The Basics (continued):
The other corner at the bottom of the board is dominated by a large, but low profile, southbridge cooler. It is anodized blue to match the other coolers on the board, and it is tied into the same circuit using a matching silver colored copper heatpipe. Other key features in this area include the header for the G.P. diagnostic card (black, labeled TPM), the front panel connection header (white), and eight SATA connections mounted on their sides.
 
Of the eight SATA connections provided, six are controlled by the Intel ICH9R southbridge chipset (the blue connections), while the other two are controlled by a separate Marvell storage controller (the black connections). All together the storage potential on this board is quite complete, as there are eight SATA connections, an IDE connection that would support two drives, a floppy drive connection, and as we will see next, two eSATA connections.
The next image shows off the rather heavily populated rear I/O panel. You get a PS2 keyboard connection, six USB 2.0 connections, coaxial and optical S/PDIF connections, a pair of Gigabit LAN connections, one Firewire port, two eSATA connections, and eight 1/8" stereo jacks for analog audio. All in all it is quite a nice spread, but I have to take issue with the one PS2 port. In my opinion this should be an all or none type of thing. Either completely eliminate these, or provide one for a keyboard and one for a mouse.
The two eSATA connections are also handled by the Marvell storage controller that was mentioned in relation to the two black SATA connections inside. eSATA is really picking up steam in terms of popularity, and I am glad to see two connections provided on the P5E64 WS. The speed and convenience is much better than any other option, and I look forward to not having to swap devices between a single port.
Accessories:
The image below shows the bulk of the accessories included with the P5E64 WS Evolution motherboard. On the left you have a user's guide, driver/application disk, and case badge. On the right are all of the hardware related accesories, which include a serial port expansion bracket, a right angle adapter for the G.P. diagnostic card, an IDE ribbon, a floppy ribbon, a Firewire and USB 2.0 expansion bracket, an ASUS Q-Connector, an ASUS Q-Shield, an abundance of SATA data cables (some with straight and some with right angle connectors), and a pair of power adaptor cables that will let you power up to four SATA drives from two 4-pin drive connections.
In addition to everything shown above, the board is supposed to come with one more accessory that the review sample was missing. In the features and specifications section I mentioned a G.P. diagnostic card, which I was very much looking forward to using. This small riser card attaches to the motherboard and in addition to providing error codes via LEDs, it also features onboard reset and power buttons. I know this type of thing would come in handy for many users, and I was most interested in the power and reset buttons so I could stop using a ball point pen to jump start my system during setup and testing.
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