little difficult if not impossible. Incidentally, motherboard temperatures remained well within acceptable limits during our tests. Neither did the heatpipe assembly get too warm.

ASUS provides a plethora of overclocking and tweaking options in the BIOS. You can store various BIOS settings as Overclock Profiles, and load them at startup, depending what you plan to do during the session.

Surprisingly, the Commando lagged slightly behind the ASUS P5B-Deluxe we tested a while ago. Priced at Rs 17,500 the Commando is a bit overpriced. After all, aside from the bling factor, and the solid capacitors, it is costlier than the P5B-Deluxe, which adds Wi-Fi and E-SATA as connectivity options. Gamers will also note the full version of GRAW that's been bundled "free" with the board.

Specifications
Intel P965 chipset based; ICH8R Southbridge; 6xSATA 2 ports; Expansion slots-1xPCI-Express x16, 1xPCI-Express x4, 1xPCI-Express x1, 4xPCI slots; 4 rear USB ports; 1 FireWire port

RATINGS

Performance : 4

Features : 4

Build Quality: 4

Value for Money : 3

Overall : 3.5

ASUS COMMANDO

PC Mark 2005 (CPU)	5968
PC Mark 2005 (Memory)	5708
PC Mark 2005 (Graphics)	10558
PC Mark 2005 (Overall)	6180
3D Mark 2005 (GPU)	15762
3D Mark 2005 (CPU)	8700
F.E.A.R 1024x768 (4x AA, 4x AF)	147 fps
F.E.A.R 1600x1200 (4x AA, 8x AF)	80 fps