Motherboard manufacturers haven't wasted much time in implementing Intel's latest mainstream chipset, the i915. The new chipset brings support for several new technologies with it; PCI Express graphics and expansion slots, DDR2 memory and Intel's new socket for the Pentium 4, the 775-pin Socket T.

The new socket is a radical departure from the old 478-pin one, as the pins are no longer on the back of CPU but are now part of the socket itself, so you have to take a bit more care when installing and removing any CPU.

With the P5GD2 Premium Wireless, Asus has taken the chipset and added everything bar the kitchen sink to it, making it one of the most feature-rich boards we have seen. There is so much built onto the board that one of the LAN connections has to be supplied on an expansion plate, as there is no free space left on the board for it.

To give you an idea of what the board supports, you get triple RAID array support, one for ATA, two for SATA; onboard Wireless LAN; dual Gigabit LAN and the latest version of FireWire, FireWire 800. If this wasn't enough there is a whole host of Asus utilities, plus the biggest bundle of bits in a motherboard box you are likely to see.

One of the major problems with Intel's Prescott CPU is the amount of heat generated by it and Asus has taken steps with the P5GD2 to try to minimise the problems. If you turn the board over you will notice the small PCB which is stacked against the main PCB. This is part of Asus's patented Stack Cool cooling technology which conducts heat away from the power components; Asus claims a heat reduction of 10 degrees Centigrade by using this technology. Passive heatsinks are used on the North and South bridges and even the power phase circuits are cooled by a passive copper heatsink.

If you like building RAID arrays or have loads of hard disks then the P5GD2 is your dream board. It uses the R version of Intel's ICH6 Southbridge which supports RAID 0 and 1 for four of the eight SATA ports provided, while a Silicon Image 3114R chip provides support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD arrays, along with RAID 5 which needs a software patch (available as a download from the Asus Web site) for the other four.

Want to use standard ATA disks? No problem, as the board also comes with two ATA/133 ports that support RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD arrays. As well as an x16 PCI-Express graphics card slot there are three x1 PCI-E slots and two PCI slots for expansion cards. The PCI-E bus is also used by one of the two Gigabit LAN controllers. The second LAN port is provided on an expansion plate and plugs into a header at the base of the board and uses the standard bus.

When you first open the box that the board comes in, you ask yourself how they ever managed to shut it in the first place. It contains ten (yes, ten) SATA cables, four double-plugged SATA power cables, two ATA/133 data cables, single 80-conductor and floppy cables.

There are also four expansion plates, one with LAN and two FireWire 800 ports, one with a single serial port as well as a game port which also has two USB 2.0 ports and a plate with two SATA connections to connect to external SATA drives. Oh, and you also get an aerial for the Wireless LAN.

The P5GD2 Premium Wireless is a quick, stable board laden full of features, but the question is will you ever need many or all of them? While it's an eye-opener to see what you can cram onto a board, it also moves the board nearer to being a niche product. If you are in that niche, then the P5GD2 Premium is hard to beat.