Asus AI Gear, AI NAP, Q-Fan 2, Precision Tweaker, ?

[Gordon]

I plan to assemble a new Intel Core 2 Duo pc and am making a list of components to purchase. I am not a gamer and will be using the computer primarily for home entertainment tasks such as recording, editing, and streaming standard and HD television programs, as a home music server, and for general computing (Photoshop, video editing, music editing, etc.).

I want a good quality, stable, motherboard. I am not looking for extreme overclocking abilities, so sticking to an Intel desktop board, such as their 965WH series may be my best choice. But, I do note the many "exclusive technologies" touted by Asus in their P5B boards, such as the yet-to-be-released P5B Premium Vista Edition. Asus promotional releases touch upon their exclusive:

AI Gear (optimize performance and quietness)
AI NAP (Minimize noise and power consumption when temporarily away)
8-Phase Power Design (cooler and quieter system, longer component lifespan, stability),
Q-Fan 2 (adjusts cpu and chassis fan speeds)
CrashFree BIOS (simply restore corrupted BIOS data)
Precision Tweaker (achieve system maximum performance)
All High-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
Etc
Etc
Etc

When I attempt to research the usefulness of the above exclusive technologies, I find lots of motherboard reviews that go into great detail in comparing game performance of competing boards, but I find no in-dept discussion on whether the features I mentioned above are just hype, or do they really work and offer benefits to the owners. I was burned once before in buying the hype on an AOpen motherboard. I found later that many of the so-called features such as automatic fan controls, etc., performed either poorly or not at all. The AOpen forum was full of complaining customers writing that support for the special features was actually nonexistent.

I would be very interested in reading your comments on the so-called Asus Exclusive Technologies.

Thank you

 

[kirbyrj]

Most of it is just hype. Every motherboard manufacturer has a lot of the same features just called something else. The only "feature" from Asus that really helps a lot is the Q-Connector for your power LED/switches, etc.

 

[Gordon]

Thank you for your response, kirbyrj. Yes, the Asus Q-Connector does get a lot of positive comments from the motherboard reviewers. I can see where it would make things a bit easier. The fact that no one seem to write about those other "exclusive technologies" is a good indicator that they are mostly hype.

This makes me wonder if the latest (yet to be released) motherboards "designed especially for Vista" actually add any useful new features.

Any other comments from users who have tried some of these Asus features, such as AI Gear, AI Nap, Q-Fan 2, etc.?

 

[si0dine]

AI Gear (optimize performance and quietness)
AI NAP (Minimize noise and power consumption when temporarily away)
8-Phase Power Design (cooler and quieter system, longer component lifespan, stability),
Q-Fan 2 (adjusts cpu and chassis fan speeds)
CrashFree BIOS (simply restore corrupted BIOS data)
Precision Tweaker (achieve system maximum performance)
All High-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors

AI Gear: is pretty much a way to tweak BIOS settings in windows.
AI NAP: Haven't really tried it but it sounds cool, it's suppose to allow you to download your torrents overnight with less noise and power consumption -- they don't say that's what it's for but you get the idea.
Q-Fan 2: This is really useless -- you can tweak the fan's settings in your BIOS to optimal, silent, or performance.

One thing you didn't mention is the ability to update your BIOS from windows with ASUS update, which I really like.