The Basics:
An overview of the ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution X48 ATX motherboard is provided in the two images below. The aesthetics really are appealing, and even if this was purchased for use in a workstation system you might want to get a case with a window to show it off. There is nothing over the top about the color scheme, but the black, blue, white, and silver combination looks sharp. A stylish appearance may be nice, but hopefully this board isn't all for show (and I doubt it is).
 
Cruising around the board to check out the major features we see that the LGA 775 processor socket is located near the top of the board surround by an array of blue heatsinks. To the right of this we find four DDR3 memory slots that support high speed, ECC and non-ECC modules in dual channel mode. For expansion cards there are a total of four PCI Express x16 slots, one PCI Express x4 slot, and two PCI slots. We will check out these and other features as we take a closer look at various areas of this board.
A close up of the CPU socket area is shown in the below left image. This space is wide open, which should allow plenty of room for even the beefiest aftermarket coolers to be installed without interference. The ASUS labeled northbridge chipset cooler is connected to two MOSFET coolers via heatpipes, and the bulk of ASUS's latest generation 8-phase power components are located within this "fenced in" area. A 4/8-pin 12V power connection can be seen in the upper right corner, a neatly arranged array of conductive polymer capacitors can be found on two sides of the CPU socket, and right up against the heatpipe at the bottom of the picture is the Energy Processing Unit (EPU) that allows for the 80.23% CPU power saving that ASUS claims.
 
The above right image takes a look at the board in what would be the upper right corner. Here we find four 240-pin DDR3 memory slots that can handle memory up to 1800MHz with overclocking, or 1333MHz by default. The board supports XMP memory profiles, so overclocking the memory could be quite easy with the appropriate modules and a processor that could keep up. In this area we also find IDE and floppy drive connections, the 24-pin EPS power connection, a Winbond Super I/O chip, and a few of the six fan connections onboard. There is one 4-pin PWM fan connector intended for use with a CPU cooler, and five 3-pin fan connectors scattered about the board to provide plenty of locations to connect PSU or chassis fans.
The next image takes a closer look at the area around the seven expansion slots. As mentioned previously, there are four PCI Express x16 slots, one PCI Express x4 slot, and two PCI slots. The PCI Express x16 slots come in two flavors, black and blue. While all of them could be used for high end graphics cards, you may want to limit your CrossFire setup to using just the blue slots. These are electrically and physically X16, while the black slots may be x16 physically, but they are x4 electrically. For multi-monitor business applications this arrangement should be just fine, but you probably wouldn't want to bother with a third card in a CrossFire X setup.
The area below the expansion slots is where you will find headers for front panel audio (light green), Firewire (red), and USB 2.0 (2x in blue). In the corner between the last three expansion slots and the edge of the board is where you will find a VIA brand Firewire controller and a Marvell brand Gigabit LAN controller.
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