Tom's Hardware by Patrick Schmid, Bert TÃ ¶pelt Conclusion: Intel Inside Almost Wins Although AMD's next-generation platform is here now, the anticipation surrounding the upcoming Intel processor is tremendous. The latest motherboard generation is powerful and well equipped, and this means more choices for the consumer. Which one will make you happy? All six motherboards worked reliably during the three-week test period, and they performed more or less alike, although there were some slight differences that vary by application. From a hardware point of view, the boards come with all the features a power user might require and, again, you can only find differences in the details. We do not advise against any of these boards, but they each do have advantages and disadvantages that we would like to point out. Both Asus motherboards performed well, building on the Asus tradition of delivering quality products. Both the P5WD2-E and the P5WDG2-WS run slightly overclocked, which is why they dominate several benchmark disciplines. We have to criticize the slow software downloads and mention the fact that other motherboard makers have closed ranks. Gigabyte, for example, offers more features and more equipment for less money. However, the P5WDG2-WS is the only workstation-type motherboard with two PCI-X slots and a comforting 8-phase voltage regulator.
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