The chaps over at TechReport rounded up five Intel's P35 Express mobos - the Abit IP35 Pro, Asus P5K and P5K3 Deluxe, Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6, and MSI P35 Platinum to a punishing gauntlet of tests in Windows Vista x64 to determine which boards measure up, which fall short, and whether one stands out as the pick of the litter. Here's a taster:

MSI's P35 Platinum is probably our least favorite of the bunch. The board is priced well at under $180 online, but the BIOS definitely needs some work to resolve memory setting problems and a lack of support for the Core 2 Duo's C1E Enhanced Halt State. We're also not crazy about losing two of the ICH9R's Serial ATA ports to eSATA. However, the Platinum easily has the most impressive chipset cooler of the lot, and its performance was quite good, so a BIOS update could make this board considerably more attractive down the road.

We've only had a couple of weeks with the P35 Platinum, but Asus' P5Ks have been running in our labs for much longer. They've grown on me, in particular because they offer a nice array of integrated peripherals, including 802.11g Wi-Fi. Those extras go a long way toward justifying the price premium you'll pay for the boards. The P5K Deluxe costs around $225 online while the P5K3 Deluxe is selling for closer to $250. Asus has turned out a solid BIOS for each board, as well, and their performance is competitive with the others.

Unfortunately, the P5K3 Deluxe is saddled with DDR3 memory that costs significantly more than DDR2 without any real performance or power consumption benefits. That leaves the P5K Deluxe as a viable option, but it consumes close to 40W more power than the competition at idle, and around 30W more under load. Such a significant wattage gap is curious, to say the least, and makes it difficult to recommend the P5K Deluxe for a power-efficient Core 2 build.

So we're left with Abit's IP35 Pro and Gigabyte's GA-P35-DQ6. The former costs just $175 online, making it a bargain compared to some of the other boards we've looked at today. Even at that lower price, you get the best fan speed control and hardware monitoring options of the lot. However, Abit has cut corners, and the IP35's lack of PCIe-based Gigabit Ethernet definitely hurts this board's appeal. This board's Firewire performance isn't that hot, either, but those are more minor issues that are easily balanced by the board's great layout and low price. If I had to buy one board out of the five we've looked at today with my own money, it would probably be the IP35 Pro, and that earns it a share of our Editor's Choice award.

Wow, what the heck is with that power consumtion on those Asus boards? (see pictures). Lost Circuits speculated that high power consumption on Asus's Quad FX mobo was from poorly designed voltage regulation and maybe that's also the case here?