Asus P5N-EM HDMI review – when cheap does not mean incompetence

by Gary Illyes

$80. That was the price which the label of the Asus P5N-EM HDMI motherboard said. I needed a motherboard which supports Core 2 processors and should have integrated video and audio units, because it was going to be used in a file-server and video/audio performance didn’t matter. After testing a few days the Asus P5N-EM HDMI, I arrived to the conclusion that I bought much more: its performance and stability is outstanding in its class.

Asus P5N-EM HDMI HD-Video processing

This motherboard comes shipped with a nVidia 7100/nForce 630i media and communications processor, thus by default empowers any media. The P5N-EM HDMI natively supports playback of Blu-ray disks and HD DVD with HDCP. There are 3(!) VGA output interfaces: standard RGB, DVI and HDMI. By default the motherboard can output the signal concomitantly to the RGB and the DVI interface, by changing two jumpers the DVI output can be switched to HDMI.

Asus P5N-EM HDMI: wide range of processor support & easy BIOS upgrade

It supports multi-core processors through an Intel Socket 775. The processor I used with this motherboard is an Intel Celeron E1400 which was manufactured with a 60nm technology, though the motherboard supports processors made at 45nm. It can support a single processor with a front side bus up to 1333MHz.
There are 3 DDRII slots on the motherboard, each capable to hold dual-channel RAM modules up to 4GB and with a bus speed of a stunning 1066MHz (when overclocked).

Updating the BIOS is done through a program named EZ Flash, integrated in the setup interface of the motherboard. This way the BIOS can be flashed before entering the OS and even from an USB drive, with a few clicks.
If the BIOS data becomes corrupted due to a bad update or virus, Asus developed a BIOS feature named CrashFree BIOS 2 which allows the user to restore the BIOS to a previously saved, working copy.

Compared to its low price, the Asus P5N-EM HDMI offers some features which other manufacturers at this low price can not. The motherboard works extremely well and I would recommend it for anyone who don’t have money, or simply don’t want to spend too much on motherboard.